VTI and VOO are the two most-held Vanguard equity ETFs in US taxable brokerage accounts, with combined AUM crossing roughly $1 trillion as of early 2026. They are routinely discussed as if they were competitors. They are not. One holds the entire US equity market; the other holds only the 500 largest companies in it. The overlap is enormous, but the structural bet is different.
This article works through the real data — expense ratios, ten-year returns, tracking difference versus benchmark, top-10 holdings overlap, AUM, and dividend yield — using figures from Vanguard fund pages, Morningstar, and ETF.com as of early 2026. Where a number could be stale by the time you read this, I will flag it.
The Headline Numbers (Early 2026)
| Metric | VTI | VOO |
|---|---|---|
| Expense ratio | 0.03% | 0.03% |
| AUM (approx.) | $440B | $553B |
| Holdings | ~3,600 | ~505 |
| 30-day SEC yield | ~1.30% | ~1.30% |
| Benchmark | CRSP US Total Market | S&P 500 |
| Inception | May 2001 | Sep 2010 |
| Trailing 10-yr return (approx.) | ~12.3% | ~12.8% |
| Tracking diff. vs. benchmark | ~1-3 bps | ~1-3 bps |
Figures are approximate, as of early 2026, sourced from Vanguard’s fund pages for VTI and VOO, Morningstar, and ETF.com. AUM in particular moves daily; treat these as illustrative rather than precise. The expense ratio and structural details are stable.
Expense Ratio: An Exact Tie
Both VTI and VOO charge 0.03% annually. That is $3 per year per $10,000 invested. For context, the median US large-blend ETF charges roughly 0.35% per the Investment Company Institute’s most recent fee study. VTI and VOO are roughly an order of magnitude cheaper than the category median. Either is already at the realistic floor for an ETF with this AUM. You cannot win the fee comparison picking between them.
The one caveat: Fidelity’s zero-expense-ratio mutual funds (FZROX, FNILX) charge 0.00% for total-market and S&P 500-like exposure respectively. Those are structured as mutual funds, not ETFs, and have portability limitations (they only exist inside Fidelity accounts), but they do set the true zero-cost floor. If cost is your single decision variable, neither VTI nor VOO is the lowest-cost option on the market in 2026.
Returns: VOO Has Slightly Edged VTI Over the Last Decade
Over the trailing 10 years ending early 2026, VOO has outperformed VTI by a small margin — somewhere in the 20 to 80 basis points per year range depending on exact start and end dates. That is not because VOO is a “better” fund. It is because mega-cap stocks (Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta) outperformed the mid- and small-cap tail of the US market over that window. VTI holds those same mega caps, but dilutes them with everything else. When the top of the market leads, VOO wins. When small caps lead, VTI wins.
Over longer horizons (back through the late 1990s, using mutual fund sibling VTSMX to extend VTI), total-market and S&P 500 returns are within a rounding error of each other. The 10-year window ending in 2026 happens to cover a particularly mega-cap-dominated regime. Do not project it forward mechanically.
| Period | VTI (approx.) | VOO (approx.) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-year | ~17% | ~18% | VOO +~1.0% |
| 3-year annualized | ~10% | ~10.5% | VOO +~0.5% |
| 5-year annualized | ~13% | ~13.5% | VOO +~0.5% |
| 10-year annualized | ~12.3% | ~12.8% | VOO +~0.5% |
Returns approximated from Morningstar total return data as of early 2026. Numbers shift every market day; directionally the gap has been stable and small.
Tracking Difference: Both Are Essentially Perfect
Tracking difference is the gap between a fund’s net-of-fee return and its benchmark’s gross return. For pure index products at Vanguard’s scale, both VTI and VOO deliver tracking differences in the 1-3 basis point range annually, according to Vanguard’s own fund fact sheets. That is excellent and indistinguishable between the two products.
Why it matters: some smaller ETFs have tracking differences of 10-30 basis points — meaningfully wider than their expense ratio would suggest, due to sampling strategies, cash drag, and rebalancing inefficiency. Neither VTI nor VOO has this problem. Vanguard’s scale and index-committee relationships keep both tracking the benchmark essentially perfectly.
