ETF Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Sarah Davis, Digital Finance & Fintech | Last updated: September 6, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
US exchange-traded funds held $15,671.3 billion in assets at the end of July 2026, across 5,182 funds, per the Investment Company Institute. According to Axis Intelligence Research, ETFs now hold 10.06% of all corporate equities recorded in the Federal Reserve’s Financial Accounts, the first reading above 10% in the series.
Quick Answer
US ETF assets reached $15.67 trillion in July 2026, up 33.3% in twelve months, spread across 5,182 funds, according to ICI’s monthly ETF data. Net share issuance ran $1,180.0 billion in the first seven months of 2026, up 79.91% on the same period of 2025. According to Axis Intelligence Research, the Axis ETF Ownership Ratio (EOR) reached 10.06% in Q1 2026.
Key Findings
- According to Axis Intelligence Research, the Axis ETF Ownership Ratio (EOR) reached 10.06% as of March 31, 2026, the first reading above 10% and a rise of 5.50 percentage points from 4.56% ten years earlier.
- US ETF assets totaled $15,671.3 billion across 5,182 funds at July 31, 2026, per the Investment Company Institute’s monthly exchange-traded fund data.
- ETF net share issuance reached $1,180.0 billion in the first seven months of 2026 against $655.9 billion in the same period of 2025, per ICI.
- According to Axis Intelligence Research, the number of US ETFs rose by 1,109 funds, or 27.23%, in the twelve months to July 2026, with domestic broad-based equity ETFs alone adding 723 funds.
- According to Axis Intelligence Research, ETF equity holdings fell just 0.05% in Q1 2026 while all-sector corporate equity holdings fell 2.99%, which is why the EOR advanced during a market drawdown.
How Big Is the ETF Market in 2026?
Two official series measure the same market, and they do not agree, for reasons worth understanding before either number is cited.
The Investment Company Institute collects assets directly from funds and reported $15,671.3 billion at July 31, 2026. The Federal Reserve’s Z.1 Financial Accounts reported ETF total financial assets of $13,552,262 million, or $13.55 trillion, at March 31, 2026, the most recent quarter published. The gap is timing, not disagreement: ICI publishes monthly and the Z.1 publishes quarterly with a June and September release cadence. On the matching date, the two are close. ICI reported $13.55 trillion for March 2026, and the Z.1 reported $13,552,262 million for Q1 2026.
US ETF assets by fund type, July 2026
| Fund type | Assets (USD billions) | Share of total | Number of funds | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Domestic equity, broad-based | 8,869.1 | 56.59% | 2,389 | ICI |
| Domestic equity, sector and industry | 1,221.3 | 7.79% | 578 | ICI |
| Global and international equity | 2,636.5 | 16.82% | 975 | ICI |
| Bond | 2,568.3 | 16.39% | 978 | ICI |
| Commodities | 315.4 | 2.01% | 137 | ICI |
| Hybrid | 60.8 | 0.39% | 125 | ICI |
| All ETFs | 15,671.3 | 100% | 5,182 | ICI |
Source: Investment Company Institute, Release: Exchange-Traded Fund Data, July 2026. Share-of-total column calculated by Axis Intelligence Research. Components may not add to the total because of rounding.
Equity products account for $12,726.9 billion, or 81.21% of ETF assets, according to Axis Intelligence Research. Bond ETFs hold 16.39%. Everything else, meaning commodities and hybrids together, accounts for 2.40%. The ETF market remains an equity market with a fixed-income annex, whatever the launch calendar suggests.
Assets fell $31.03 billion in July, or 0.2%, even though $188.93 billion of net new shares were created that month. That combination tells you the month’s price action was negative and flows were not. It is a distinction that gets lost when coverage reports “ETF assets fell” without separating the two.
Sarah Davis, Digital Finance Editor: The headline asset number is a price number wearing a flows costume. In a month where the market drops 2% and investors add $188.93 billion, total assets can still go down, and the fund industry will still have had an excellent month. If you are trying to read demand, read net issuance. If you are trying to read fee revenue, read assets. They answer different questions, and July 2026 is the month that proves it.
