The Four Companies That Have Never Left SCHD

Only four companies have been in SCHD’s index at every annual review since it began: Kimberly-Clark, Paychex, PepsiCo and T. Rowe Price, sometimes called SCHD’s “immortal four”. According to S&P Dow Jones Indices, which runs the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 Index that SCHD tracks, no other company has kept its place through every reconstitution since 2011.

That is a remarkable record, because SCHD’s index replaces a large share of its companies every year. Household names such as Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, McDonald’s and Microsoft have all been removed at some point, while these four have stayed. Yet none of them is among SCHD’s largest holdings, and together they made up only around 5.6% of the fund at the end of May 2026.

FRC’s How to Invest in SCHD course is built from Schwab’s own SEC filings and S&P Dow Jones Indices’ index rules, and shows you which companies SCHD has kept, which it has dropped and how its index decides. There is a short video on the course page you can watch to decide whether it is right for you.

This guide is part of FRC’s complete guide to SCHD, which starts with what SCHD is and how it works. FRC’s guide to SCHD’s holdings history covers the full record of companies added and removed since 2011.

What “Never Removed” Actually Means

SCHD’s index is rebuilt every March. Each year, every eligible company is ranked again on four measures, and the index is reset to the 100 companies that qualify under its rules.

A company that has never been removed has passed that test at every one of those annual reviews since the index launched in 2011, and has never been dropped between reviews for skipping or stopping its dividend. That means surviving 15 consecutive reconstitutions, from 2012 to 2026, through the 2020 pandemic crash, the 2022 bear market and several large reshuffles of the fund.

It does not mean the four companies have always had the same weight in the fund. Their share of SCHD has moved up and down with their share prices, the quarterly rebalancing and the changing size of the other holdings.

Why So Few Companies Survive Every Review

SCHD’s index is built to change. To qualify, a company must have paid dividends for at least ten consecutive years, meet minimum size and trading requirements and rank in the top half of eligible stocks by dividend yield.

The remaining companies are then ranked on cash flow to total debt, return on equity, dividend yield and five-year dividend growth, and the top 100 are selected. Existing members are kept if they rank within the top 200, which gives them some protection, but a company whose yield falls, whose dividend growth slows or whose balance sheet weakens can still drop out.

The result is heavy turnover. Comparing the holdings in Schwab’s SEC filings before and after each review, the index added between nine and 37 companies a year, and the 2026 review alone added 25 and removed 23. Against that churn, surviving every review for 15 years is rare.

What Every SCHD Investor Needs to Know

Most people who buy SCHD assume it is a fixed basket of the same reliable dividend companies, held for the long term. Anyone can tell you SCHD’s dividend yield, but do you understand how its index selects companies, why holdings are removed and what drives its dividend payments?

Imagine knowing exactly what you own, why you own it and what could go wrong before it does. How to Invest in SCHD is a 21-chapter course built from Schwab’s SEC filings, S&P Dow Jones Indices’ rules and IRS guidance, covering SCHD’s holdings history, every reconstitution, its performance and dividends and the mistakes investors make, with study guides, practice questions and an assessment in each chapter. FRC’s three progressive ETF programmes take your knowledge further, from ETF Investing for Beginners, through ETF Investing Strategies, to Advanced ETF Investing.

FRC’s programmes and memberships are open to everyone, whether you are investing $500 or $500,000, and you can get started for less than the cost of a few shares. The question isn’t whether financial education costs money. It’s what a lack of it could cost you.

PepsiCo

PepsiCo is the largest of the four and the only one with a significant weight in SCHD. At the end of May 2026, it made up around 3.4% of the fund, according to Schwab’s SEC filing.

The company owns some of the world’s best-known food and drink brands, including Pepsi, Frito-Lay, Gatorade and Quaker. Its products are bought regularly in good times and bad, which tends to make its cash flow more predictable than that of many other businesses.

