BILS vs VBIL

BILSAState Street SPDR Bloomberg 3-12 Month T-Bill ETF

VBILAVanguard 0-3 Month Treasury Bill ETF

In short

BILS Most T-bill ETFs park at the very front of the curve. BILS deliberately steps out to bills with 3 to 12 months left to run, one rung further along the same government ladder, from the SPDR bond shop.

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

BILS The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Bloomberg 3-12 Month U.S. Treasury Bill Index, providing exposure to U.S. Treasury Bills with remaining maturities of 3 to 12 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

• BILS Targets the 3-to-12-month rung of the bill curve. Where sibling BIL sits in 1-3 month paper, BILS holds the next maturities out.ssga.com
• A compact book of roughly 40 Treasury bills, direct obligations of the US government. No corporate paper, no credit tiers to decode.ssga.com
• Tracks its Bloomberg bill index closely and pays monthly. A multi-billion-dollar fund with steady day-to-day trading behind it.

• 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

• BILS The 0.14% fee matches the category median but runs above the cheapest bill funds, like XONE at 0.03% and VBIL at 0.06%.
• Longer maturities move more when rates shift. Small moves by bond standards, but not as flat a line as a 0-3 month bill fund.
• Income resets as bills mature and roll into new ones, so payouts track wherever short-term Treasury rates sit at the time.ssga.com

• 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 BILS profile⁠

Full VBIL profile⁠