What Share of the US Equity Market Do ETFs Own?
This is the question nobody answers with a published, reproducible series, so Axis Intelligence Research built one.
The Axis ETF Ownership Ratio (EOR)
EOR stands for the ETF Ownership Ratio. It measures the share of all corporate equities recorded in the US Financial Accounts that sits inside exchange-traded funds.
Formula:
EOR = (ETF holdings of corporate equities / all-sector holdings of corporate equities) x 100
Inputs, both drawn from the same Federal Reserve table so the universes match:
- Numerator: Exchange-Traded Funds; Corporate Equities; Asset, Market Value Levels, Z.1 series LM563064100. Q1 2026: $10,755,679 million.
- Denominator: All Sectors; Corporate Equities; Asset, Market Value Levels, Z.1 series LM893064105. Q1 2026: $106,892,981 million.
Q1 2026 reading: 10.06%. Anyone with the two Z.1 series can recompute it in one line.
EOR readings, selected quarters
| Quarter | ETF equity holdings (USD millions) | All-sector equity holdings (USD millions) | EOR | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 2016 | 1,708,406 | 37,477,342 | 4.56% | Federal Reserve Z.1, Axis calculation |
| Q1 2020 | 2,704,388 | 43,079,073 | 6.28% | Federal Reserve Z.1, Axis calculation |
| Q1 2021 | 4,692,646 | 70,194,672 | 6.69% | Federal Reserve Z.1, Axis calculation |
| Q1 2022 | 5,633,518 | 77,232,954 | 7.29% | Federal Reserve Z.1, Axis calculation |
| Q3 2022 | 4,552,096 | 61,604,695 | 7.39% | Federal Reserve Z.1, Axis calculation |
| Q1 2023 | 5,376,461 | 69,164,732 | 7.77% | Federal Reserve Z.1, Axis calculation |
| Q1 2024 | 7,148,856 | 85,050,849 | 8.41% | Federal Reserve Z.1, Axis calculation |
| Q1 2025 | 8,249,228 | 91,075,353 | 9.06% | Federal Reserve Z.1, Axis calculation |
| Q2 2025 | 9,262,396 | 99,706,000 | 9.29% | Federal Reserve Z.1, Axis calculation |
| Q3 2025 | 10,207,891 | 107,154,168 | 9.53% | Federal Reserve Z.1, Axis calculation |
| Q4 2025 | 10,760,961 | 110,183,023 | 9.77% | Federal Reserve Z.1, Axis calculation |
| Q1 2026 | 10,755,679 | 106,892,981 | 10.06% | Federal Reserve Z.1, Axis calculation |
Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States, Table L.223, retrieved via FRED September 6, 2026. EOR calculated by Axis Intelligence Research.
According to Axis Intelligence Research, the EOR has risen in fourteen consecutive quarters. The last decline was Q3 2022. Over ten years the ratio has gone from 4.56% to 10.06%, a gain of 5.50 percentage points and a multiple of 2.21.
Why the EOR rose while the market fell
Q1 2026 is the most instructive reading in the series, and it is the one Axis Intelligence Research would point a journalist toward first.
All-sector corporate equity holdings fell 2.99% in the quarter, from $110,183,023 million to $106,892,981 million. ETF equity holdings fell 0.05%, from $10,760,961 million to $10,755,679 million. The denominator fell by a factor the numerator did not come close to matching. That arithmetic, and not a surge of new buying, is what pushed the EOR through 10%.
The mechanism is straightforward once stated. ETF equity holdings are marked to the same falling market as everything else, so they should fall in step. They did not, because creation activity ran hard enough to offset the mark-down. Net share issuance of $1,180.0 billion year to date is the offsetting force. Over the full year to Q1 2026, ETF equity holdings grew 30.38% while the market they sit inside grew far less.
