Hello everyone. I am just seeking information about dividend payout.
How long do I need to hold the stock to qualify for the dividend? I googled it and some sources said I need to order the stock at least one day before and others says I need to hold the stock over weeks or months.
Can anyone help me with this?
Each stock has an ex dividend date, you need to hold it until the end of that day.
Haven’t heard if the weeks or months thing before 
but I’ve certainly got a dividend after just having it for a few days before
You need to buy it before its ex dividend date or you won’t get any until the next payout
Great question! We’ve also written a bit about this on our blog -
However, the dividend doesn’t just go to whomever holds the stock on payment day. Instead when companies set the payment day for dividends, they assign a record date to check their shareholders in line for the money.
Companies also set an ex-dividend date before the record date. The ex-dividend date is usually a few business days before record date.
An ex-dividend date is the day on which the stock no longer trades with the right to the upcoming dividend. If someone sells a stock on or after ex-dividend day, that seller still gets the next dividend, not the buyer.
There’s a good website for checking this https://www.dividenddata.co.uk/ which lets you sort UK stocks (although not ETFs unfortunately) based on their ex-dividend date & the dividend value etc.
I hope that helps 
@Raza I’ve just moved a similar question over to this thread from the beginners questions topic, as we shared some more info about this there.
Hopefully that answers your question, just let us know if there’s anything else you need to know
Not a hard and fast rule obviously but the value of stocks will tend to fall on the day of trading ex-dividend.
Needs to be owned by the OPEN of the ex-dividend date and held till the CLOSE.
I bought on the ex dividend date and those shares weren’t counted.
So I buy a stock before the ex-dividend date and sell a day after. Do I still get the dividend regardless of the payout date?
You would, but as some may have mentioned. You probably would not make a profit as the share price would drop by approximately the value of the dividend.
So you would be no more likely to see a gain than if you randomly picked any other day to buy, then sell the day after.
As @Antidev said, whilst the payment process works exactly the way you understand it, it is not some magic tactics that can be employed for outperforming the market because otherwise, everyone would have done it this way 
Answer to OP: Dividend - Stock own date - #5 by Freetrade_Team1
More information: What are dividends and how do stock dividends work