Top-10 Holdings: Identical
The top 10 positions in VTI and VOO are the same names, in roughly the same order, with slightly different weights. As of early 2026, both funds’ top holdings are dominated by the Magnificent Seven plus a handful of other mega caps — roughly Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet (A&C shares), Meta, Berkshire Hathaway, Eli Lilly, Broadcom, and JPMorgan, though weights shift monthly. The aggregate top-10 concentration is approximately 32-34% for VOO and 28-30% for VTI — VTI is slightly less concentrated because its long tail of mid and small caps dilutes each top name’s weight.
The top-10 overlap is essentially 100% by ticker. The overall portfolio overlap by weight is approximately 85-87% — meaning 85-87% of VTI’s dollars are invested in the same S&P 500 names as VOO, with the remaining 13-15% in mid, small, and micro caps. You can verify this directly on Morningstar’s portfolio analysis page for either ticker.
The Structural Bet
Because expense ratio, tax efficiency, and tracking difference are essentially tied, the entire decision between VTI and VOO is the structural bet on ~13-15% of your portfolio. That 13-15% is everything in US equities below the S&P 500 line — roughly 3,100 mid, small, and micro-cap names.
Arguments for VTI:
- It is the whole market. If you believe in capitalism and you don’t want to pick a factor, VTI is the purest expression of “own every US public company.”
- Small-cap and mid-cap exposure for free. You get the full Fama-French size premium (to the extent it still exists) without a separate holding.
- No reconstitution risk. VOO rebalances when the S&P Index Committee adds or removes names. VTI holds through the transition (those companies stay in VTI’s CRSP index anyway).
Arguments for VOO:
- The S&P 500 has a quality screen. The S&P Index Committee requires four consecutive quarters of GAAP profitability and other liquidity thresholds. CRSP Total Market does not. For investors who believe unprofitable small-cap inclusion is noise, VOO has a mild quality tilt.
- It pairs cleanly with other funds. A three-fund portfolio of VOO + a mid/small complement (VXF) + international (VXUS) gives you more control than VTI + VXUS.
- It is the most benchmarked fund in finance. Everything from 401(k) plan menus to hedge fund performance gets compared to the S&P 500. VOO is the direct instrument of that benchmark.
Tax Efficiency
Both funds get top marks from Morningstar for tax efficiency. Vanguard’s patented dual-share-class structure (now expired, though the funds still benefit from the years of in-kind heritage) has historically produced zero or near-zero capital gains distributions on both tickers. You can verify this on Vanguard’s tax distribution history pages for both funds — the distribution column has been essentially empty for both for years.
The tax comparison between VTI and VOO is a non-issue. For the broader ETF-vs-mutual-fund tax conversation, see our ETF vs mutual funds 2026 breakdown.
When You Should Actually Pick Each
Pick VTI if: you want one US equity ticker, set it and forget it, and you are philosophically comfortable owning the entire market. This is the simplest defensible core holding you can pick.
Pick VOO if: you want to build a more granular portfolio (S&P 500 core + extended market + international, as in a classic three-fund portfolio), or you specifically want mega-cap-weighted exposure without the small-cap tail, or you are matching a benchmark like your employer’s 401(k) plan.
Do not own both. This is the most common mistake. VTI and VOO are substitutes, not complements. Owning both just overweights the S&P 500 names you already hold in either fund.
How This Affects Your Portfolio Math
If you are running a long-term compounding calculation, the expected-return difference between VTI and VOO should be treated as zero with a small uncertainty band. Any projected gap is inside the noise of equity-premium uncertainty. For withdrawal-rate planning or retirement math, use tools like our finance calculators rather than trying to optimize between these two.
What actually moves the needle: your savings rate, your asset allocation between stocks and bonds, and whether you stay invested through drawdowns. The VTI-vs-VOO choice is a rounding error in that context.
Compare Them Yourself
FundDuel’s VOO vs VTI comparison tool pulls live expense ratios, returns, holdings, and sector allocations side by side. Related comparisons worth reading before you commit:
- SPY vs VOO — if you prefer the most-traded S&P 500 ETF over the cheapest.
- VTI vs VXUS — pairing US total market with international.
- SCHD vs VOO — dividend-focused vs. broad S&P 500.
Caveats
All performance figures in this article are trailing as of early 2026 and will drift with each passing trading day. Expense ratios and structure are stable. Before committing capital, verify current figures on each fund’s Vanguard page (search “VTI Vanguard” or “VOO Vanguard”) or on Morningstar. The framework in this piece does not change with price movements; the exact numbers do.