Companies face new challenges and corporate governance research has expanded to encompass more than just the internal dynamics and mechanisms between owners and managers. Nevertheless, there exist a scarcity of research that specifically examines the relationship between structure of CEO compensation and corporate payout policy, including both equity-based and debt-like compensation. This paper aimed to address this gap by investigating the influence of CEO compensation structure on corporate payout policy. The study focused on a subset of over 1,700 firms from the U.S. market. Regression analyses were employed to find the correlations between CEO compensation structure and corporate payout policy. Findings indicate that total CEO compensation has a positive influence on share repurchases as well as cash dividends. Furthermore, equity-based compensation is linked with increasing share buybacks. Additionally, corporate with more free cash flow and cash tend to pay share repurchases as well as cash dividends, whereas investment opportunities only have a positive impact on share repurchases. On the contrary, it was found that this debt-like compensation and company size have little influence on corporate payout policy. Study’s findings enhance our understanding of relationship between CEO compensation structure and corporate payout policy,