Best ETFs in Canada by Category (2026): How to Choose, With the Main Kinds Compared

There is no single best ETF in Canada, because ETFs do different jobs: one holds the whole Canadian stock market, another holds companies in Europe and Asia, another holds Canadian bank stocks. So this page answers the question in two parts. First, how to choose an ETF in each category, using the sections of its ETF Facts. Second, one dated table of the broad index ETFs by role (Canada, the US total market, international, emerging markets, banks, and growth and factor funds), with each figure from the issuer. It doesn’t pick funds or show past returns, and each other kind of ETF links to the page that compares it.

Jump to a category:

• Canadian stocks
• US total market
• International
• Emerging markets
• Banks
• Growth and factor
• Sector and thematic

How do you choose an ETF in any category?

Four questions cover most of the choice, and each fund’s ETF Facts document answers them.

What does it hold? ETF Facts shows a fund’s investment mix, broken down by industry sector, asset class or region depending on the fund. That tells you the job it does: Canadian stocks, foreign stocks, bonds, or one industry.

Which index, and how broad? Most ETFs track an index, and the index sets how the holdings are weighted, so two funds holding the same stocks in different proportions get different returns. The number of holdings gives a sense of how spread out the fund is.

What does it cost? The management expense ratio (MER) is the yearly cost, as a percentage of the fund’s value, paid out of the fund. You don’t pay it directly, but it lowers your return and adds up over time. The MER calculator shows what a given MER costs in dollars, and its trading costs section covers commissions and the bid-ask spread.

How risky does the issuer say it is? The manager sets each fund’s risk rating, mostly from how much its value has moved, and even a fund rated low can lose money. ETF Facts also has a section on who the fund is meant for, such as long-term growth or a steady payout. For funds meant to move less, see the bond ETF and cash ETF pages.

Three other questions have their own pages: which account to hold it in, how its distributions are taxed, and whether a foreign fund is hedged to the Canadian dollar.

The main Canadian-listed index ETFs compared

This table lists the broad index ETFs for Canadian stocks, US total-market stocks, international and emerging-market stocks from iShares, Vanguard and BMO, plus the Canadian bank and financials funds and Canadian growth, value and low-volatility funds, each with an issuer-published MER, in order of the net assets each issuer publishes. S&P 500, all-in-one, dividend, bond, cash, gold, sector and ESG funds are on their own pages, listed under the table.

Issuer-published figures. None of these funds is hedged to the Canadian dollar. Holdings as of October 7, 2026 and July 31, 2026 and September 30, 2026 and August 31, 2026. MER as of BMO: the latest audited year (fact sheet of September 30, 2026); Vanguard: June 30, 2026; iShares: June 30, 2026 (each issuer's latest reported MER). Each ticker links to the issuer's page, which has the current price, holdings, distributions and performance.

Rows are grouped by the part of the market each fund covers. “Index it tracks” and the holdings count show how broad a fund is. There are no return or yield columns: how a fund did in the past can’t tell you how it will do next, and each ticker links to the issuer’s page.

Other kinds of ETF, each compared on its own page:

• All-in-one (asset allocation) ETFs: all-in-one ETFs
• S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 ETFs: S&P 500 ETFs
• Dividend ETFs: dividend ETFs
• Covered-call and option-income ETFs: covered-call ETFs
• Bond ETFs: bond ETFs
• Cash and money market ETFs: cash ETFs
• Gold and commodity ETFs: gold ETFs
• ESG ETFs: ESG ETFs
• Sector ETFs: sector and thematic ETFs, below
• REIT ETFs: REIT ETFs

What is an index ETF, and which ones track the Canadian market?

An index fund aims to follow the performance of one index, and it can be sold as a mutual fund or as an ETF. An index ETF’s manager doesn’t pick stocks, which can mean a lower MER; actively managed ETFs don’t track an index. Some index funds hold every security in the index, and others hold a sample chosen to behave like it. How an index mutual fund differs from an index ETF is covered on the index funds page.

