Total dividends paid by the UK's listed companies now surpassed £1 trillion since 2000.
The data – collected by outsourcing firm Capita Assets Services – shows how investors in firms traded on the stock exchange have benefited since 2000.
This year shareholders are receiving £325m a day in dividend payments as interest rates hit new record lows and the yields on some UK government bonds have turned negative for the first time.
In 2000 listed firms paid out £42bn but this has risen rapidly over time, increasing by 89pc to hit £79.4bn in 2015. Over the same period inflation, measured by the consumer prices index, was 37pc, and the British economy grew by 73pc.
Capita predicted dividends to be £82.5bn in 2016, with the £2 trillion mark expected to be reached well within the next decade.
Justin Cooper, chief executive of Capita’s shareholder solutions business, said passing the milestone highlighted how important dividends were to investors.
He said: “They are the most important component of returns from investing in shares over the long term. This is plain to see when we consider that the FTSE All Share index is only 14pc higher now than it was at the beginning of the century.
“But reinvesting all those dividends will have supercharged an investor’s returns to well over 90pc.”
Investors are expected to increasingly turn to the stock market to boost returns on their savings as inflation picks up as a result of the decline in the value of the pound since the vote to leave the EU.
The trillionth pound paid will be part of a dividend from LSL Property Services, the owner of estate agent Your Move, while retailer Next paid the first dividend of this century.
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