The Best Vanguard ETFs to Buy for the Long Term

As the second-largest asset manager in the world behind BlackRock, Vanguard is among the most dominant forces in the exchange-traded fund (ETF) industry.

Following the launch of a number of actively managed funds, the firm's lineup has grown to 116 ETFs spanning virtually every major asset class and investment style.

Interestingly, Vanguard's late founder and chairman, John Bogle, was never an enthusiastic supporter of ETFs. Although he pioneered low-cost index investing, Bogle was a vocal critic of the ETF structure itself.

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"An ETF is like handing an arsonist a match," Bogle told Forbes in 2001. His concern was not with indexing, but with investor behavior.

Unlike mutual funds, which trade only once each day after markets close at their net asset value (NAV), ETFs trade continuously throughout the trading day with a bid and ask price.

Bogle believed this convenience would encourage investors to speculate, trade frequently and chase short-term market movements, rather than embrace the disciplined, long-term buy-and-hold approach he spent his career advocating.

In some respects, his concerns have proven prescient. Sponsors are rushing to launch increasingly sophisticated products built on leverage and inverse exposure, as well as covered call ETFs.

Many of these products are tied to highly volatile single stocks such as SpaceX (SPCX) and advertise double-digit distribution yields, encouraging a level of trading that runs counter to Bogle's original philosophy.

Ironically, ETFs were also enormously beneficial for Vanguard. For years, Vanguard held a unique patent that allowed many of its mutual funds and ETFs to operate as different share classes of the same underlying portfolio.

Before the patent expired in 2023, this structure enabled Vanguard mutual funds to benefit from the in-kind creation and redemption mechanism used by ETFs, reducing taxable capital gains distributions in ways competitors could not at the time replicate.

Beyond the sheer size of its lineup, several Vanguard ETFs have reached important industry milestones. Most notably, in June 2026, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) became the first ETF to surpass $1 trillion in assets under management (AUM).

Still, size alone does not make an ETF a good investment. Liquidity, expense ratios, tax efficiency, portfolio construction and diversification all play important roles when selecting an ETF, whether from Vanguard or a competitor.

Here's our guide to the best Vanguard ETFs investors should watch in 2026 and beyond.

How we screened for the best Vanguard ETFs

There is no one best Vanguard ETF for every investor. Before hitting the buy button, it helps to answer three questions.

The first is about your time horizon, or how long you expect to remain invested before needing to withdraw your money.

The second is about your risk tolerance, which reflects how much market volatility you can comfortably tolerate without making an emotional decision such as panic selling.

Finally, determine your investment objective. Whether you're investing for retirement, a home purchase, college tuition or another financial goal will influence the types of ETFs that make the most sense.

That said, three characteristics are almost universally desirable regardless of an investor's goals. Low costs leave more of your returns in your pocket, broad diversification reduces company-specific risk and high liquidity keeps trading costs low when buying or selling shares.

For this roundup, we focused on Vanguard ETFs that excelled across all three areas.

Every ETF featured charges an expense ratio of 0.08% or less, maintains excellent liquidity with a 30-day median bid-ask spread of 0.02% or less, holds hundreds of stocks spanning all 11 GICS sectors and provides exposure across multiple market capitalizations, including large, mid-sized and small companies.

While the weight an investor assigns to each of these ETFs will vary depending on their personal circumstances, these funds can collectively serve as the core building blocks for the equity portion of a long-term, buy-and-hold portfolio.

The best Vanguard ETFs to buy for the long term

The Vanguard funds included here all feature rock-bottom fees, large asset bases and long trading histories.

Data is as of June 30.

Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF

• Inception date: May 2001
• Expense ratio: 0.03%
• 30-day median bid-ask spread: 0.01%
• Assets under management: $663.5 billion
• 10-year annualized total return: 15.0%

"Don't look for the needle in the haystack," John Bogle famously said, "just buy the haystack!" Many investors assume an S&P 500 ETF such as VOO accomplishes that. It's certainly a reasonable approximation of the U.S. stock market, but VOO doesn't capture the entire opportunity set.

VOO contains 500 of the largest publicly traded U.S. companies. Constituents must satisfy size, liquidity and profitability requirements. Final inclusion is ultimately determined by an index committee.

While its benchmark index represents roughly 80% of the U.S. equity market by market cap, it excludes thousands of small-cap stocks and mid-cap stocks that also contribute to the broader economy.

The Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) addresses this by tracking the CRSP US Total Market Index. VTI holds more than 3,500 stocks, giving investors exposure across large-cap stocks, mid caps, small caps and even micro caps.

By security count alone, the portfolio is more than seven times larger than an S&P 500 ETF. Still, the practical difference between the two funds is smaller than the holding count suggests.

Both VTI and VOO are market-cap-weighted, meaning the largest companies receive the greatest allocations. As a result, the two ETFs share many of the same top holdings. VTI is somewhat less concentrated because it allocates a portion of its assets to thousands of smaller companies.

VTI is also an exceptionally efficient portfolio. Because the fund effectively owns nearly the entire investable U.S. equity market, relatively few companies enter or leave the index in a typical year. This contributes to a low turnover rate.

In a mutual fund, lower turnover can help reduce taxable capital gains distributions. As an ETF, however, VTI already benefits from the in-kind creation and redemption mechanism, making taxable capital gains distributions relatively uncommon while still keeping transaction costs low.

Learn more about VTI at the Vanguard provider site.

