Whenever you are about to receive an announced dividend payment, you should check what withholding taxes or other charges may apply to the company's foreign shareholders.
For example:
You are living outside Germany and you hold 1 share with Allianz (ALV) a day before the ex-dividend date. Allianz announces a dividend payment of € 9.60 for its shareholders. Knowing that Germany applies a withholding tax on dividends paid to investors of German securities at a current rate of 25% with an additional “solidarity surcharge” of 5.5% of the 25% withheld, we can calculate the full net amount of the received dividend.
25% of € 9.60 = €2.40 → 5.5 % of € 2.40 = €0.132
9.60 - 2.40 = 7.20 → 7.20 - 0.13 = €7.07
In this case for a full amount of 9.60 EUR dividend payment, after withholding tax and the solidarity surcharge, the dividend you will receive is 7.07 EUR.