The four Canadian funds in the table track three indexes:

• XIC and ZCN track the S&P/TSX Capped Composite Index, a capped version of the S&P/TSX Composite Index, which the Ontario Securities Commission describes as the Canadian equities market; iShares describes XIC as owning the entire Canadian stock market.
• XIU tracks the S&P/TSX 60 Index, which iShares describes as large, established Canadian companies, with 61 holdings.
• VCN tracks the FTSE Canada All Cap Domestic Index, which Vanguard describes as large, mid-sized and small Canadian companies.

For US stocks, VUN tracks the Morningstar US Total Market Index and XUU the S&P Total Market Index. S&P 500 funds are compared on the S&P 500 page.

Holding mostly Canada. Canada was 2.9% of MSCI’s All Country World Index as of September 30, 2026. Vanguard says portfolios weighted heavily to Canadian stocks can be more volatile; it also says Canada’s market is concentrated in a few large companies and leans heavily on energy, financials and materials. The sector section shows those weights in XIC.

VCN vs XIC

• Index: VCN tracks the FTSE Canada All Cap Domestic Index; XIC the S&P/TSX Capped Composite Index.
• Holdings: 212 in VCN (August 31, 2026) and 217 in XIC (October 7, 2026).
• MER: 0.05% for VCN and 0.06% for XIC.
• Distributions: VCN quarterly, XIC quarterly.

Both hold large, mid-sized and small Canadian companies; what differs is the index each follows, which sets how much each company weighs. See what an index ETF is for what each index covers.

What do international and emerging-market ETFs hold?

International funds here hold stocks in developed markets outside North America. MSCI’s EAFE index covers developed markets around the world excluding the US and Canada, and Vanguard describes VIU’s index the same way; iShares describes XEF as stocks from Europe, Asia and Australia. XEF tracks the MSCI EAFE Investable Market Index, ZEA the MSCI EAFE Index and VIU the FTSE Developed All Cap ex North America Index.

The table shows whether each fund is hedged to the Canadian dollar; a fund that isn’t also moves with the exchange rate, which the OSC calls currency risk. The countries whose companies the fund owns generally withhold tax on their dividends, and you receive distributions after that tax. The international withholding section shows how much, and the hedging section what hedging changes.

XEF vs VIU: VIU holds 3,654 stocks and XEF 2,469, at MERs of 0.21% and 0.22%. VIU pays quarterly and XEF semi-annual. XEF follows an MSCI index and VIU a FTSE index, so the companies each holds, and how much of each, can differ.

Emerging markets

MSCI’s emerging markets index covers large and mid-sized companies in the countries MSCI classes as emerging, and its list includes China, India, Brazil, Korea and Greece. Index providers class some countries differently: FTSE Russell treats South Korea as a developed market, and it moved Greece to developed in September 2026. So VEE, which follows a FTSE index, and XEC and ZEM, which follow MSCI indexes, cover different country lists. South Korean stocks were 20.03% of XEC as of October 9, 2026. The table has each fund’s index, holdings and MER.

What are growth and factor ETFs?

Factor investing targets stocks with particular traits, such as value, quality, momentum, size or low volatility. The table’s growth and factor group has three Canadian examples from iShares:

• XCG holds large and mid-sized Canadian firms whose earnings are expected to grow faster than the market’s.
• XCV holds large and mid-sized Canadian companies thought to be undervalued compared with similar companies.
• XMV tracks Canadian stocks with lower volatility than the rest of MSCI’s Canada index.

Each holds fewer stocks than XIC and has a higher MER.

“Growth” also names a level of all-in-one fund, such as the BMO Growth ETF and the Vanguard Growth ETF Portfolio: a single fund made up of several ETFs holding stocks and bonds. Those are compared on the all-in-one ETFs page.

What are sector and thematic ETFs, and what do they add?

