The payment date is, in securities and corporate actions, the date on which the proceeds of a distribution are paid: the cash of a dividend or bond coupon, or the new securities of a bonus or rights issue. It is the last in the sequence of key dates for an event, following the announcement, the ex-dividend date and the record date. Those earlier dates decide who is entitled; the payment date decides when they receive value.
For bonds, payment dates are fixed in the terms and adjusted when they fall on a non-working day under the applicable business day convention. For shares, the board sets the date, typically days or weeks after the record date. Market standards expect depositories and custodians to credit holders on the payment date itself. The term also has an everyday meaning in commerce, the day an invoice or instalment is due, which is covered under payment terms.