Guide · Gold
Best gold ETFs
These trusts hold gold bars and issue shares against them. GLDM is 10 bps; GLD is 40 bps for the same metal from the same sponsor, kept alive by options volume. Long-term gains are taxed at the 28% collectibles rate, not the ordinary long-term capital-gains schedule. Permanent Portfolio and Golden Butterfly hold 20–25% gold; a 3-fund holds none.
Published May 18, 2026 · Updated Sep 16, 2026 · Fund data as of Oct 24, 2026
Why the ranking looks like this
The catalog's physical-gold funds hold the same metal in the same vaults, so fee does nearly all the work in the ranking. GLDM at 10 bps and SGOL at 17 bps undercut the two original listings; IAU charges 25 bps and GLD 40 bps. GLD remains the most liquid by a wide margin, which matters more to options traders and institutions than to buy-and-hold holders.
See the methodology for the full formula behind each sub-score.
The funds
This order is editorial. The composite on each card is live. The full score-ranked table is on the category page.
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87
composite / 100
SPDR Gold MiniShares. 10 bps — a quarter of GLD's fee on the same vaulted metal from the same sponsor, launched in 2018 once the low-cost entrants had taken hold. The fee is essentially the whole difference.
- Expense
- 0.10%
- AUM
- $30.71B
- Issuer
- State Street
- Detail
- GLDM page →
-
82
composite / 100
abrdn Physical Gold Shares. 17 bps; bullion vaulted in Zurich and London with bar serial numbers published. Sits between the MiniShares tier and IAU on cost.
- Expense
- 0.17%
- AUM
- $7.17B
- Issuer
- abrdn
- Detail
- SGOL page →
-
80
composite / 100
iShares Gold Trust. 25 bps; 1/100 oz per share. Functionally identical exposure to the cheaper funds above it, with a twenty-year history and roughly twice GLDM's assets.
- Expense
- 0.25%
- AUM
- $62.22B
- Issuer
- iShares
- Detail
- IAU page →
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73
composite / 100
SPDR Gold Shares. 40 bps; 1/10 oz per share originally (now ~0.094 oz after fee accretion). The most-traded gold ETF and the cheapest options market by volume; less efficient for buy-and-hold investors paying the higher expense ratio.
- Expense
- 0.40%
- AUM
- $141.70B
- Issuer
- State Street
- Detail
- GLD page →
Gold is taxed as a collectible
Long-term gains on physical-gold ETFs are taxed at the 28% federal collectibles rate, not the 0/15/20% long-term capital-gains rate that applies to equity funds. This is a meaningful drag — a 28% rate on a multi-decade gain compounds the way a higher fee would. The methodology page sets gold at a 35 base on tax efficiency for this reason. Holding in an IRA bypasses the collectibles rate entirely; gold in a taxable account is materially less efficient than gold in a Roth.
Why a passive-investing site even covers gold
Gold doesn't fit cleanly into the Boglehead three-fund framework — it produces no cash flow and has no intrinsic earnings model. The case for holding it is purely diversification: gold has historically moved differently from both stocks and bonds during inflation shocks and currency-confidence crises. Whether that diversification is worth the long-run drag in a typical accumulation portfolio is a personal-preference question with no methodology answer. Permanent Portfolio and Golden Butterfly hold 20–25% gold by design; most accumulation-phase 3-fund portfolios hold zero.
Funds are pulled from the live composite for this category. Notes are editorial and refresh with the catalog.
PlainIndex publishes data and editorial commentary — nothing here is personalized investment advice. Read the methodology for how the scores referenced here are computed.