Dividends on Clear Street

When a position you hold pays a dividend, Clear Street credits the cash to your account. Clear Street does not currently offer automatic dividend reinvestment.

When dividends are paid

A dividend follows three dates set by the company paying it, not by Clear Street:

• Ex-dividend date — the first day a share trades without the dividend attached. You need to hold the position before this date to receive the dividend.
• Record date — the date used to determine which shareholders are entitled to the dividend.
• Payable date — the date the dividend is actually paid out.

Clear Street credits the cash to your account once the dividend is paid. This happens automatically and does not require any action from you.

Where to see your dividend payments

Dividend payments appear on your monthly statements under Account → Documents → Statements.

They are not yet included in the Activity view. That is expected to change in a future update.

Tax reporting

Dividends are reported on your consolidated Form 1099 in the 1099-DIV section, available under Account → Documents → Tax. Consolidated 1099s are generally available by mid-February, in line with IRS deadlines.

A note on substitute payments

If your shares were on loan at the time of a dividend’s record date, for example as part of margin lending, you may receive a substitute payment in lieu of a dividend instead of the dividend itself.

Substitute payments can carry different tax treatment than a qualified dividend. Your 1099 will reflect the correct tax character of any payment you received. Contact Support if you have questions about a specific payment.

Dividend reinvestment (DRIP)

Clear Street does not currently offer a dividend reinvestment (DRIP) program. Cash dividends are credited to your account as cash, and there is no account-level or security-level setting to automatically reinvest those payments.

If you would like to reinvest a dividend, you can do so manually: once the cash dividend posts to your account, place a new buy order for the shares you want.

Stock dividends and issuer reinvestment

Occasionally, an issuer pays a distribution in additional shares rather than cash, known as a stock dividend, or offers its own reinvestment terms as part of a specific corporate action. These are determined by the issuer or its transfer agent for that particular security and are processed as they occur.

These issuer-driven events are separate from account-level DRIP enrollment.

How to contact Support

Contact Support if:

• You believe you are missing a dividend payment you expected.
• You have a question about how a specific dividend or substitute payment was taxed.
• You want to understand what is currently supported for dividend reinvestment.
• You have a question about a specific dividend on a position in your account.

Please include the security and payment date when reaching out.