Covered-call ETF
NEOS Nasdaq-100 High Income ETF (QQQI)
NEOS Nasdaq-100 High Income ETF trades as QQQI on NASDAQ. This page collects what it has actually paid — every recorded payment, the calendar-year totals, the forward and trailing 12-month yields side by side against the last price, and the dates already declared.
Price as of Aug 25, 2026 (7 hours ago) · supplied by fmp. Quotes may be delayed. Verify with your broker before acting on anything here.
The two yields above are different measurements and are not interchangeable. The forward yield annualises the last regular payment; the trailing 12-month yield counts the cash actually paid over the last 365 days. Neither is an interest rate, a bond's yield to maturity or an index effective yield, and none of those may be compared with these as like for like. See how we compute these numbers.
The growth streak above is a floor, not a full record. Our stored payment history for QQQI begins in 2024, and the run of increases reaches that first stored year, so the honest statement is that the payment rose in at least 1 consecutive complete years — the issuer's own record may be longer, and the issuer's published payment history is the authority on it.
The plus sign on the growth streak means our own payment record starts before the run of increases does, so the count is a floor rather than a total: the payment rose in at least that many consecutive complete years, and possibly in more that happened before our history begins. It is not the issuer's official record, and a longer streak published elsewhere is not a contradiction of it.
A yield is just a payment divided by a price, so it moves every day even when the payment does not. The forward number is an estimate of the next twelve months; the trailing number is what was actually paid over the last twelve. Ex-date is the cut-off: own the shares before it and the next payment is yours, buy on or after it and the seller keeps it.
What QQQI is
The NEOS Nasdaq-100 High Income ETF (QQQI) is engineered to provide investors with attractive monthly income. This fund prioritizes tax efficiency while also offering the potential for its underlying equity value to grow.
QQQI is a covered-call etf. What it pays is a distribution, not interest, and that distinction matters. A distribution is whatever the fund passes through for the period — dividends and interest received from the holdings, realised capital gains, option premium where the strategy writes options, and sometimes return of capital. Only the year-end tax form breaks the payment into its parts.
Return of capital is your own money coming back. It is not taxed on receipt, but it reduces your cost basis, so the tax arrives later as a larger capital gain. A fund can therefore publish a steady-looking distribution rate while the net asset value drifts down underneath it. The distribution is set by the fund and can be changed at any time; it is never a coupon. Call-writing funds fund part of the payment by selling away upside: the premium is collected today, and the gains above the strike belong to the option buyer.
Figures on this page are computed by Income Investing from the payment history and last price stored in our own database; the payment records come from fmp and the price from fmp, last recomputed Aug 25, 2026. They describe what has been paid, not what will be paid. Yield, payout ratio, our data sources and our methodology are explained elsewhere on the site.
Payment history
Each row is one payment as recorded by our data provider, newest first. The final column compares it with the nearest payment about a year earlier.
The table lists the 24 most recent recorded distributions for QQQI, newest first, with ex-dates running from Sep 25, 2024 to Aug 19, 2026. The latest is $0.6520 per share in USD, ex-date Aug 19, 2026, pay date Aug 21, 2026. Measured against the nearest payment about a year earlier, 17 are higher, 4 lower and 0 unchanged; the remaining 3 have no comparable payment in the record. None is flagged as a special or one-off payment. Payment records supplied by fmp.
How to read this table: one row is one payment, newest at the top, and the amount is what a single share received on that one date. It is not an annual figure — the yearly ones are in the tiles above and in the totals further down. A row marked Special is a one-off the issuer chose to make rather than part of the regular schedule, which is why it is left out of the year-on-year comparison and out of those yearly totals. Whether the amount repeats for several rows or moves every time is a fact about the structure rather than a sign of health: a company usually resets its dividend once a year, while a fund's distribution can change with every payment.
| Ex-dateOwn it before this day and this payment is yours. | Pay date | Amount per shareWhat one share received on that date, before tax. | Cadence tagged by provider | Type | vs. a year earlier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 19, 2026 | Aug 21, 2026 | $0.6520 | Monthly | Regular | +3.74% |
| Jul 22, 2026 | Jul 24, 2026 | $0.6346 | Monthly | Regular | -0.31% |
| Jun 16, 2026 | Jun 18, 2026 | $0.6572 | Monthly | Regular | +4.62% |
| May 20, 2026 | May 22, 2026 | $0.6589 | Monthly | Regular | +3.37% |
| Apr 22, 2026 | Apr 24, 2026 | $0.6297 | Monthly | Regular | +18.61% |
| Mar 18, 2026 | Mar 20, 2026 | $0.6089 | Monthly | Regular | +3.78% |
| Feb 18, 2026 | Feb 20, 2026 | $0.6140 | Monthly | Regular | +0.03% |
| Jan 21, 2026 | Jan 23, 2026 | $0.6359 | Monthly | Regular | +1.89% |
| Dec 24, 2025 | Dec 26, 2025 | $0.6413 | Monthly | Regular | +3.17% |
| Nov 26, 2025 | Nov 28, 2025 | $0.6304 | Monthly | Regular | +3.07% |
| Oct 22, 2025 | Oct 24, 2025 | $0.6445 | Monthly | Regular | +5.69% |
| Sep 24, 2025 | Sep 26, 2025 | $0.6411 | Monthly | Regular | +6.46% |
| Aug 20, 2025 | Aug 22, 2025 | $0.6285 | Monthly | Regular | -2.45% |
| Jul 23, 2025 | Jul 25, 2025 | $0.6366 | Monthly | Regular | +2.91% |
| Jun 25, 2025 | Jun 27, 2025 | $0.6282 | Monthly | Regular | +0.79% |
| May 21, 2025 | May 23, 2025 | $0.6374 | Monthly | Regular | +4.00% |
| Apr 23, 2025 | Apr 25, 2025 | $0.5309 | Monthly | Regular | -9.51% |
| Mar 26, 2025 | Mar 28, 2025 | $0.5867 | Monthly | Regular | -2.94% |
| Feb 26, 2025 | Feb 28, 2025 | $0.6138 | Monthly | Regular | +3.35% |
| Jan 22, 2025 | Jan 24, 2025 | $0.6241 | Monthly | Regular | +5.09% |
| Dec 24, 2024 | Dec 26, 2024 | $0.6216 | Monthly | Regular | +4.66% |
| Nov 20, 2024 | Nov 21, 2024 | $0.6116 | Monthly | Regular | — |
| Oct 23, 2024 | Oct 24, 2024 | $0.6098 | Monthly | Regular | — |
| Sep 25, 2024 | Sep 26, 2024 | $0.6022 | Monthly | Regular | — |
The cadence column is the tag our provider attached to that individual payment (fmp), not the security's established schedule. The two can disagree, which is why the cadence shown in the tiles above is only accepted after three consecutive payments were tagged the same way.
