REALTY INCOME CORP (O) — payout ratio, four ways
Fiscal year ending 2025-12-31 · sector Real estate · computed from SEC filings, not taken from a data vendor.
| Basis | Payout | Why it differs |
|---|---|---|
| GAAP earnings | 275.0% | What most screeners publish, and badly wrong here — depressed by depreciation on buildings that are not losing value. |
| Operating cash flow | 73.1% | Before capital spending, so it understates the payout that free cash flow shows. |
| Free cash flow | 75.6% | Counts property acquisitions as though they were maintenance. |
| Funds from operations | 85.8% | The basis the real estate industry uses. Adds back depreciation on buildings that are not losing value. |
Spread between highest and lowest: 202 percentage points. Same filings, different denominators.
The arithmetic
- GAAP earnings — dividends declared per share $3.22 ÷ diluted EPS $1.17
- Operating cash flow — dividends paid $2,920.9m ÷ operating cash flow $3,994.8m
- Free cash flow — dividends paid $2,920.9m ÷ (operating cash flow $3,994.8m − capex $131.8m)
- Funds from operations — dividends declared per share $3.22 ÷ derived FFO $3.75 per share
- FFO built NAREIT-style: net income, plus real-estate depreciation, less gains on sale, over weighted-average diluted shares
- This is an approximation. Every REIT defines its own adjusted variant in the filing text, so it will not match the earnings release exactly
Where the figures came from
- 10-K filed 2026-02-25 · accession
0000726728-26-000011
Every one is public at sec.gov and free to check. That is the point — you should not have to take my word for any of it.
Caveats on this company
- FFO derived (NAREIT approximation)
Computed by an open pipeline reading SEC XBRL directly. If any number here looks wrong to you, tell me — that is more useful to me than agreement.