---
title: "iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF TLT replaces its bonds before they mature"
url: "https://etf.net/news/ishares-20-year-treasury-bond-etf-tlt-replaces-its-bonds-before-they-mature-2026-10-15"
published_at: "2026-10-15T16:33:55.551Z"
updated_at: "2026-10-15T16:33:55.551Z"
byline: "ETF.net Research"
---

# iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF TLT replaces its bonds before they mature

A bond leaves the index once it no longer has more than 20 years left, so an owner of the $49.0 billion fund never gets principal back on a set date.

By ETF.net Research. Published Oct 15, 2026.

Bonds in the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF TLT are replaced before they mature. An owner who sells the shares gets that day's market price, not a repayment of principal on a set date.

The fund held **$49.0 billion** on Oct. 14, 2026. iShares launched the fund on July 22, 2002, and the shares trade on Nasdaq.

"The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF seeks to track the investment results of an index composed of U.S. Treasury bonds with remaining maturities greater than twenty years."

That is the objective in the fund's summary prospectus dated June 29, 2026. The index is the ICE U.S. Treasury 20+ Year Bond Index.

ICE Data Indices describes it as a market-value-weighted index of dollar-denominated, fixed-rate Treasuries with more than 20 years to maturity, rebalanced monthly. A bond that no longer has more than 20 years left leaves the index, and a longer Treasury takes its place.

The largest holding will leave under the same rule. As of Oct. 13, 2026, it was the 4.75% Treasury due May 15, 2055, at 4.3% of the fund.

## The yield on the page is not a return

iShares reported 47 holdings as of Oct. 13, 2026, all of them Treasuries. The 1.88% bond due Nov. 15, 2051, and the 2% bond due Aug. 15, 2051, together accounted for 6.8% of assets. Newer bonds in the fund include coupons of 4.75% and 5%.

As of that date, the weighted average coupon was 3.36% and the average yield to maturity was 5.62%. The coupon is the interest rate printed on the bonds.

The older bonds pay less interest than the newer 4.75% and 5% bonds, so they trade for less than the amount the Treasury repays at maturity. A price below that repayment amount is called below par.

Yield to maturity counts the gain a buyer would make if the bond were held until that repayment. The fund is built to sell the bond before then.

The other two figures describe the fund, not a single bond. The 12-month trailing yield was 4.97% as of Oct. 13, 2026, the cash paid over the past year set against the fund's price. The 30-day Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yield was 5.51%, a standardized measure of net income over the latest 30 days, after the fund's fee.

None of the four is a total return.

The fund pays monthly. The October distribution was $0.31 a share, with an ex-dividend date of Oct. 1, 2026, and a payment date of Oct. 6, 2026.

The twelve payments with ex-dividend dates after Oct. 1, 2025, through Oct. 1, 2026, came to $3.89 a share. The shares closed at $78.89 on Oct. 14, 2026.

## The interest-rate risk does not wind down

Because a bond leaves and a longer one replaces it, the fund's sensitivity to rates does not shrink the way a single bond's does as the years pass.

Effective duration was **14.71 years** as of Oct. 13, 2026, and the weighted average maturity was 26.06 years. Duration is iShares' measure of that sensitivity. A one-percentage-point rise in yields would lower the price by about 14.71%, as a first approximation.

The record shows what that length has done. In 2022, the worst calendar year on the fund's fact sheet covering 2021 through 2025, the net asset value total return was −31.41%. In 2025 it was 4.17%.

Both are net asset value total returns, distributions included, not a change in price alone.

iShares reported a year-to-date net asset value total return of −7.06% as of Oct. 13, 2026.

As of Sept. 30, 2026, the annualized net asset value total return was **−8.44%** over five years, −2.78% over ten years, and 3.24% since the 2002 launch. The index returned −8.35%, −2.68% and 3.33% over those same three windows.

On every window iShares published as of Sept. 30, 2026, the fund's annualized net asset value total return sat between 0.09 and 0.11 percentage points behind the index.

## Nearby funds are built differently

Table: Fund, What it holds, Fee

The etf.net grade on TLT is a B, fourth of 11 in its category of long Treasury funds. The three other funds in the table rank above it, and each is graded A.

Vanguard describes the Bloomberg U.S. Long Treasury Bond Index, which VGLT tracks, as U.S. Treasury obligations with remaining maturities of 10 years or more. The ETF share class had $10.4 billion as of Sept. 30, 2026. It can own bonds that TLT's index has already dropped.

BBLB seeks the same ICE index and charges 0.04%. The June 29, 2026 prospectus lists TLT's expense ratio at 0.15%, which is both the management fee and the total annual operating expense.

J.P. Morgan reported $33.7 million in BBLB as of Aug. 31, 2026, and the shares change hands at about 1,400 a day. TLT averages about 32.9 million shares a day, roughly $2.6 billion a day.

Chart: TLT turns over **$2.63 billion** a day

iShares reported a 30-day median bid-ask spread of 0.01% for TLT as of Oct. 13, 2026.

EDV seeks to track the Bloomberg U.S. Treasury STRIPS 20–30 Year Equal Par Bond Index. Vanguard's prospectus says that index includes zero-coupon U.S. Treasury securities, called Treasury STRIPS, with maturities from 20 to 30 years. Vanguard reported $3.6 billion in the ETF share class as of Sept. 30, 2026.

Vanguard describes a Treasury STRIP as a single coupon or principal payment separated from a U.S. Treasury security. Those securities pay no cash interest. Vanguard's prospectus says the fund is still expected to distribute income to shareholders.

Source: etf.net, https://etf.net/news/ishares-20-year-treasury-bond-etf-tlt-replaces-its-bonds-before-they-mature-2026-10-15. Please cite the page URL.