USVN vs VGIT

USVNCUS Treasury 7 Year Note ETF

VGITAVanguard Intermediate-Term Treasury ETF

In short

USVN Most Treasury funds hand you a whole maturity range. USVN aims at a single point on the curve, tracking the ICE BofA Current 7-Year US Treasury Index and paying out monthly.

VGIT The middle of the Treasury curve, priced like an afterthought. VGIT holds government bonds maturing in 3 to 10 years for 0.03% a year, a quarter of what the typical Treasury fund in its peer group charges.

Stated mandate

USVN The fund seeks performance generally corresponding to the price and yield performance of the ICE BofA Current 7-Year US Treasury Index, before fees and expenses.

VGIT Seeks to track a market-weighted Treasury bond index while maintaining an intermediate-term dollar-weighted average maturity.

Why people hold it

• USVN A scalpel, not a blanket. The mandate is one maturity, the 7-year Treasury note, so your interest-rate exposure is a known quantity instead of a blended average.
• What it says is what it holds: US Treasuries only, in a plain 1940 Act fund, with no credit or currency exposure bolted on. Portfolio and prospectus line up closely.
• Monthly distribution cadence, and you get a specific Treasury maturity in one ticker rather than working an odd lot through a bond desk.

• VGIT Charges 0.03% a year against a 0.12% median for Treasury funds in its peer group. In bonds, where the coupon does the work, that fee gap is most of the argument.
• Plain index work: it follows the Bloomberg U.S. Treasury 3-10 Year Bond Index with very little slippage, one of the tighter implementations in its Treasury peer group.vanguard.com
• Running since 2009 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, so spreads stay tight. Interest lands monthly.
• The portfolio is U.S. government paper only, a few dozen issues. No corporate borrowers to underwrite, no credit research required.vanguard.com

Worth knowing

• USVN At 0.15%, it sits at the category median but well above broad intermediate Treasury options like SPTI and SCHR at 0.03%. Precision costs something.
• A small, thinly traded fund. Spreads can be wider than the household names in the group, so limit orders do real work here.
• One maturity means no cushion from the rest of the curve, and the fund has only been trading since 2023.

• VGIT Intermediate maturities cut both ways. A 3 to 10 year book reprices more when yields move than a bill fund does, so the ride is bumpier than cash-like Treasury products.
• Treasuries only means no corporate credit premium in the yield. Income comes strictly from government coupons, and the monthly payout drifts with rates.

Full USVN profile⁠

Full VGIT profile⁠