Key Takeaways
- Crown Castle yields 6.2% and American Tower yields 4.5%, but Crown Castle’s dividend fell from $6.26 a share in fiscal 2024 to $4.75 in fiscal 2025.
- American Tower paid out a well-covered 63% of its AFFO in fiscal 2025, while Crown Castle paid out 109%.
- Analysts expect Crown Castle’s AFFO payout ratio to fall to 93% in fiscal 2026 and American Tower’s to hold at 64%.
- Which one pays more over 10 years depends on which growth rate you use for each dividend: its 5-year rate or its pace now.
Any investor looking for dividend income from cell towers will look hard at Crown Castle (CCI). It yields 6.2%, and its second-quarter AFFO came in at $1.13 a share, up 10% from $1.02 a year earlier.
American Tower (AMT) yields less, at 4.5%. But its $1.79 quarterly distribution in Q2 2026 was up 5.3% from a year earlier, and management expects to pay about $3.3 billion in dividends this year, roughly 5% growth.
So if you put $10,000 into one of them today, which pays you more over the next 10 years?
| Metric | American Tower (AMT) | Crown Castle (CCI) |
|---|---|---|
| Dividend yield | 4.5% | 6.2% |
| Annual dividend, current rate | $7.16 | $4.25 |
| Dividend growth, fiscal 2020 to 2025 | 8.5% a year | -0.7% a year |
| AFFO payout ratio, fiscal 2025 | 63% | 109% |
| AFFO payout ratio, fiscal 2026 consensus | 64% | 93% |
| Net debt / EBITDA (LTM) | 5.04x | 6.51x |
| Interest coverage (LTM) | 3.57x | 2.13x |
American Tower: a smaller check with room to grow
American Tower’s business is still growing. Total property revenue rose 6.3% to $2.69 billion in Q2 2026 from Q2 2025, and AFFO attributable to common stockholders rose 3.8% to $1.26 billion. Its CoreSite data centers had a record leasing quarter, while elevated churn in Brazil weighed on Latin America.
The dividend is well-covered. American Tower paid out 63% of its AFFO in fiscal 2025, and analysts expect 64% in fiscal 2026. AFFO per share has stayed well above the dividend every year since fiscal 2016, but the dividend has been closing the gap…
…and that’s the limit on its pace. From fiscal 2020 to fiscal 2025, dividends rose from $4.53 a share to $6.80, while AFFO per share rose from $8.49 to $10.76. Over the same years, the payout ratio climbed from 53% to 63%. This year’s outlook calls for AFFO of $11.00 to $11.17 a share, 3.0% growth at the midpoint, against roughly 5% growth in dividends. A 64% payout leaves plenty of room for raises near 5%. Raises of 8.5% a year would be much harder to repeat.
Crown Castle: a bigger check with a thinner cushion
Crown Castle’s chart moves the other way. Its dividend climbed every year through fiscal 2023, held at $6.26 a share in fiscal 2024, then fell to $4.75 in fiscal 2025 as AFFO per share fell from $6.98 to $4.36…
That fall came as Crown Castle remade itself into a pure-play US tower company. After closing a sale, it bought back $1 billion of stock and repaid more than $7 billion of debt, CFO Sunit Patel said in the Q2 release. Site rental revenue also fell 4% to $967 million in Q2 2026 from Q2 2025, which the company puts down to DISH terminations and Sprint cancellations.
Even at the lower rate, the fiscal 2025 dividend took a risky 109% of AFFO. Analysts expect 93% in fiscal 2026, which still leaves a thin cushion, though the company’s own outlook calls for AFFO of $4.53 to $4.65 a share this year, against its $4.25 dividend.
Management is committed to the payout. CEO Christian Hillabrant called the dividend “sacrosanct” on the July call. In April, Patel said the company can “grow our AFFO pretty well” and bring the payout into its target range “over the next couple of years or so.”
The main risk is debt. Crown Castle’s net debt is 6.51x EBITDA and its EBIT covers interest 2.13x, against 5.04x and 3.57x at American Tower.
So which dividend wins?
Crown Castle pays you more over the next 10 years.
The 5-year rates point the other way, but neither describes these dividends now. Crown Castle’s -0.7% a year comes from the cut, and its $1.0625 quarterly dividend is unchanged from a year ago. American Tower raised its dividend 4.9% in fiscal 2025, in line with the roughly 5% management expects this year.
For me, those paces are what count. At those paces, $10,000 in Crown Castle pays about $6,200 over the 10 years and $10,000 in American Tower pays about $5,644. That’s about $556 more from Crown Castle.
That result depends on Crown Castle covering its dividend again, and analysts expect it to. They see AFFO of $4.58 a share in fiscal 2026, $5.01 in fiscal 2027 and $5.29 in fiscal 2028, against dividends of $4.25, $4.28 and $4.36:
This isn’t a knock on American Tower’s dividend. It’s far better covered, it carries less debt, and its raises mean its income passes Crown Castle’s around 2033, paying about $694 in year 10 against $620. It’s just that, over a 10-year hold, Crown Castle’s bigger check today adds up to more.
Of course, if American Tower’s raises get back to 8.5% a year, the answer flips: at that rate, it pays about $667 more over the 10 years.
So what is Crown Castle stock actually worth?
TIKR lets you forecast the future price of any stock in less than a minute. Just enter a few assumptions into TIKR’s valuation model and see what Crown Castle could be worth. Start from Wall Street consensus estimates, or adjust the inputs to reflect your own view of the business. It’s free to use.
Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