Scope of the EOR. The Z.1 corporate equities table records equities held by US-resident sectors, including foreign shares held by US residents. The EOR therefore measures ETF share of that recorded universe, not a float-adjusted stake in US-listed companies, and it does not describe voting power at any individual issuer. It is a market-structure measure, not a governance one. Every reading carries its quarter-end date, and the series is recomputed in full at each Z.1 release rather than appended, because the Federal Reserve revises history.
Sarah Davis: The interesting thing about a ratio that rises in drawdowns is what it implies about who is on the other side of the trade. Direct holders and active mandates were shrinking as a share of the equity pool in Q1 2026. ETF shareholders were not selling into it, and authorized participants kept creating. Ten percent is a round number and round numbers get headlines, but the ratchet is the story: this ratio goes up in good quarters because of inflows, and up in bad quarters because everyone else blinks first.
How Much Money Flowed Into ETFs in 2026?
Flows, unlike assets, are not contaminated by price movement, which makes them the cleaner demand signal.
ETF share issuance, first seven months
| Measure | 2026 year to date | 2025 year to date | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gross issuance | $5,197.4B | $3,199.9B | +62.42% | ICI |
| Gross redemptions | $4,017.5B | $2,544.0B | +57.92% | ICI |
| Net issuance | $1,180.0B | $655.9B | +79.91% | ICI |
Source: Investment Company Institute, Release: Exchange-Traded Fund Data, July 2026. Percentage changes calculated by Axis Intelligence Research.
Net issuance of $1,180.0 billion through July already exceeds most full years on record. ICI reported a record $1.5 trillion of net ETF share issuance for calendar 2025, up from $1.1 trillion in 2024, in the 2026 Investment Company Fact Book. At the July run rate, 2026 is tracking above that record. Weekly data confirm the pace held into late summer: ICI estimated $32.04 billion of net ETF issuance in the week ended August 26, 2026, of which $14.44 billion went into equity ETFs.
Creation intensity: how much gross churn buys a dollar of net money
Headline net flows hide the primary-market machinery underneath them. Axis Intelligence Research tracks creation intensity, defined as year-to-date gross issuance divided by year-to-date net issuance.
- 2026 year to date: 5,197.4 / 1,180.0 = 4.40
- 2025 year to date: 3,199.9 / 655.9 = 4.88
According to Axis Intelligence Research, it took $4.40 of gross share creation to deliver $1 of net new ETF money in 2026, down from $4.88 a year earlier. Lower is stickier. A falling ratio means a larger share of primary-market activity is durable allocation rather than round-tripping through the creation and redemption mechanism. The fall from 4.88 to 4.40 is modest, and it moves in the direction that a maturing, allocation-driven flow base would predict.
That reading sits alongside the mutual fund picture. In July 2026, long-term index funds took in $123.84 billion while long-term active funds shed $31.06 billion, per ICI’s active and index data. Index mutual funds and ETFs together held $21.76 trillion against $18.58 trillion in active vehicles.
A calculation Axis Intelligence Research declined to publish. It is tempting to divide total ETF assets by the sum of ICI’s index and active fund assets to produce an “ETF share of US fund assets.” Axis Intelligence Research does not publish that figure. ICI’s ETF series includes funds that invest primarily in other ETFs, and the index and active series exclude funds that invest primarily in other funds. The two are different reporting universes, and the quotient would be a number that means nothing. The declined calculation is logged as a retracted row in the accompanying dataset with this reasoning attached.
Why Did the Number of US ETFs Grow 27% in One Year?
The asset story is a price and flow story. The fund-count story is a regulatory story, and it is the most underreported ETF statistic of 2026.
There were 5,182 US ETFs at July 31, 2026, against 4,073 twelve months earlier. According to Axis Intelligence Research, that is a net addition of 1,109 funds, or 27.23%, in a single year. Domestic broad-based equity ETFs accounted for 723 of them, growing from 1,666 funds to 2,389, a 43.40% increase.
Broad-based domestic equity is the most saturated corner of the entire fund industry. It is not where you would expect 723 new funds to appear on product merit alone. The explanation is structural.