PepsiCo was also one of SCHD’s ten largest holdings when the fund launched, making up around 3.5% at the end of February 2012. It is the only company from that original top ten that has never left the fund.

Kimberly-Clark

Kimberly-Clark makes everyday household and personal care products, including Kleenex tissues, Huggies diapers and Scott paper towels. Like PepsiCo, it sells products people keep buying even when money is tight.

At the end of May 2026, it made up around 0.8% of SCHD. Its weight is much smaller than PepsiCo’s because SCHD weights its holdings mainly by market value, and Kimberly-Clark is a much smaller company.

Kimberly-Clark and PepsiCo are both widely recognised for decades of unbroken dividend increases, a record far longer than the ten years of payments SCHD’s index requires.

Paychex

Paychex is the least well-known of the four to many investors. It provides payroll, human resources and benefits services, mainly to small and medium-sized businesses across the United States.

Its business is very different from consumer brands, but it shares some of the same qualities. Companies need to pay their staff every month, so demand for payroll services is steady, and Paychex has a long record of paying dividends. It also needs relatively little capital to run, which helps it earn a high return on equity, one of the four measures SCHD’s index uses.

At the end of May 2026, Paychex made up around 0.8% of SCHD. It is a reminder that SCHD’s longest-serving members are not chosen for being famous, but for how they score on the index’s four measures year after year.

T. Rowe Price

T. Rowe Price is an investment management company based in Baltimore, which runs mutual funds, retirement plans and other investment products. It is, in effect, a competitor to Schwab in the business of managing other people’s money.

At the end of May 2026, T. Rowe Price made up around 0.6% of SCHD, the smallest weight of the four. Asset managers’ profits rise and fall with markets, which makes its earnings more cyclical than PepsiCo’s or Kimberly-Clark’s.

What has kept it in the index is its financial profile. Asset managers typically carry little debt and generate strong cash flow relative to their size, two of the qualities SCHD’s index rewards, and T. Rowe Price has a long history of raising its dividend.

What the Four Have in Common

On the surface, a soft-drinks company, a tissue maker, a payroll firm and an asset manager have little in common. Under SCHD’s rules, they share the qualities that matter: long dividend records, strong cash flow relative to debt, high returns on equity and a history of growing their dividends.

None of them depends on a single product cycle or a technology breakthrough. Their businesses are mature and their cash flows are relatively predictable, which helps them keep scoring well on the index’s measures year after year.

They also come from different parts of the economy: consumer staples, business services and financials. Their survival is not the result of one sector staying in favour, but of each company’s own financial strength.

The Balance That Keeps Them In

What protects these four is not excellence on any single measure, but strength across all four at once. Many companies are removed because they score well on one measure and badly on another.

A company whose share price has fallen sharply, for example, may suddenly show a high dividend yield. If its return on equity is falling or its debt is rising at the same time, its combined score can still drop below the level needed to keep its place.

The four long-serving members have avoided that trap year after year. Their dividend yields have stayed high enough to keep them in the top half of eligible stocks, while their cash flow, returns and dividend growth have kept their combined scores within the range that protects existing members.

Why They Make Up So Little of the Fund

It might seem logical for SCHD’s most dependable members to be its largest holdings. In practice, the opposite is true, because SCHD weights its companies by their market value, capped at 4% each at every quarterly rebalance.

That means the size of a holding depends on how large the company is, not on how long it has been in the index. Qualcomm, which returned to SCHD only in 2026, made up around 6.7% of the fund at the end of May 2026, nearly twelve times T. Rowe Price’s weight.

Together, the four long-serving companies made up around 5.6% of SCHD at the end of May 2026. Investors who buy SCHD for its most consistent members are, in reality, buying a fund dominated by other companies.

Weights also change every quarter, as the index is rebalanced back towards its 4% cap. By early November 2026, Schwab’s published holdings list showed Texas Instruments as the largest holding at around 4.8%, with Procter & Gamble at around 4.3% and Coca-Cola at around 4.2%, so the figures for any single date should always be checked against the latest list.

