VT vs VTI vs VOO: Whole World, All US, or S&P 500?

VOO holds the roughly 500 biggest US companies, VTI holds the whole US stock market (about 3,500 stocks), and VT holds the whole world (about 10,000 stocks, of which roughly 62% is the US). VOO and VTI are close to the same fund, so the real choice is VT against the other two, and that comes down to one question: do you want around 38% of your money outside the US? VOO and VTI cost 0.03% a year, VT costs 0.06%.

Where it gets less obvious is what you actually own once you look inside. About half of VT is the very same S&P 500 stocks that make up VOO. So "VT vs VOO" is not world against America. It's "half America, plus everything else" against "only America". If you already hold one of these and you're thinking of adding another, the overlap matters more than the ticker.

The short version, in one table

All figures come from Vanguard's own fact sheets as of 30 June 2026 (VOO, VTI, VT). The holdings counts drift a little every month; the shape doesn't.

What you actually own: the look-through

Fund names hide the overlap, so here is each fund split into three buckets: S&P 500 companies, the rest of the US market (mid and small caps), and everything outside the US.

The inputs are simple. The S&P 500 covers about 80% of the value of the US stock market, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. VT's fact sheet puts 61.9% of the fund in the US. Multiply them and you get the table below.

Data: Vanguard fact sheets (30 June 2026), VT 61.9% US; S&P 500 ≈ 80% of US market cap (S&P Dow Jones Indices). Computed: VT S&P 500 share = 61.9% × 80%.

Two things jump out.

VTI is 80% VOO. The extra 3,000 stocks are real, but together they weigh about a fifth of the fund.

And VT is half VOO. If you hold VOO and add VT "for diversification", a 50/50 split leaves you 81% in the US (50% + half of 61.9%). That's a lot less international than most people think they bought.

This is exactly the check the free portfolio analysis tool does: put in your funds and it unpacks them into the underlying stocks, shows each stock you hold twice and through which funds, and gives you the country split. No sign-up. I built it, so take that recommendation knowing who it's from.

VOO vs VTI: nearly the same fund

Same cost, same top ten in the same order, and a 10-year gap of just 0.43 percentage points a year. VTI adds small and mid caps; VOO is a little more concentrated in the giants (top ten at 37.9% versus 33.4%).

Pick either one and stop thinking about it. There's a separate piece on VOO vs VTI if you want the long version. The short summary is that the choice between them matters far less than whether you keep buying.

VT vs VTI is the real decision

This is where the funds actually differ. VTI bets everything on the US. VT owns the US at roughly its share of world stock market value and spreads the other 38% across Japan (5.9%), Taiwan (3.5%), the UK (3.1%), Canada (2.9%), Korea, China, Europe and dozens of smaller markets.

The case for VTI is the last decade. US stocks beat the rest of the world by a wide margin, and the fact sheets show it: 15.04% a year for VTI against 12.82% for VT over the ten years to June 2026. On $10,000, that's about $40,600 versus $33,400.

The case for VT is that a decade is not a law of nature. From 2000 to 2009, the S&P 500 returned −0.95% a year while many other parts of the global market did better. The decade that makes US-only look obvious can be followed by one that makes it look reckless.

My own view: a world fund is the default, because it's the one portfolio that doesn't require you to predict which country wins. The catch: VT is still more than 60% US, and its top holdings are the same American tech names as VOO. NVIDIA alone is 4.0% of VT, 6.4% of VTI and 7.5% of VOO. Buying VT does not mean you stopped owning tech. It means you stopped choosing how much.

Data: Vanguard fact sheets for VT, VTI and VOO, 30 June 2026.

Is VT safer than VTI? Less concentrated, yes: the top ten are about a fifth of the fund instead of a third, and no single country decides your result. Safer in the sense of smaller drops, not really. Stock markets around the world tend to fall together in a real crash, and VT adds currency moves that a pure US fund doesn't have. For more on that trade-off, see US vs international stocks and why an S&P 500 fund is less diversified than it looks.

Is VTI + VXUS better than VT?

VXUS is Vanguard's everything-outside-the-US fund: about 8,700 stocks at 0.05% (Nasdaq, July 2026). Hold roughly 62% VTI and 38% VXUS and you've rebuilt VT for a blended cost of about 0.04%.

What you gain: a slightly lower fee, and control. You can pick your own US share, say 70/30 or 50/50, instead of taking the market's.

What you lose: VT rebalances itself. With two funds, the split drifts and you have to decide when to fix it, which is one more decision to get wrong in a bad year. "I'll rebalance when it makes sense" is not a rule. Write down the trigger in advance (once a year, or when a fund drifts 5 points from target) or you'll end up deciding in the middle of a crash.

The "voo vs vti vs vxus" version of the question has the same answer. Pick VOO or VTI for the US part, add VXUS, and choose a split you'll keep.

Does the 0.06% fee matter?

Barely. On $10,000, VT costs $6 a year and VTI costs $3.

Over a long stretch it's slightly more visible. Put $100,000 in for 30 years at 7% a year before fees: at 0.03% you end with about $754,800, at 0.06% about $748,500. That's a gap of roughly $6,300, or 0.8% of the final pot, for not having to rebalance two funds yourself. Choose on what you want to own, not on the third decimal of the fee.

If you live in Europe

None of the three is for you, at least not directly. Since 2018 the EU's PRIIPs rules require a Key Information Document that US-domiciled ETFs don't produce, so most European brokers won't sell VT, VTI or VOO to retail investors (freenance.io explains the rule).

The Irish-domiciled versions do the same job:

VWCE costs more than VT: 0.14% a year according to justETF, with about 59.8% in the US at the end of August 2026. It also holds fewer stocks (around 3,750) because its index leaves out small caps. Accumulating or distributing is its own question; there are separate guides on world ETF choices and currency risk in a world fund.

What I'd pick, and what I hold

I live in Brno, so the US tickers aren't on my menu anyway. What I do is buy one accumulating world ETF every month through Interactive Brokers, automatically on payday. That's the European cousin of VT. I also hold a small tech tilt on top of it. I've never fully justified it, especially next to a world fund that already holds plenty of tech.

If I were in the US, I'd hold VT and not look at the other two. If you have strong reasons to want only US stocks, VTI or VOO is fine, and the difference between those two is small enough to ignore.

The one thing I'd avoid is the accidental mix: VOO plus VTI plus VT plus a growth fund, each bought for a different reason, adding up to far more US than you meant and the same top ten counted four times. Before you add another fund, run what you already hold through the portfolio analysis tool and look at the country split and the overlap list. If the answer surprises you, simplify first.