VTI vs SCHB: Which Should You Pick?
Both charge 0.03%. VTI holds about 3,500 U.S. stocks, SCHB about 2,400, and their returns differed by 0.05 points a year from 2009 to 2026. Why not to switch.
VTI and SCHB are the Vanguard and Schwab ETFs for the whole U.S. stock market. Both charge 0.03%, both weight stocks by market value, and from November 2009 to September 2026 their annual returns differed by 0.05 percentage points. The visible difference is the holdings count: about 3,500 for VTI and about 2,400 for SCHB. The extra 1,100 are tiny companies with almost no weight.
Quick answer
Either one is a complete U.S. stock holding. Buy the one that fits where you invest, or VTI if you want the deepest coverage of small companies. Do not sell an appreciated position in one to buy the other: the fees are the same, so a switch in a taxable account costs capital gains tax and buys nothing.
| VTI | SCHB | |
|---|---|---|
| Expense ratio | 0.03% | 0.03% |
| Index | Morningstar US Total Market (formerly CRSP) | Dow Jones U.S. Broad Stock Market |
| What the index covers | About 100% of investable U.S. stocks | The 2,500 largest U.S. companies |
| Holdings | 3,507 | 2,394 |
| Annual return, Dec 2009 to Sept 2026 | 14.04% | 13.99% |
| 2025 dividends qualified | 93.6% | 92.7% |
Vanguard and Schwab product pages and fact sheets, read October 2026; VTI holdings at August 31, 2026, SCHB holdings at October 7, 2026. Returns are Summitward calculations from daily total-return prices, November 30, 2009 to September 30, 2026.
Why 1,100 more stocks barely matters
Both funds weight each company by its market value, so the largest companies drive both. SCHB’s index takes the 2,500 largest U.S. companies and stops; the stocks below that line go into a separate Dow Jones micro-cap index. VTI’s index keeps going down to the smallest investable companies, which is why it holds about 1,100 more. Each of those additions is a sliver of the fund, so together they move its return by little. Monthly returns were 0.9997 correlated. Over the 202 months from December 2009 to September 2026, the monthly return difference between the two funds had a standard deviation of 0.39 points a year, and VTI’s five-year lead over SCHB ranged from −0.09 to +0.22 points a year.
Broad ownership still matters. Bessembinder found that only 42.6% of U.S. stocks from 1926 to 2016 beat Treasury bills over their lifetimes, and that about 4% of companies produced all of the market’s net wealth creation. Both funds hold every large and mid-size company where that wealth has accumulated. The micro-caps VTI adds are where tomorrow’s large companies sometimes start, but they enter SCHB too once they grow into the top 2,500.
The index rename at Vanguard
VTI’s index used to carry the CRSP name. After Morningstar bought CRSP, Vanguard renamed the fund the Vanguard Morningstar Total Stock Market ETF in July 2026, and the index is now the Morningstar US Total Market Index; its ticker is still CRSPTMT. Our guide to the rename covers what changed and what did not.
Switching an existing position
With equal expense ratios, a switch in a taxable account has no fee savings to offset its tax. The calculator below starts both funds at 0.03%, so the result is the tax cost alone; enter your own position to see it. In an IRA, switching is tax-free and there is still no reason to do it unless you are consolidating accounts at one broker. Our guide to switching to a cheaper index fund covers the cases where a switch can pay.
Using one as a tax-loss harvesting partner
Because the funds track different indexes from different managers, investors often sell one at a loss and buy the other. IRS Publication 550 says only that whether securities are substantially identical depends on “all the facts and circumstances,” and it does not address index funds. No IRS ruling covers this pair, so the question is unsettled. Our tax-loss harvesting guide covers how to choose partners.
Who should pick which
Pick VTI if you
- Want the whole investable U.S. market, micro-caps included.
- Invest at Vanguard, or want the larger fund: $689 billion in the ETF share class at September 30, 2026.
- Already own it with gains; keep it.
Pick SCHB if you
- Invest at Schwab and want to keep the family of funds together.
- Want a harvesting partner for VTI with a different index.
- Already own it with gains; keep it.
Sources and related reading
- Vanguard, VTI product page and 2025 qualified dividend income.
- Schwab Asset Management, SCHB product page (October 7, 2026), summary prospectus, and 2025 qualified dividend table; S&P Dow Jones Indices, Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Indices Methodology (September 2026).
- Hendrik Bessembinder, “Do Stocks Outperform Treasury Bills?” Journal of Financial Economics 129(3), 2018; IRS Publication 550.
- VTI vs ITOT, VTI vs VTSAX, FSKAX vs FZROX, and VTI vs VOO.
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