The Next Longest-Serving Members

S&P Dow Jones Indices also lists the companies with the next-longest records. Altria has been in the index for 14 reconstitutions, Texas Instruments for 13, Verizon for 12 and ONEOK for 11.

Watsco has been a member for 9 reconstitutions, while Fidelity National Financial, MSC Industrial and Snap-on have each been included 8 times. Texas Instruments shows how long-serving members can still move around: it was removed in 2012, returned in 2013 and was SCHD’s second-largest holding by May 2026.

FRC’s guide to SCHD’s dividend growth shows how the dividends paid by companies like these have added up across the whole fund.

Famous Names That Did Not Survive

The contrast with SCHD’s original largest holdings is striking. At the end of February 2012, its ten largest holdings were Intel, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Walmart, McDonald’s and PepsiCo.

Of those, only PepsiCo has never left. Johnson & Johnson and McDonald’s were removed in 2018, Walmart in 2019, Intel in 2020 and Exxon Mobil in 2021, while IBM left in 2012, returned in 2015 and was removed again in 2023.

Chevron, Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola were all removed at some point and later returned. Being one of America’s best-known dividend payers is no guarantee of a permanent place in SCHD.

Should You Buy These Four Directly?

Some investors see the four long-serving members and wonder whether they should simply buy those companies instead of the fund. That would be a very different investment.

Four companies from three parts of the economy would be far more concentrated than SCHD’s 100, so any problem at one of them would have a much larger effect. It would also give up the index’s annual process of replacing weaker companies with stronger ones.

Their past survival also says nothing certain about the future. They have kept their places because of how they scored at each review, and any of them could fall out of the index if their dividends, cash flow or returns weakened.

Will They Stay in SCHD?

Nobody can know which companies will survive future reviews. Each March, the index ranks every eligible company again, and a long record of membership gives no protection beyond the buffer that applies to all existing members.

A company would also be removed between reviews if it skipped a scheduled dividend or announced it would stop paying dividends. That rule removed Darden Restaurants, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Gap and Cracker Barrel in 2020, when they suspended their dividends during the pandemic.

What the record does show is that a small group of financially strong companies with long dividend histories can keep qualifying for many years. That is the kind of company SCHD’s rules are designed to find.

If you’re putting your hard-earned money into SCHD without understanding how it works, you’re taking unnecessary financial risks. How to Invest in SCHD shows you how the index makes these decisions, so you know what you own and why it changes.

What Investors Can Learn From the Four

The first lesson is that consistency in SCHD comes from financial strength, not fame. The companies that have lasted are those whose dividends, cash flow and returns have stayed strong enough to rank well every single year.

The second is that the fund you own today is not the fund you bought. Because so few companies survive every review, most of SCHD’s holdings change over time, and the fund’s sector mix and largest holdings can look very different after a few years.

The third is that the rules matter more than any single company. Understanding how SCHD’s index ranks and replaces companies tells you far more about what you own than any list of today’s top ten. FRC’s guide to SCHD’s price history shows how those changing holdings have shaped the fund’s performance.

How to Check Who Is in SCHD Today

Schwab Asset Management publishes SCHD’s full list of holdings on its fund page, with each company’s weight, and updates it regularly. That is the quickest way to see whether a particular company is still in the fund. Third-party websites often quote slightly different numbers of holdings, such as 98, 102 or 104, because they update on different dates.

For a dated, official record, Schwab’s shareholder reports and N-PORT filings with the SEC list every holding at the end of each reporting period. Comparing those lists over time is how the history in this guide was rebuilt.

Each March, it is also worth checking the reconstitution results once they are published, because that is when most changes happen.

Common Mistakes About SCHD’s Longest-Held Stocks

Assuming SCHD’s largest holdings are its most permanent. Its most consistent members are among its smallest holdings, while several of its largest joined only recently.

