RVNU vs VTEB

RVNUBXtrackers Municipal Infrastructure Revenue Bond Active ETF

VTEBAVanguard Tax-Exempt Bond ETF

In short

RVNU Most muni ETFs buy whatever the tax-free market offers. RVNU takes one slice: revenue bonds behind things like water systems, toll roads and airports, indexed since 2013, for 0.15% a year.

VTEB Vanguard's national muni index fund, running since 2015 at three basis points, a tenth of what the typical muni ETF charges. Its benchmark screens for investment-grade bonds whose income is exempt from federal tax and the AMT.

Stated mandate

RVNU The Fund seeks investment results that generally correspond, before fees and expenses, to the Solactive Municipal Infrastructure Revenue Bond Index.

VTEB VTEB seeks to track an index measuring the investment-grade segment of the U.S. municipal bond market. It uses passive sampling to approximate the index and generally invests in federally tax-exempt municipal securities.

Why people hold it

• RVNU Charges 0.15% a year, about half the typical muni ETF fee, for a focused revenue-bond mandate instead of a broad tax-free index.
• Pure play by design: its Solactive index points at municipal bonds repaid from project revenue rather than a state's general taxing power.
• Pays monthly, spread across about 300 US municipal bonds inside a plain 1940-Act ETF wrapper.
• Trading since 2013, long tenure for a niche muni strategy, and it lands in the upper half of its muni peer group.

• VTEB Three basis points a year against a 0.30% muni-ETF median. On tax-exempt bonds, where coupons are modest, that fee gap is a real slice of the payout.
• The index holds only investment-grade munis whose interest is exempt from federal income tax and the alternative minimum tax, so the income carries no AMT surprise.vanguard.com
• A multi-billion-dollar fund and one of the most heavily traded in the muni category, which tends to show up as tight bid-ask spreads. Income is paid monthly.
• It has tracked its benchmark closely and sits among the strongest implementations in a crowded muni bond peer group.

Worth knowing

• RVNU A smaller, thinly traded fund, so limit orders and patient fills matter more here than with muni giants like MUB or VTEB.
• Broad muni index funds run near 0.03%. The extra cost here buys the infrastructure-revenue tilt, not wider coverage.
• Revenue bonds lean on income from specific projects, so credit risk rides on how those systems perform rather than on a government's taxing power.

• VTEB Federal exemption, not blanket coverage. Income can still be taxable in your home state, which is why single-state funds like NYF exist alongside it.vanguard.com
• Credit quality is investment grade, so rates are the main swing factor: when muni yields rise, bond prices and the fund's share price fall.vanguard.com
• Sampling, not full replication. The fund owns a representative slice of a very large index rather than every bond in it.vanguard.com

Full RVNU profile⁠

Full VTEB profile⁠