The ETF share class timeline
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | SEC adopts Rule 6c-11, the ETF rule, which does not cover share-class ETFs | SEC |
| Sept 29, 2025 | SEC publishes notice of intent to grant ETF share class relief | SEC |
| Nov 17, 2025 | SEC grants first order; 13 mutual funds cleared to add ETF share classes | Dimensional Fund Advisors |
| Mar 17, 2026 | SEC issues Exchange Act order 34-105028 enabling broker-dealers to trade multi-class ETF shares | SEC |
Source: US Securities and Exchange Commission; Dimensional Fund Advisors newsroom.
Because share-class ETFs fall outside Rule 6c-11, each fund family needed an exemptive order. Commissioner Mark T. Uyeda framed the September 2025 notice as removing what he called an artificial divide between mutual fund and ETF share classes in his statement on ETF share class relief. The final piece landed on March 17, 2026, when the SEC issued an order under Section 36 of the Exchange Act letting broker-dealers treat multi-class ETF shares the same way they treat standalone ETFs. ICI, which had requested that relief, called it the final step needed for funds to launch ETF share classes alongside mutual fund classes.
Here is why that matters for anyone reading the fund count. A share-class ETF is a new listed fund in the count, but it is not new money and not a new portfolio. It is an existing mutual fund portfolio acquiring an exchange-traded wrapper.
According to Axis Intelligence Research, average assets per US ETF were $3.024 billion in July 2026 against $2.886 billion a year earlier, a 4.78% increase. Fund count grew 27.23% and average size still rose, which means asset growth outran even this launch wave. But the composition of the count has changed, and any analysis that reads 5,182 funds as 5,182 independent investment strategies is now measuring something different from what it thinks.
Sarah Davis: For thirty years the fee argument for ETFs was mostly about expense ratios. The share class order moves the argument to tax. A mutual fund investor sitting on decades of embedded gains has been paying capital gains distributions that the ETF wrapper largely avoids through in-kind redemption. Adding an ETF class to the same portfolio does not change the manager or the holdings. It changes where the tax leakage goes. That is the fee, wearing a different jacket, and it is why 723 new broad-based domestic equity funds appeared in a category nobody thought had room left.
How Many People Own ETFs, and Who Owns Them?
About 20 million US households own ETFs, and the median income of those households is roughly $150,000, ICI President Eric Pan said in his opening remarks to the 2026 ETF Conference. About half of ETF owners have household income under $150,000.
Axis Intelligence Research notes a discrepancy inside that single document. The same remarks state that about 17 million people now hold ETFs, described as well over one in ten American households, and separately that about 20 million US households own them. Axis Intelligence Research publishes both figures rather than averaging them or silently picking one, and flags the 17 million reading as a retracted-adjacent discrepancy row in the dataset. Anyone citing a household ETF ownership count should say which figure they are using and from which sentence.
The wider fund-ownership base is measured more precisely. In 2025, 56.4% of US households, an estimated 76.0 million households representing 128.7 million individual investors, owned shares of registered investment companies, per ICI research. Mutual funds remained the most commonly held type, at 72.7 million households, or 53.9%.
Set those next to each other and the shape of the retail ETF market becomes clear. Registered fund ownership is a majority-of-households phenomenon at 76.0 million. ETF ownership sits at roughly a quarter of that. The vehicle that holds 10.06% of the recorded equity pool is directly held by a minority of the households that own funds at all, because most household ETF exposure arrives indirectly through advised accounts and model portfolios rather than through a self-directed purchase. Our retail investor statistics hub tracks the direct-participation side of that split in detail.
How Big Is the ETF Market Outside the United States?
The US is the majority of the ETF market, but it is the slowest-growing major region on a multiple basis.
| Region | ETF net assets 2016 | ETF net assets 2025 | Growth multiple | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Europe | $526B | $3,100B | 5.89x | ICI |
| Asia | $263B | $2,100B | 7.98x | ICI |
| Americas excluding US | $86B | $600B | 6.98x | ICI |
Source: ICI President’s Opening Remarks, 2026 ETF Conference, June 2026. Growth multiples calculated by Axis Intelligence Research.
