The Best Dividend Stocks to Buy and Hold Forever

Finding an attractive dividend stock to add to your portfolio today isn't too difficult of a task. Finding a dividend-paying stock you can buy and hold forever, however, is a different story. There's longevity to consider, which too many companies end up not having enough of.

With that as the backdrop, here's a closer look at three dividend stocks you can buy today that will not only be around forever, but should continue growing their top and bottom lines -- as well as their dividends -- forever.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Verizon

For the record, the United States' wireless telecom industry will never be a growth business. It's just too mature, which is to say, it's already fully saturated. Pew Research reports that 98% adults living in the U.S. already own a mobile phone, and none of them need another one. That means most of any growth to be achieved in this industry will be driven by a combination of population growth and price increases, which isn't much of a tailwind.

What the industry lacks in raw growth potential, however, it more than makes up for in persistent cash flow that's ultimately turned into dividends. Most Americans aren't going to give up their mini mobile connections to the rest of the world now. They'll gladly pay their monthly bill to maintain this connection.

Enter Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ), which is not only the nation's biggest wireless service provider (as measured by customer headcount), but also its most compelling dividend payer by virtue of its forward-looking dividend yield of 6.7%.

No, it doesn't have the same history as rival AT&T or the pizzazz of T-Mobile. It's only been around since 2000, in fact, born out of the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE. And although it's paid a regular quarterly dividend that whole time, the company's annual per-share payout has only been reliably raised since 2007. Being so close to becoming dividend royalty though, Verizon may be one of the market's most underappreciated dividend payers even if it's not a fantastic growth prospect. It doesn't need to be a high-growth name for income-seekers.

2. Ares Capital

Although it trades like one, Ares Capital (NASDAQ: ARCC) isn't a traditional stock in the sense that it reflects the market's ever-changing perception of its underlying company's value. Rather, Ares is a business development company, or BDC. That just means it provides funding -- usually in the form of a loan -- to promising up-and-coming companies that can do something constructive with the money, but might struggle to secure it through more conventional means.

As of the latest look, Ares was financially backing 587 different organizations, with a loan portfolio worth nearly $29 billion boasting an average interest rate of around 10%. After covering all of its costs (including its internal cost of capital), Ares clears on the order of $400 million in quarterly net income, most of which is passed along to shareholders.

More important to income investors, this business model usually works incredibly well, mostly because Ares management team is picky about the companies it funds. That's how its per-share dividend payments have grown from less than $0.30 when it was founded in 2004 to $0.48 per share now, even if the BDC's dividend payments didn't grow each and every year; they were still paid every quarter between then and now. This ticker's forward-looking dividend yield of 9.1% more than makes up for any occasionally stagnant dividend growth.

Like Verizon, there's not going to be a great deal of capital appreciation here. With a reliable dividend that's yielding almost as much as the average annual market gain though, that's not an unfair trade-off.

3. PepsiCo

Finally, add PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP) to your list of "forever" dividend stocks to buy while its forward-looking yield stands at just under 4%.

You know the company. PepsiCo is of course the name behind one of the world's best-known colas, although it's not just Pepsi. Mountain Dew, Gatorade, and Tropicana are also part of the PepsiCo family, along with Frito-Lay snack chips (which includes Cheetos and Doritos). The company even owns the Quaker Oats and all of its branded derivatives.

Anyone who's been keeping tabs on PepsiCo likely knows that Quaker's been a bit of a problem of late. Between inflation and ever-evolving consumer tastes, the brand's revenue fell 14% last year, while PepsiCo's entire food business isn't exactly firing on all cylinders this year, either. That's the chief reason the company's net income was down 8% through the first half of 2025 as well as the reason the stock's still down more than 20% from its early 2024 peak.

Nothing lasts forever, though. In fact, with inflation leveling off at the same time PepsiCo is coming up with new products like dye-free Doritos and snacks with more protein and fiber, the company is already seeing progress in the form of stabilized revenue and profits.

More of the same on the way. Although it took some pressure from activist investment outfit Elliott Investment Management, PepsiCo will soon be lowering some of its prices as a means of generating more sales volume, while simultaneously culling operating costs to free up funding for more advertising. This is the kind of directional jolt many shareholders have been waiting on. Even before these plans were announced, however, analysts were calling for modest revenue growth and earnings growth again beginning next year, not that the dividend was ever in any jeopardy.

On that note, PepsiCo has now raised its quarterly dividend for 53 consecutive years. There's no end in sight to this streak, either.

James Brumley has positions in AT&T. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ares Capital. The Motley Fool recommends T-Mobile US and Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.