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6 Best-Performing Bond ETFs for 2026

Bond ETFs are bundles of investments that track particular bonds and bond markets, offering easy and affordable diversification options.

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Alieza Durana is a former investing writer at NerdWallet. She has over a decade of journalism experience covering housing, labor, gender and public policy issues for the Eviction Lab, The Fuller Project for International Reporting, New America and Slate. Her work has appeared in USA Today, The Washington Post, The Atlantic and Harvard Business Review. She is based in St. George, Utah.

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Published in

Head of Content, Investing & Taxes

Arielle O’Shea leads the investing and taxes team at NerdWallet. She has covered personal finance and investing for nearly 20 years, and was a senior writer and spokesperson at NerdWallet before becoming an editor. Previously, she was a researcher and reporter for leading personal finance journalist and author Jean Chatzky, a role that included developing financial education programs, interviewing subject matter experts and helping to produce television and radio segments. Arielle has appeared on the "Today" show, NBC News and ABC's "World News Tonight," and has been quoted in national publications including The New York Times, MarketWatch and Bloomberg News. She is based in Charlottesville, Virginia.

What is a bond ETF?

Bond ETFs exclusively track and trade bonds, bond indexes or other fixed-income investments in various categories. When you buy a bond ETF, you're purchasing a share of the fund and receiving a portion of that fund's returns.

Best bond ETFs by one-year performance

Here are the best-performing U.S. bond ETFs ranked by one-year performance. This list excludes actively managed and leveraged ETFs, as these tend to have higher expense ratios and risk profiles.

Remember, when researching a bond ETF, you'll want to also investigate its liquidity, maturity and tradability in addition to the interest rate it offers.

Ticker

Company

Performance (Year)

ICVT

iShares Convertible Bond ETF

23.40%

CWB

State Street SPDR Bloomberg Convertible Securities ETF

20.76%

GOLY

Strategy Shares Gold Enhanced Yield ETF

3.18%

IBMT

iShares iBonds Dec 2031 Term Muni Bond ETF

2.31%

ITM

VanEck Intermediate Muni ETF

2.28%

GMUN

Goldman Sachs Access Municipal Bond ETF

2.13%

Source: Finviz. Data is current as of April 3, 2026, and is intended for informational purposes only.

» See our picks for the best brokers for ETF investing

Brokerage firms

on Charles Schwab's website

on E*TRADE's website

on Vanguard's website

on Fidelity's website

Advantages of bond ETFs

ETFs are touted for a simple reason: easy and affordable diversification. Building out your portfolio by individually picking stocks or bonds can be risky and expensive. For instance, while a single U.S. Treasury bond sells for $100

Bond ETFs can be purchased through most online brokers and may contain hundreds of bonds, instantly spreading your risk across many investments. Here are some other essential characteristics of bond ETFs:

Liquidity: Bond ETFs are liquid, meaning they can be bought or sold at any time without negatively impacting the price. On the other hand, individual bonds vary in how easily they can be bought and sold. Long-term treasuries, for example, are attractive for their high yields. However, they can also be less liquid than a bond ETF if you were to try to sell in a pinch.

Maturity: Bond ETFs maintain constant maturity. In contrast, individual bonds mature on a specific date. Since a bond ETF is a "basket" of bonds that mature at various dates, the bond ETF calculates prices by using the average maturity at any given point in time.

Tradability: Bond ETFs are easily tradable through any brokerage account that offers them. Some individual bonds have more complex sale processes.

How to buy bond ETFs

If you don’t already have a brokerage account, you'll want to open one.

Compare ETFs using free screening tools (often available through your brokerage account).

Weigh characteristics such as expense ratios, volume, holdings, performance and trading prices.

Once you’ve found an ETF, place the trade.

» Looking for bond index funds? Check out some of the best bond index funds for beginners

Helpful resources