The OSC notes that an ETF invested in only a few investments or types of investment may be more volatile over short periods than a broadly diversified one. A broad Canadian fund already holds a lot of some sectors: as of October 7, 2026, financials were 33.71% of XIC, materials 18.05% and energy 16.45%. A sector fund added to a broad fund raises your share of that sector further.

Each sector has its own comparison page:

• Energy and clean energy: energy ETFs
• Utilities and infrastructure: utility ETFs
• Technology and AI, including semiconductors: tech ETFs
• Healthcare: healthcare ETFs
• Banks: bank ETFs, below
• Crypto: crypto ETFs

Defence funds are thematic: Evolve says its defence ETF holds global defence and aerospace companies that build aircraft, weapons systems and military technology.

What are bank ETFs, and what does ZEB hold?

BMO’s ZEB holds Canadian bank stocks, 6 of them as of September 30, 2026, and its index gives each the same weight rather than weighting by company size. iShares’ XFN is broader: it holds Canadian financial companies, 23 as of August 31, 2026. Some bank funds also write covered calls, such as Evolve’s banks and lifecos fund, which uses covered calls and modest leverage; those are compared on the covered-call page.

A broad Canadian fund already holds the banks among its financials, so a bank fund adds to that weight (sector section). For ETF lines that banks’ own fund companies issue, see who issues ETFs.

How do you read an ETF’s past performance?

This page shows no returns, but each fund’s ETF Facts does. ETF Facts returns are after expenses, and its year-by-year chart shows how steady or volatile the fund’s returns have been. The OSC suggests two comparisons: with similar funds, and with the fund’s benchmark index. Fees mean an index fund’s return won’t exactly match its index’s. Past results don’t predict future ones. Long-run market figures are on the average stock market returns page.

Who issues ETFs in Canada?

The issuers whose funds appear in this hub’s tables, with the page holding their funds:

• BlackRock (iShares): fund list; this page and the all-in-one, S&P 500, dividend, bond, cash and gold pages
• BMO Global Asset Management: this page and the all-in-one, S&P 500, dividend, covered-call, bond, cash and gold pages
• CI Global Asset Management (including CI Invesco funds): fund list; S&P 500, cash and gold pages
• Fidelity: fund list; all-in-one page
• Global X: site; S&P 500, covered-call, cash and gold pages
• Hamilton and Harvest: Hamilton, Harvest; covered-call page
• Manulife: dividend page
• Purpose: fund list; cash and gold pages
• Sprott: bullion funds; gold page
• Vanguard: fund list; this page and the all-in-one, S&P 500, dividend and bond pages

Other issuers have ETFs that aren’t in these tables. RBC Global Asset Management manages RBC ETFs, in an alliance with BlackRock’s iShares; TD Asset Management issues TD ETFs; Evolve issues sector and thematic funds, including its defence fund and a covered-call bank fund. Each lists its funds on its own site: RBC, TD, Evolve.

What don’t these ETFs do?

• They can lose money. No ETF has a performance guarantee, and you may get back less than you put in.
• They aren’t deposit insurance. CDIC lists ETFs among the products it doesn’t cover.
• Funds overlap. A broad Canadian fund already holds the banks and energy companies a sector fund adds, and an all-in-one fund is already made up of several ETFs holding stocks and bonds from around the world.
• Distributions can lower your cost base. A return of capital is the part of a fund's distribution that is more than its earnings; it isn't taxed in the year you receive it but reduces the adjusted cost base (ACB) of your units, which generally means a larger capital gain or smaller capital loss when you sell, and if it takes the ACB below zero the negative amount is a capital gain for that year. The return of capital section explains it.
• Foreign tax is taken first. Distributions from foreign stocks arrive after the other country’s withholding tax (international withholding).

Where to go next

• ETFs explained and how to buy them
• All-in-one ETFs, one fund holding stocks and bonds
• S&P 500 ETFs
• MER calculator
• Which account to hold each fund in
• Online brokers compared