EVSB vs VBIL

EVSBBEaton Vance Ultra-Short Income ETF

VBILAVanguard 0-3 Month Treasury Bill ETF

In short

EVSB Cash-parking with an active bond desk behind the wheel. Eaton Vance hunts investment-grade short, variable and floating-rate paper, keeps weighted-average duration at a year or less, and charges 0.17%, under the typical ultra-short ETF.

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

EVSB The Fund seeks to maximize income while preserving capital. It actively manages primarily investment-grade, short-term fixed, variable, and floating-rate securities, generally keeping weighted-average duration at one year or less.

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

• EVSB Charges 0.17%, undercutting the typical ultra-short bond ETF. In an aisle where yield differences are measured in fractions of a point, the fee line does real work.
• Active by design: managers shift among short fixed, variable and floating-rate investment-grade securities rather than tracking a fixed list, with duration generally held to one year or less.
• Pays monthly, and the portfolio has stayed tightly aligned with the ultra-short mandate its filings describe.
• Lands in the upper half of a crowded ultra-short cohort, holding its own against the index-tracking heavyweights that dominate the category.

• 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

• EVSB Thinly traded and one of the smaller funds in the aisle next to VUSB and PULS, so bid-ask spreads can run wider and larger orders need more care.
• Investment-grade credit, not Treasury bills: part of the income comes from taking credit and spread risk, and floating-rate coupons reset as short-term rates move.
• Launched in 2023, giving it a shorter live record than the decade-plus veterans it competes with.

• 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 EVSB profile⁠

Full VBIL profile⁠