SPTB vs VTG

SPTBAState Street SPDR Portfolio Treasury ETF

VTGAVanguard Total Treasury ETF

In short

SPTB State Street's Treasury slice of the Agg in one ticker: the whole curve from a year out to the long end, roughly 300 bonds, for three basis points. It arrived in 2024 as the Treasury building block in the SPDR Portfolio suite.

VTG One ticker for the whole Treasury curve. Vanguard's 2025 answer to the do-it-yourself stack of short, intermediate and long Treasury funds: a single index fund covering the market at three basis points.

Stated mandate

SPTB The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the Bloomberg U.S. Treasury Index and provides exposure to U.S. Treasuries with at least one year remaining to maturity.

VTG The fund aims to track the performance of an index representing the broad U.S. Treasury bond market.

Why people hold it

• SPTB Three basis points. The typical fund in the Treasury cohort charges about five times that, and SPTB undercuts iShares' GOVT at five while tying Vanguard's VTG.
• One ticker covers the full Treasury curve, everything with at least a year to maturity, instead of stacking separate short, intermediate and long sleeves.ssga.com
• Plain index replication of the Bloomberg U.S. Treasury Index: government paper only, no credit sleeve, no derivatives overlay in the mandate.ssga.com
• Pays income monthly, and the implementation ranks in the top quartile of its Treasury peer group on our review.

• VTG Costs 0.03% a year, about a quarter of the typical fee in its Treasury peer group, and it lands in the top tier of that cohort on build quality.
• Does the job of a three-fund short/intermediate/long stack in one holding, tracking the Bloomberg U.S. Treasury Total Return Unhedged USD Index across maturities.vanguard.com
• Plain Treasuries only: no credit sleeve, no currency hedge, no active tilts, with income paid out monthly.

Worth knowing

• SPTB Full-curve means long bonds are in the mix, so the price swings with interest rates far more than a short-term Treasury fund does.
• It launched in 2024, so the live record is short next to cohort veterans that have traded through multiple rate cycles.
• Moderately traded rather than the volume leader in its category, so bigger orders are worth routing with limits and a glance at the spread.

• VTG Whole-curve exposure means long maturities are in the mix, so the share price moves with interest rates more than a short-term Treasury fund would.vanguard.com
• A July 2025 launch, so it is still a small fund that trades lightly next to decade-old Treasury ETFs. Wider bid-ask spreads are the trade-off.
• The index begins at one year to maturity, so T-bills and cash-like exposure sit outside it. Vanguard parks that end of the curve in separate funds such as VGUS.stockanalysis.com

Full SPTB profile⁠

Full VTG profile⁠