Key Takeaways
- Enbridge yields 5.7%, against 3.7% for Kinder Morgan, which raised its dividend 2% on Oct. 21 alongside record third-quarter results.
- Kinder Morgan’s distributable cash flow covered its fiscal 2025 dividend 2.1x, against 1.5x for Enbridge, and analysts expect Kinder Morgan’s cushion to widen in 2026.
- Enbridge carries more debt, and it sold C$2.6 billion of new shares in September to help pay for two pipeline deals.
- If it follows last year’s timing, Enbridge’s next yearly raise would come in early December, weeks before a new CEO takes over.
Kinder Morgan (KMI) gave income investors another raise on Oct. 21. Its quarterly dividend rose 2% from a year earlier, to $0.2975 a share, alongside record third-quarter results.
Enbridge (ENB) spent its fall shopping instead. In September, it agreed to buy Tallgrass Energy’s crude oil business for US$2.55 billion, on top of a US$600 million deal for Salt Creek Midstream in August. It also sold C$2.6 billion of new shares to help pay for them.
That leaves a 5.7% yield on one side and a 3.7% yield on the other, with far less debt behind the smaller one. So which is the better dividend stock?
| Metric | Enbridge (ENB) | Kinder Morgan (KMI) |
|---|---|---|
| Forward dividend yield | 5.7% | 3.7% |
| Dividend growth, fiscal 2020-2025 | 3.1% a year (in C$) | 2.2% a year |
| Consecutive annual raises (company’s count) | 31 | 9 |
| Distributable cash flow coverage, fiscal 2025 | 1.5x | 2.1x |
| Distributable cash flow coverage, fiscal 2026 consensus | 1.5x | 2.4x |
| Net debt/EBITDA (LTM) | 6.3x | 4.1x |
| Interest coverage (LTM) | 2.3x | 3.0x |
Source: TIKR, Nov. 5, 2026. Raise counts are each company’s own.
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Enbridge’s record is hard to beat
Enbridge calls its December 2025 raise its 31st consecutive annual dividend increase. That raise lifted the dividend 3% to C$0.97 a share a quarter. From fiscal 2020 to fiscal 2025, the dividend grew 3.1% a year, from C$3.24 a share to C$3.77.
That dividend is set in Canadian dollars, so what a US holder receives moves with the exchange rate. Canada also withholds tax on dividends paid to US holders.
Management sets its payout target off distributable cash flow. That cash has covered the dividend at least 1.4x in every fiscal year since 2016:
Coverage was 1.5x in fiscal 2025, and analysts expect the same in fiscal 2026. That’s C$5.78 a share against the C$3.88 dividend, inside the C$5.70-C$6.10 range Enbridge reaffirmed with its second-quarter results.
The business is growing. Adjusted EBITDA rose to C$4.8 billion in the second quarter of 2026, from C$4.6 billion a year earlier, and the secured backlog stands at about C$41 billion. “We will continue to add visibility to, and extend, our 5% growth outlook further into the future,” CEO Greg Ebel said with the results.
The September share sale does add to the share count that dividend has to cover.
Kinder Morgan covers its check twice over
Kinder Morgan’s record is shorter, and it includes a cut: its dividend went from $1.60 a share in fiscal 2015 to $0.50 in fiscal 2016. It has risen every year since, and October’s raise made nine straight years.
What Kinder Morgan has is room. Distributable cash flow has covered its dividend at least 1.9x in every fiscal year since 2016:
Coverage was 2.1x in fiscal 2025. Analysts expect 2.4x in fiscal 2026, with distributable cash flow per share rising 18% to $2.86 against a $1.19 dividend.
Third-quarter adjusted EPS rose 21% from a year earlier. Management now expects full-year adjusted EBITDA more than 6% above its $8.6 billion budget, and adjusted EPS more than 13% above its $1.36 budget. Its project backlog hit a record $14.4 billion, up from $9.6 billion a quarter earlier, with $13.2 billion of it in natural gas.
The catch for income investors is that the extra room hasn’t turned into bigger raises. From fiscal 2020 to fiscal 2025, the dividend grew 2.2% a year, from $1.05 a share to $1.17.
So which dividend wins?
Enbridge is the better dividend stock.
Put $10,000 into it today and you’d collect $570 a year, against $370 from Kinder Morgan. Grow each at its five-year rate, and Enbridge pays about $749 in year 10, a 7.5% yield on the original $10,000. Kinder Morgan pays about $450. At those rates, Kinder Morgan never catches up. (Enbridge’s figure runs on its Canadian-dollar growth.)
The price of that bigger check is debt. On TIKR’s measure, Enbridge’s net debt has run between 5.5x and 6.6x EBITDA since fiscal 2021:
It’s 6.3x over the last twelve months, against 4.1x for Kinder Morgan, and the Tallgrass and Salt Creek deals add to it. Enbridge expects its own measure, 5.1x at the end of June, to be within its 4.5x-5.0x target by the end of 2026.
Kinder Morgan’s dividend has a wider cushion, that cushion is set to grow, and its backlog has never been bigger. It’s just that Enbridge’s 1.5x already covers its dividend comfortably. Its streak held through 2016, when Kinder Morgan’s broke, and it pays more every year along the way.
Of course, Enbridge gets a new CEO on Jan. 1, when Michele Harradence succeeds Ebel. That makes its next raise the one to watch. Last year’s came on Dec. 3.
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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!