A blank comparison means there was no comparable payment within sixty days of the same point a year earlier — a new payer, a changed cadence, or a gap in the record. Special and one-off payments are labelled and are excluded from the comparison.
Distributions by calendar year
Calendar-year totals, bucketed by ex-dividend date: every regular distribution whose ex-dividend date fell in that year, for the last ten complete years on record. These are amounts actually paid, never a forward estimate, and they are not the issuer's own annual distribution figure.
The chart covers 2 complete calendar years for QQQI, 2024 to 2025, per share, in USD. Each bar totals the regular distributions with an ex-dividend date in that calendar year. The year is assigned by ex-dividend date, which is not necessarily the issuer's own distribution year. Our stored payment history for QQQI begins in 2024. The total went from $6.73 in 2024 to $7.44 in 2025 — 11% higher. Within that span 1 year was higher than the year before and 0 lower. The current year is still in progress and is left out, and special or one-off payments are excluded. This is a record of what was paid, not a projection. 1 of the years shown does not hold the 12 distributions the recorded cadence implies: 2024 (11 payments). Those years are marked on the chart and named in the table. A year with one more or one fewer payment than the cadence implies is usually a payment whose ex-dividend date moved across a year end rather than a change in the payment itself: the payment lands in the neighbouring calendar year, so one year reads high and the next reads low while the rate never moved. The change-on-the-year-before column carries the same distortion, because it compares two totals rather than two payment rates. 2024 is the first year of payments we hold for QQQI, so it is short because our record starts there, not because anything moved. These totals are arithmetically right for what they measure — regular distributions bucketed by ex-dividend date — but they are not the annual distribution the issuer reports for that year, and where the two disagree the issuer's own published distribution history is the authority.
Each bar, and each row underneath it, is one calendar year of regular payments added together for a single share. Read left to right and you are reading whether the payment has grown, held or been cut — a record of what was paid, never a forecast of what will be. One thing to watch for: a year here is decided by the date the payment went ex, so when that date slips across a year end one year holds an extra payment and its neighbour is one short while the payment itself never moved. Any year where that has happened is drawn as a dashed bar and marked with an asterisk, and it is the usual reason these totals differ from the annual figure the issuer itself publishes.
| Year | Paid per share that yearEvery regular payment dated in that year, added up, for one share. | Payments in the yearA count that differs from the usual one means a payment moved across a year end. | Change on the year before |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | $6.73 | 11 — cadence implies 12 | — |
| 2025 | $7.44 | 12 | +10.61% |
Similar securities
The eight closest covered-call etf entries by trailing 12-month yield, in the same sector. A research screen, not a recommendation.
These are not the best-paying securities of this kind, and no ranking is meant by the order. They are the ones whose trailing 12-month yield sits nearest to this one, in the same structure and usually the same sector, so that this security can be seen in company rather than on its own. Every figure here is backward-looking cash that has already been paid. A row that sits well away from the rest is a question to take to that security's own page, not an answer.
| Ticker | Name | Price | Trailing 12m yieldCash paid out over the last year, over today's price. | Paid over 12 months | Pays |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPYI | Neos S&P 500(R) High Income ETF | $53.53 | 11.83% | $6.33 | Monthly |
| QYLD | Global X - Nasdaq 100 Covered Call ETF | $18.13 | 11.72% | $2.12 | Monthly |
| RYLD | Global X - Russell 2000 Covered Call ETF | $16.26 | 11.53% | $1.88 | Monthly |
| JEPQ | JPMorgan Nasdaq Equity Premium Income ETF | $59.75 | 10.92% | $6.52 | Monthly |
| TLTW | iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond BuyWrite Strategy ETF | $21.49 | 10.85% | $2.33 | Monthly |
| XYLD | Global X - S&P 500 Covered Call ETF | $41.36 | 10.47% | $4.33 | Monthly |
| PBP | Invesco S&P 500 BuyWrite ETF | $23.20 | 10.39% | $2.41 | Monthly |
| GPIQ | Goldman Sachs Nasdaq-100 Premium Income ETF | $56.50 | 10.02% | $5.66 | Monthly |
Every row in this table is on the same basis — cash actually paid per share over the last 365 days, divided by that security's last price — so the column can be read down. Forward estimates are deliberately not used here, because they exist for some securities and not others and a mixed column would invite a comparison that does not hold. A dash means no payment was recorded in the last 365 days, or no price is on file. Open a security to see both of its yields.
Where these are traded
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