Australian ETFs: much bigger, not much broader

The industry has grown almost four-fold since 2020 and the number of issuers has nearly trebled, yet the top three still hold two-thirds of the money. Fewer than half of the funds that launched small have reached $100 million.

01 · Size and growth

Almost four times the money, nearly three times the issuers

Funds under management in Australian ETFs and quoted funds went from $94.4bn in Dec 2020 to $371.6bn in Aug 2026. The number of products rose from 215 to 468 and the number of issuers from 25 to 70. Issuers with more than $1bn went from 7 to 19.

Active products grew from 47 to 135, yet active funds hold 16% of the money, down from 21%. Asset-weighted fees fell from 0.46% to 0.31%.

02 · Who has the money

The industry has widened at the edges, and the top three still hold two-thirds

The three largest issuers held 63% of assets in Dec 2020 and hold 66% now, with no sustained fall in between. Vanguard has 29%, Betashares 20% and iShares 17%; the four largest together hold 76%.

61 issuers have appeared since the start of 2020. They hold 15% of assets ($53.9bn), but that is concentrated: 12 of them have more than $1bn and 29 have under $100m. The largest new name is Dimensional, first seen in Nov 2023, with $20.6bn.

Over the last 12 months Betashares took 25% of net inflows against 20% of assets, and Vanguard 32% against 29%. Dimensional took 2% against 6%.

03 · Where the money goes

Inflows are about as concentrated as assets

Gross inflows were $67.9bn. The ten products that took the most money took 34% of it, close to the 30% of assets they hold, so new money is not piling into a few funds faster than the market already has. Even so, more than one product in five saw more money leave than arrive over the year.

04 · What launching looks like

Fewer than half of the funds that started small have reached $100m

306 products have first appeared since February 2020, between 51 and 61 a year lately. Take the 173 launched from 2020 to 2024 that started below $100m. 78 have reached it, taking a median of 12 months. 95 have not: 76 are still listed below $100m and 16 have closed.

The 2020 launches did best (76% reached $100m); the 2021 to 2023 launches did far worse, between 35% and 38%. Recent launches more often arrive large: 14 of the 61 products first seen in 2025 had $100m or more in their first month. Funds launched since 2020 now hold 25% of all assets.

05 · Cost and liquidity

Size buys a tighter spread and a lower fee

The typical product under $25m has a spread of 0.27% and about 87 trades a month. Over $2bn the spread is 0.04% with about 14,408 trades. Every step up in size narrows the spread, so a fund that stays small is also a fund that costs more to trade.

Passive products carry an asset-weighted fee of 0.25% against 0.63% for active ones. Active funds hold $59bn of the $372bn.

What this does not show

• The universe is every quoted product. It includes ETFs, active ETFs, structured and complex products and managed funds quoted on the ASX, as ETFtracker records them from the monthly reports. Figures are at month-end.
• A launch is a first appearance. A product counts as launched in the first month it appears in the data, from Feb 2020. Products already there in Jan 2020 are not counted, and a product can appear a month after it lists.
• Closures follow ETFtracker’s status flags. Renames and mergers are separated from closures, but a few products leave the data in other ways, so the closure counts are a floor.
• Growth is not all inflows. Funds under management change with markets as well as with money coming in or out, so the growth in the first chart is both.
• Fees are headline fees. MER is the stated management expense ratio. It leaves out performance fees, trading costs and the cost of the spread.
• Active and passive follow ETFtracker’s classification. The split is the one in the dataset, not a regulatory definition.
• One cycle of data. The data runs from January 2020 to the latest month, mostly a long rise in markets. Closures and flows could look different in a long downturn.