According to Axis Intelligence Research, Asian ETF assets grew 7.98 times between 2016 and 2025, the fastest of the three non-US regions, while Europe grew 5.89 times from the largest starting base. For context on the total addressable pool, worldwide regulated funds held $88.0 trillion at year-end 2025 against worldwide capital markets of $312.6 trillion, or 28%, per the 2026 Fact Book. US registered investment companies alone held $45.1 trillion.
Two structural notes matter for anyone comparing regions. European ETF assets are dominated by UCITS vehicles domiciled in Ireland and Luxembourg and sold across borders, so national attribution is unreliable in a way US data is not. And ICI’s own fee series for ongoing charges excludes UCITS ETFs, which means cross-region expense comparisons drawn from a single source are usually comparing two different collection methods.
Methodology
Collection. Every figure in this report was retrieved from a primary source on September 6, 2026. Fund industry aggregates come from the Investment Company Institute’s monthly and weekly statistical releases and the 2026 Investment Company Fact Book. National-accounts equity data come from the Federal Reserve Board’s Z.1 Financial Accounts, retrieved through FRED at the St. Louis Fed. Regulatory events come from SEC statements and orders and from the applicant’s own newsroom. No figure in this report was taken from a secondary aggregator or from model memory.
Series identifiers. The EOR uses Z.1 series LM563064100 (ETF corporate equity holdings) and LM893064105 (all-sector corporate equity holdings). Both are market-value levels, not seasonally adjusted, in millions of US dollars, quarterly, end of period. The Q1 2026 vintage was published June 11, 2026. The next Z.1 release is scheduled for September 10, 2026.
EOR formula. EOR = (LM563064100 / LM893064105) x 100. No weights, no normalization, no baselining. A single ratio of two series from the same Federal Reserve table, which is what makes it reproducible by anyone.
Creation intensity formula. Creation intensity = year-to-date gross ETF share issuance / year-to-date net ETF share issuance, both from ICI monthly ETF data.
Scope. ICI ETF data include ETFs that invest primarily in other ETFs and include commodity funds not registered under the Investment Company Act. ICI index and active fund data exclude funds that invest primarily in other funds. These universes are not interchangeable, and Axis Intelligence Research does not combine them. Z.1 corporate equities cover equities held by US-resident sectors including foreign shares, so the EOR is a share of that recorded universe rather than of US-listed float. Regional figures outside the US come from a speech rather than a statistical release and carry the precision of that format.
Declined calculations. One calculation was attempted, rejected, and logged as a retracted row in the dataset with its reasoning: the ETF share of combined US index and active fund assets, rejected on universe incompatibility.
Verification. Every number in this article was matched against the accompanying dataset in both directions before publication. Every derived figure was recomputed independently of the prose. Every external link was retrieved on September 6, 2026 and confirmed to contain the claim attributed to it.
About This Dataset
The dataset accompanying this report, etf-statistics-2026.csv, is the fact table behind every number above. It contains 119 rows covering ETF assets by type, fund counts, share issuance, the full EOR series, household ownership, regional assets, and regulatory events.
Every row carries source_org, source_document, source_url, retrieved_date, is_primary, and axis_calculated. Rows marked axis_calculated = yes carry a method_note stating the exact formula and inputs. Rows marked data_type = retracted or data_type = discrepancy document calculations Axis Intelligence Research declined to publish and source conflicts we chose not to resolve silently.
License. CC BY 4.0. Free to reuse, redistribute, and build on, including commercially, with attribution.
Attribution line. Axis Intelligence Research, ETF Statistics 2026, 2026.
How to Cite This Research
APA Axis Intelligence Research. (2026). ETF statistics 2026: Assets, flows, fund counts, and the ETF Ownership Ratio. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/etf-statistics/
MLA Axis Intelligence Research. “ETF Statistics 2026: Assets, Flows, Fund Counts, and the ETF Ownership Ratio.” Axis Intelligence, 6 Sept. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/etf-statistics/.
