VBIL vs VRIG

VBILAVanguard 0-3 Month Treasury Bill ETF

VRIGBInvesco Variable Rate Investment Grade ETF

In short

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.

VRIG Most funds in the cash corner just roll Treasury bills. VRIG is the active floating-rate alternative: securitized and corporate paper whose coupons reset with short-term rates, built for current income with very low duration.

Stated mandate

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.

VRIG The actively managed ETF seeks current income while maintaining low portfolio duration as its primary objective; capital appreciation is secondary.

Why people hold 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.

• VRIG Coupons reset as short-term rates move, which is how the fund keeps portfolio duration low while pursuing current income. Rate swings move floaters less than fixed-coupon bonds.invesco.com
• Active, not an index clone. Managers range across floating-rate securitized, corporate and agency paper, with at least 80% of net assets in investment-grade variable rate instruments.invesco.com
• Pays income monthly and spreads the work across roughly 400 positions instead of a short stack of bills.
• Trading since 2016, so the strategy has a track record covering both rising and falling short-term rates, and it stays actively traded on the screen.

Worth knowing

• 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.

• VRIG It charges 0.30% a year, against 0.19% for the typical fund in its short-duration group and 0.06% to 0.08% for bill trackers like VBIL and ICSH. Active credit work costs more.
• This is credit, not Treasury bills. The 80% investment-grade floor leaves room for lower-rated and fixed-rate holdings, and securitized paper can move when markets get stressed.invesco.com
• Floating coupons cut both ways. When short-term rates fall, the interest the portfolio collects resets lower with them.invesco.com

Full VBIL profile⁠

Full VRIG profile⁠