Vanguard Total International Stock ETF

• Inception date: January 2011
• Expense ratio: 0.05%
• 30-day median bid-ask spread: 0.01%
• Assets under management: $156.5 billion
• 10-year annualized total return: 10.0%

Diversification is often described as not putting all of your eggs in one basket. For many investors, the U.S. market represents that basket. While the United States remains the world's largest economy and is home to many of the most valuable companies, that doesn't mean its stock market will always lead.

History provides several examples. From roughly 1999 through 2009, U.S. stocks experienced what's commonly referred to as a "lost decade," delivering little to no cumulative return and, after accounting for inflation, negative real returns.

Holding stocks from countries outside the U.S. can help diversify that risk by providing exposure to economies that may outperform during different periods.

Fortunately, investors do not need to purchase foreign stocks individually through American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). The Vanguard Total International Stock ETF (VXUS) provides broad global diversification through a single ETF.

VXUS tracks the FTSE Global All Cap ex US Index, holding approximately 8,700 stocks from markets outside the United States. The portfolio spans large-, mid- and small-cap companies across both developed and emerging markets, making it one of the broadest international ETFs available.

Currently, developed markets account for approximately 74% of the portfolio, while emerging markets represent about 26%. These allocations simply reflect the underlying market-cap weights of the index. As companies and countries outperform or underperform over time, their weights naturally adjust without requiring significant trading.

That market-cap-weighted approach also contributes to the fund's efficiency. Because VXUS effectively owns the entire investable international market, relatively few securities need to be added or removed from the index each year. Market movement, rather than frequent rebalancing, largely determines portfolio weights.

Learn more about VXUS at the Vanguard provider site.

Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF

• Inception date: July 2007
• Expense ratio: 0.03%
• 30-day median bid-ask spread: 0.01%
• Assets under management: $230.9 billion
• 10-year annualized total return: 10.5%

One consequence of VXUS's market-cap-weighted methodology is that its allocation between developed and emerging markets changes over time. As stocks in one region outperform the other, they naturally grow into a larger share of the portfolio.

Over much of the past decade, developed markets have generally outperformed emerging markets, resulting in a higher allocation within VXUS. Investors who prefer to determine their own split between developed and emerging markets may instead choose to hold the two separately.

The Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF (VEA) provides a straightforward way for the former. VEA tracks the FTSE Developed All Cap ex US Index, providing exposure to large, mid and small caps across developed markets outside the U.S.

One interesting nuance is that not all index providers agree on which countries qualify as developed markets. FTSE Russell, whose benchmarks Vanguard uses for VEA, classifies South Korea as a developed market.

By contrast, many competing ETFs, including several in the iShares lineup that track MSCI indexes, classify South Korea as an emerging market.

As a result, two international ETFs with seemingly similar objectives can have meaningfully different country allocations simply because they follow different index methodologies.

Investors comparing developed and emerging market ETFs should therefore pay attention not only to the ETF itself, but also to the benchmark it tracks.

Learn more about VEA at the Vanguard provider site.

Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF

• Inception date: March 2005
• Expense ratio: 0.06%
• 30-day median bid-ask spread: 0.02%
• Assets under management: $122.3 billion
• 10-year annualized total return: 8.5%

While VEA provides exposure to developed economies, the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO) focuses exclusively on emerging markets. Vanguard assigns both funds a 5 out of 5 rating on its risk and return scale, but emerging markets generally carry a different set of risks than their developed counterparts.

Many emerging economies experience faster economic growth, younger populations and rising consumer spending, creating the potential for stronger long-term returns.

At the same time, investors must contend with greater political and regulatory uncertainty, less mature financial markets, weaker corporate governance standards, higher currency volatility and, in some cases, lower liquidity.

The geographic composition also looks different. Rather than emphasizing Europe, Canada and other developed economies, VWO's largest country exposures are Taiwan, China and India.

The portfolio also includes meaningful allocations to countries such as Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Malaysia, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates.

As with VEA, it's important to understand the benchmark methodology. VWO tracks an FTSE index, which classifies South Korea as a developed market. As a result, South Korean companies are excluded from the portfolio.

By comparison, many competing emerging market ETFs that track MSCI indexes include South Korea as one of their largest country allocations.

Learn more about VWO at the Vanguard provider site.

Vanguard Total World Stock ETF

• Inception date: June 2008
• Expense ratio: 0.06%
• 30-day median bid-ask spread: 0.01%
• Assets under management: $78.6 billion
• 10-year annualized total return: 12.8%

For investors who don't want to decide exactly how much to allocate to U.S., developed international and emerging market equities, the Vanguard Total World Stock ETF (VT) offers a true one-fund global equity solution.

VT tracks the FTSE Global All Cap Index, providing exposure to more than 10,000 market-cap-weighted stocks across the world. In effect, it combines the broad domestic exposure of VTI with the international diversification of VXUS into a single portfolio.

Investors gain exposure to large, mid and small caps, along with both growth and value stocks spanning all 11 sectors. Like Vanguard's other broad-market index funds, country weights are determined entirely by market capitalization rather than a manager's views.

Approximately 62% of the portfolio is invested in U.S. companies, roughly 10% is allocated to emerging markets and the remainder is invested in developed international markets. As the relative value of companies around the world changes, these country allocations adjust automatically. There's no need for investors to rebalance between domestic and international equities.

The portfolio is also remarkably efficient. Since the fund essentially owns the investable global stock market, relatively few holdings need to be bought or sold outside of routine additions, deletions and corporate actions.

Learn more about VT at the Vanguard provider site.

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