BIL vs VBIL

BILAState Street SPDR Bloomberg 1-3 Month T-Bill ETF

VBILAVanguard 0-3 Month Treasury Bill ETF

In short

BIL The original T-bill ETF, running since 2007: a giant, heavily traded stack of one-to-three-month Treasury bills that pays out monthly. Newer copycats undercut it on fee, but few match its trading footprint.

VBIL Vanguard's cash-parking ETF: roughly two dozen Treasury bills, none maturing more than three months out, at 0.06% a year. It landed in 2025 and undercut most of the T-bill shelf on price.

Stated mandate

BIL The fund seeks to track the price and yield performance of the Bloomberg 1-3 Month U.S. Treasury Bill Index before fees and expenses. It provides exposure to publicly issued U.S. Treasury bills with maturities of one to three months.

VBIL VBIL seeks to track the performance of a market-weighted Treasury index with an ultra-short-term dollar-weighted average maturity, using a passive approach designed to follow the Bloomberg U.S. Treasury Bills 0-3 Months Index.

Why people hold it

• BIL Holds publicly issued US Treasury bills maturing in one to three months, so the credit is the US government and rate sensitivity is measured in weeks, not years.ssga.com
• A straight index job against the Bloomberg 1-3 Month U.S. Treasury Bill Index, tracked closely: no credit tiers, no duration calls, no moving parts to second-guess.
• One of the most actively traded funds in its category, with a multi-billion-dollar asset base behind it, so getting in and out is rarely the hard part.
• Pays monthly and has run this same narrow mandate since 2007, across zero-rate years and high-rate years alike.

• VBIL It charges 0.06% a year, well under the 0.14% median for 0-1 year Treasury funds and under the category veteran, BIL.
• Plain passive mandate on the Bloomberg U.S. Treasury Bills 0-3 Months Index, tracked very closely. One of the tightest implementations in its peer group.vanguard.com
• Roughly two dozen bills backed by the US Treasury, every one maturing inside three months. Interest goes out monthly.
• A multi-billion-dollar fund with active daily trading, which tends to keep bid-ask costs small.

Worth knowing

• BIL The 0.14% fee is the trade-off. Rivals run near-identical bill exposure for less (VBIL at 0.06%, CLIP at 0.07%), and on T-bills the fee is most of the gap.
• Income moves with short-term Treasury rates. The monthly payout is whatever bills are yielding, so it rises and falls with them rather than sitting fixed.
• A few dozen bills, all maturing inside three months. That is a cash parking spot by design, with no mechanism for capital growth.

• VBIL The payout floats with short-term rates. Monthly income rises and falls with what bills yield, and nothing about it is fixed.
• It opened in 2025, so its live record is short next to T-bill funds that have been running for years.
• Stretching maturity gets cheaper: peer XONE targets one-year duration at 0.03%, trading lower cost for more rate sensitivity.

Full BIL profile⁠

Full VBIL profile⁠