Assuming famous companies stay in the fund. Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, McDonald’s and Microsoft have all been removed at some point.

Treating a long record as a guarantee. Each company must requalify every year under the same rules.

Confusing SCHD with a list of Dividend Kings or Aristocrats. SCHD requires ten years of dividend payments and ranks companies on four measures, which is different from lists based only on decades of dividend increases.

Common Questions

Which companies have never been removed from SCHD? According to S&P Dow Jones Indices, Kimberly-Clark, Paychex, PepsiCo and T. Rowe Price have been in SCHD’s index at every annual review since it began.

What is SCHD’s longest-held stock? Four companies share the record: Kimberly-Clark, Paychex, PepsiCo and T. Rowe Price, which have all been members at every review since the index launched in 2011.

How much of SCHD do the four longest-held stocks make up? Around 5.6% at the end of May 2026: PepsiCo around 3.4%, Kimberly-Clark around 0.8%, Paychex around 0.8% and T. Rowe Price around 0.6%.

Why are SCHD’s longest-held stocks such small holdings? SCHD weights its companies mainly by market value, capped at 4% each at quarterly rebalances, so a holding’s size depends on how large the company is, not how long it has been in the index.

Which companies have been in SCHD the longest after those four? Altria has been in 14 reconstitutions, Texas Instruments 13, Verizon 12 and ONEOK 11, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Has Coca-Cola always been in SCHD? No. Coca-Cola was removed at the 2018 reconstitution and added back in 2019.

Was PepsiCo in SCHD when it launched? Yes. PepsiCo was one of SCHD’s ten largest holdings at the end of February 2012, and it is the only company from that original top ten never to have left.

Is T. Rowe Price connected to Schwab? No. T. Rowe Price is a separate investment management company, held in SCHD because it qualifies under the index’s rules like any other company.

Where can I see SCHD’s current holdings? Schwab Asset Management’s SCHD fund page lists every holding and its weight, and Schwab’s SEC filings give a dated record at the end of each reporting period.

What are SCHD’s top holdings? They change every quarter. By early November 2026, Schwab’s published list showed Texas Instruments at around 4.8%, Procter & Gamble at around 4.3% and Coca-Cola at around 4.2% among the largest, with Home Depot, Amgen, Abbott Laboratories, Chevron, UnitedHealth Group, Qualcomm and PepsiCo also near the top.

Why do websites show different numbers of SCHD holdings? The index targets 100 companies, but the fund’s exact count moves with takeovers, spin-offs and removals between reviews, and websites update their lists on different dates.

What are SCHD’s “immortal four”? It is a nickname for Kimberly-Clark, Paychex, PepsiCo and T. Rowe Price, the only companies that have been in SCHD’s index at every annual review since it began.

Can these four companies be removed in future? Yes. Every company must requalify at each annual review, and any company that skips or stops its dividend can be removed between reviews.

How many companies change at each SCHD review? It varies. Schwab’s filings show as few as nine additions in 2017 and as many as 37 in 2020, with 25 added and 23 removed in 2026.

Your Portfolio Deserves an Educated Investor

Kimberly-Clark, Paychex, PepsiCo and T. Rowe Price are the only companies to have survived every review of SCHD’s index since 2011. Their record shows what SCHD’s rules reward: long dividend histories, strong cash flow, high returns and steady dividend growth.

Before buying another few shares of SCHD, consider investing in understanding the fund itself. How to Invest in SCHD examines its selection methodology, holdings history, dividend taxation and investment strategies, while FRC’s three progressive ETF programmes take you from how ETFs work to managing risk across everything you own. FRC’s programmes and memberships are open to everyone, whether you are investing $500 or $500,000.

Invest in understanding the market before investing in the market itself. Know which companies keep their place, and why, before you decide what SCHD should do for you.