Chicago Axis Intelligence Research. “ETF Statistics 2026: Assets, Flows, Fund Counts, and the ETF Ownership Ratio.” Axis Intelligence, September 6, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/etf-statistics/.
ETF Statistics FAQ
Does the ETF Ownership Ratio mean ETFs control 10% of the votes at US companies?
No, and the distinction matters for anyone writing about common ownership. The EOR measures the share of corporate equities recorded in the Federal Reserve’s Financial Accounts that sits inside ETF portfolios. Voting rights attached to those shares are exercised by the fund adviser, not by the ETF as an entity, and adviser-level voting power is concentrated differently from fund-level asset share. A 10.06% EOR is a statement about where equity market value sits, not about who controls a proxy.
Why did ETF assets fall in July 2026 if $188.93 billion flowed in?
Because assets are marked to market and flows are not. Total ETF assets fell $31.03 billion, or 0.2%, in July 2026 while net share issuance was positive at $188.93 billion. Price depreciation exceeded creations. Reading a fall in assets as a fall in demand inverts what the data says.
Is a share-class ETF counted as a new fund in ETF statistics?
Yes. ICI’s fund count includes ETF share classes of existing mutual funds, so each one adds to the 5,182 total even though the underlying portfolio already existed. This is the main reason the count grew 27.23% in twelve months while average assets per ETF rose only 4.78%. Anyone comparing 2026 fund counts to pre-2026 counts is comparing two different definitions of a new fund.
Which ETF figure should a journalist cite, ICI’s or the Federal Reserve’s?
Cite ICI for anything monthly or fund-level, because ICI collects directly from funds and publishes fund counts and issuance. Cite the Federal Reserve Z.1 for anything that needs to sit inside national accounts, such as ETF holdings measured against total equity holdings. On matching dates the two are consistent: ICI reported $13.55 trillion for March 2026 and the Z.1 reported $13,552,262 million for Q1 2026.
How much of the ETF market is bonds rather than stocks?
Bond ETFs held $2,568.3 billion at July 31, 2026, which Axis Intelligence Research calculates as 16.39% of the $15,671.3 billion total. Equity products, domestic and international combined, hold 81.21%. Commodity and hybrid ETFs together account for 2.40%.
What does creation intensity tell you that net flows do not?
Net flows tell you how much money arrived. Creation intensity tells you how much gross primary-market activity it took to get there. At 4.40 in 2026 against 4.88 in 2025, each dollar of net new ETF money required less gross creation and redemption churn than a year earlier, which points to a flow base that is more allocation and less trading.
Are ETF investors wealthier than mutual fund investors?
Not in the way the framing implies. About half of ETF owners have household income under $150,000 and the median ETF-owning household income is roughly $150,000, per ICI. For context, 56.4% of all US households, some 76.0 million, own registered investment company shares of some kind. ETF ownership skews higher-income than fund ownership generally, but it is not a high-net-worth product.
Why do ETF household ownership counts differ between sources?
They differ inside a single source. ICI’s 2026 ETF Conference remarks state both that about 17 million people now hold ETFs and that about 20 million US households own them. Axis Intelligence Research publishes both rather than reconciling them, because the two figures may be counting different units, individuals against households, and the document does not say. Cite the specific figure and its sentence rather than a blended number.
How fast is the ETF market growing outside the United States?
Between 2016 and 2025, ETF net assets grew 7.98 times in Asia, 6.98 times in the Americas excluding the US, and 5.89 times in Europe, per Axis Intelligence Research calculations on ICI figures. Europe reached $3.1 trillion and Asia $2.1 trillion by 2025. Cross-region comparison is complicated by the UCITS structure, under which funds domiciled in Ireland or Luxembourg are sold throughout Europe and beyond.
Related research from Axis Intelligence Research: Retail investor statistics covers direct household participation in equity markets. BlackRock statistics covers issuer-level assets and fee yields including iShares. Ethereum statistics covers digital-asset ETF flows. Investment App Statistics Bond ETF Statistics
