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I like the idea of passive income. Making money without doing anything is appealing. Sure, most of us have to work hard initially to save enough to get the passive income stream flowing. However, once that key prerequisite is out of the way, we can receive income on an ongoing basis.
While there are lots of ways to make money passively, my favorite strategy is investing in dividend stocks. These five high-yield dividend stocks will generate over $6,900 in passive income for me in 2025.
A capital idea
Ares Capital (NASDAQ: ARCC) ranks as the highest-yielding individual stock in my portfolio. Its forward dividend yield stands at 8.12%. My position in Ares Capital should make me around $1,843 in income this year.
How does Ares Capital pay such a juicy dividend? As a business development company (BDC), it returns at least 90% of profits to shareholders like me in the form of dividends to be exempt from federal income taxes. Ares Capital isn't just a run-of-the-mill BDC, though: It's the largest publicly traded BDC with a much more diversified portfolio than most of its peers.
The total addressable market for Ares Capital is huge, around $5.4 trillion, and continues to grow. I think the company's solid balance sheet and industry reputation will keep it at the forefront of the direct lending market for a long time to come.
Midstream moneymakers
I own several midstream energy stocks. Two will make me the most passive income in 2025: Energy Transfer (NYSE: ET) and Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE: EPD). I expect to receive at least $2,975 in total distributions from these two limited partnerships (LPs) this year.
Enterprise Products Partners claims the higher forward distribution yield of the two at 6.46%. The midstream leader has also increased its distribution for 27 consecutive years.
I appreciate the conservative financial management of Enterprise's executive team. This approach has helped the LP deliver double-digit percentage returns on invested capital and strong cash flow per unit during both good and bad times, including the financial crisis of 2007 through 2009 and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Energy Transfer's forward distribution yield of 6.26% isn't too far behind Enterprise's yield. The company expects to grow its distribution by 3% to 5% annually. It operates over 130,000 miles of pipeline, which is even more than Enterprise's 50,000 miles or so of pipeline.
Utility players
I invested in Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (NYSE: BIP) several years ago. The LP owns many types of infrastructure assets, including utilities, cell towers, data centers, pipelines, rail, and toll roads. Brookfield Instrastructure has referred to itself as a "grow-tility" in the past, which it defined as a "business with utility-like defensive attributes but offers premium growth potential."