VOO vs IVV vs SPY: Which Should You Pick?
Same index. VOO and IVV charge 0.03%; SPY charges 0.0945% and is a unit investment trust that cannot reinvest dividends or lend securities. Which fits you.
All three track the S&P 500 Index, so their holdings, weights and returns before costs are the same. VOO and IVV charge 0.03%. SPY charges 0.0945% and is organized as a unit investment trust, a 1993 structure that holds dividends as cash until it pays them out and is barred from lending its securities. For a buy-and-hold investor those are the only differences, and they all point the same way.
Quick answer
VOO or IVV for money you intend to hold; they are interchangeable at 0.03% and the choice between them is which brokerage you already use. SPY costs about 6.5 basis points more a year for the same index, and its trust structure means dividends sit uninvested between payment dates and the fund earns nothing from securities lending. Traders favor SPY for its options market and intraday depth; this page does not price that, and it is worth nothing to someone who buys and holds. On $100,000 the fee gap alone is about $65 a year.
| VOO | IVV | SPY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Index | S&P 500 | S&P 500 | S&P 500 |
| Expense ratio | 0.03% | 0.03% | 0.0945% |
| Structure | Open-end fund | Open-end fund | Unit investment trust |
| Dividends between payouts | Reinvested in the fund | Reinvested in the fund | Held as cash, no interest |
| Securities lending | Permitted | Permitted | Prohibited by the trust |
| Holdings | 505 | 504 | 504 |
| Inception | Sep 2010 | May 2000 | Jan 1993 |
| Sponsor | Vanguard | iShares | State Street |
Issuer pages read September 7, 2026 (Vanguard expense ratio as of April 28, 2026; iShares as of September 4, 2026; SSGA as of September 3, 2026). SPY structure from its prospectus filed January 26, 2026.
The one real difference
SPY predates the open-end ETF structure that VOO and IVV use, and its trust agreement has two consequences the newer funds avoid. Dividends the trust receives are “held by the Trustee without interest until distributed,” and the trust provides no dividend reinvestment, so between quarterly payouts that cash earns nothing. The trust is also not authorized to “lend its portfolio securities or other assets,” so it forgoes the small lending income that open-end index funds use to offset costs. Neither effect is large. Both are permanent, and both come on top of a fee that is three times the other two.
Does the choice move your outcome?
The index is identical, so set the benchmark gap to zero and the fee difference to about 6 basis points. What is left is the entire long-term case for VOO or IVV over SPY, and you can see how it compares with saving a little more each month.
Fee Savings vs. Benchmark Dispersion
Fee savings over 25 years
$5,422
Benchmark impact
$-17.9K
Net difference
$-12.5K
The 3bp fee savings is worth $5,422. But a 10bp benchmark gap costs $17.9K. The benchmark choice matters 3.3x more than the fee.
The fee savings of 3bps would be offset by a benchmark return gap of just 3bps per year.
See your portfolio's actual factor exposures in Summitward's portfolio analysis
Who should pick which
VOO
You hold at Vanguard, or you want the fund that pairs cleanly with the rest of a Vanguard lineup. 0.03%, open-end.
IVV
You hold at Fidelity, Schwab or another broker where iShares trades commission-free, or you simply bought it first. Same 0.03%, same structure.
SPY
You trade it rather than hold it, and you use its options. For a position you plan to keep, the fee and the trust structure work against you.
On harvesting losses between them
These three track the same index, which makes them the pair most likely to be treated as substantially identical under the wash-sale rule. What the rule settles is that repurchasing the same fund within 30 days disallows the loss. Whether two funds on one index count as the same thing has never been ruled on, and swapping between them is the riskiest version of a common practice. Funds on different indexes, covered on the VTI vs ITOT page, are the more usual choice, and the tax-loss harvesting tool models what a harvest is worth before you decide.
The full reasoning
How the S&P 500 is constructed and governed, and why it became the default benchmark, is in The S&P 500 Is Passive for You, But Not Passive Under the Hood. Whether to hold the S&P 500 at all rather than the whole market is VTI vs VOO.
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