ETFs That Track the S&P 500 in 2026

The S&P 500 ETF category, at least among the funds shown above, is dominated by three of the largest asset managers in the industry: Vanguard, iShares, and State Street. These four funds collectively represent a combined $2.88 trillion in assets, reflecting the S&P 500 index's role as a core holding for many income-oriented and total-return portfolios alike. All four funds distribute income on a quarterly basis and share very similar yield profiles, with the category average yield sitting at 1.04%, underscoring that these products are primarily vehicles for broad market exposure rather than high-income generation. Notably, State Street offers two competing share classes here, SPY and SPYM, which differ meaningfully in cost structure despite tracking the same index.

• VOO carries the highest yield among the funds shown above at 1.11%, alongside the largest AUM at $1041.4B.
• SPYM, at 0.02%, has the lowest expense ratio in the top 10 here, undercutting even its sister fund SPY, which at 0.09% carries the highest expense ratio among the funds shown above.
• SPY posts the lowest yield in this group at 0.99%, despite being one of the most established and heavily traded ETFs in the market.
• VOO and IVV are nearly identical in cost structure, both at 0.03% expense ratio, differing by only 0.08 percentage points in yield.
• Combined AUM across just these four funds exceeds $2.8 trillion, highlighting significant concentration risk at the issuer level within this category.

Because these funds all track the same underlying index, differences in yield tend to be modest and largely a function of fee drag, share-class structure, and dividend timing rather than distinct investment strategy. Investors comparing these products may find expense ratio and fund structure (unit investment trust versus open-end fund, as with SPY versus its peers) more relevant differentiators than yield alone. Broader market concentration in a handful of mega-cap stocks within the S&P 500 itself remains a consideration that applies uniformly across all funds in this category, regardless of issuer or fee level.

• Single-index dependence: most funds here are built on the same S&P 500 exposure, so they rise and fall together and share that index's concentration in its largest constituents — holding several of them does not diversify the underlying index risk.
• Distributions are not contractual: each payout is declared period by period, so the yields on this page can fall without notice when portfolio income, option premium, or fund policy changes.
• Methodology divergence: every fund here follows its own index rules or mandate, so two funds with similar headline yields can hold very different portfolios and diverge sharply in a drawdown — category membership is not interchangeability.
• Screens react after the fact: a fund's place in this list is re-rated only once a dividend cut, strategy change, or asset decline has already shown up in the reported data.

"Best" here means the selection rule below, applied to our own data — not an opinion poll and not a prediction:

• Universe: every security in our database matching this category — 4 qualified as of September 2026.
• Exclusions: liquidated, delisted and renamed funds drop out automatically; a renamed fund's successor appears in its place.
• Ordering: assets under management, largest first.
• Cap: none — all 4 matching funds are listed.
• Independence: no placement on this page is paid, sponsored, or influenced by a fund issuer.