Guide · US Treasury (Long)
Best long-term Treasury ETFs
A long-term Treasury fund holds US government bonds maturing roughly 10 to 30 years out. Credit risk is zero; interest-rate risk is the entire story. Duration is the shorthand: a fund with a 17-year duration loses roughly 17% of its value for every one-percentage-point rise in long-term yields, and gains roughly the same on a fall. That math is why TLT drew down on the order of 30% in 2022 — equity-sized volatility from a fund made entirely of government bonds. Long Treasuries are not a "safe" bond holding; they are a deliberate tool, held precisely because they move dramatically when rates change.
How the scoring ranks these funds
All six catalog funds hold overlapping slices of the same Treasury curve, so the score separates mostly on cost and concentration. The 3 bp fee on VGLT and SPTL against the 15 bps on the iShares and PIMCO funds is the largest single cost gap. On concentration, the funds holding fewer, larger positions score lower on the top-10 sub-score: ZROZ's top ten holdings are ~55% of the fund and TLT's ~43%, against ~22% for SPTL and VGLT and ~16% for EDV — which tracks the score order almost exactly. The STRIPS funds (EDV, ZROZ) hold zero-coupon Treasuries, which pushes duration well past the coupon-bond funds — more rate sensitivity per dollar, by design.
See the methodology for the full formula behind each sub-score.
Top picks
-
88
composite / 100
Vanguard's long-Treasury fund, effectively tied with SPTL at the top of the category. 3 bps — one fifth of TLT's cost for similar exposure. Tracks the Bloomberg US Long Treasury Index (10+ year maturities), so its duration runs slightly shorter than TLT's 20+ year mandate. SPTL is State Street's fund on the same index at the same fee — the two are functionally interchangeable.
- Expense
- 0.030%
- AUM
- $15.15B
- Issuer
- Vanguard
- Detail
- VGLT page →
-
78
composite / 100
iShares' 20+ year Treasury fund — listed here ahead of several higher-scoring funds because it is the reference instrument for the category. The largest by AUM by a wide margin, the most liquid, and the ticker named in the Permanent, Golden Butterfly, and All Weather portfolio pages. Its 15 bp fee is the trade-off for that liquidity; VGLT is the cheaper substitute where intraday tradability matters less.
- Expense
- 0.15%
- AUM
- $41.10B
- Issuer
- iShares
- Detail
- TLT page →
-
84
composite / 100
Vanguard's extended-duration fund. Holds 20-30 year Treasury STRIPS — zero-coupon bonds, which means duration roughly equals maturity, around 24 years versus TLT's ~17. More rate sensitivity per dollar allocated, and correspondingly larger swings in both directions. 5 bps.
- Expense
- 0.050%
- AUM
- $4.16B
- Issuer
- Vanguard
- Detail
- EDV page →
-
79
composite / 100
iShares' 10-20 year Treasury fund. Sits between the intermediate funds (VGIT) and the 20+ year funds in duration — a middle setting for portfolios that want long-Treasury behavior with somewhat less of it. 15 bps; same fee as TLT for the shorter mandate.
- Expense
- 0.15%
- AUM
- $11.25B
- Issuer
- iShares
- Detail
- TLH page →
-
66
composite / 100
PIMCO's 25+ year zero-coupon STRIPS fund — the longest duration in the catalog, around 27 years. Functionally EDV's more extreme sibling at three times the fee (15 bps vs 5) and a fraction of the asset base. The smallest and least liquid fund in the category.
- Expense
- 0.15%
- AUM
- $1.37B
- Issuer
- PIMCO
- Detail
- ZROZ page →
Also in the category
Other funds in the same category, ranked by composite score.
Duration math, in plain terms
Duration approximates the percentage price change for a one-percentage-point move in yields. TLT and VGLT run durations in the mid-to-high teens; EDV and ZROZ run in the mid-twenties because zero-coupon bonds pay nothing until maturity, concentrating all the interest-rate sensitivity at the end. In 2022, long Treasury yields rose roughly two percentage points, and the price math followed: a 17-year duration times a 2-point yield rise is about a 34% first-order loss, with coupon income and convexity trimming TLT's realized drawdown to roughly 31%. The same lever works in reverse when yields fall — which is the entire reason these funds appear in crisis-hedge allocations.
The role in Permanent-style portfolios
Long Treasuries are the deflation/crisis leg of the Permanent Portfolio (25% TLT), the Golden Butterfly (20% TLT), and the All Weather (40% TLT). The logic is regime coverage: in a deflationary recession, long-duration government bonds have historically been among the assets that rallied most while equities fell, and the long duration is what makes the hedge large enough to matter at a 20-25% weight. 2022 is the documented failure mode — when inflation drives rates up, stocks and long Treasuries fall together. The Permanent portfolio page covers how the gold sleeve is meant to carry that regime.
State-tax exemption
US Treasury interest is exempt from state and local income tax. At the 4.4-5.1% TTM distribution yields these funds carry, that exemption is worth meaningful basis points per year to holders in high-tax states (CA, NY, NJ) relative to a corporate or aggregate bond fund of similar yield, and nothing in no-income-tax states. The methodology's asset-class base reflects this — Treasuries sit at 35 vs. 25 for aggregate bonds. The federal tax on the distributions is still ordinary income, which is why these funds commonly sit in tax-advantaged accounts anyway.
Not a substitute for a core bond fund
An aggregate fund (BND, AGG) or intermediate Treasury fund (VGIT) is the conventional core bond holding; its ~6-year duration keeps drawdowns in the single digits in most rate environments. The long-Treasury funds on this page carry two to four times that duration. They appear in portfolios as a sized, deliberate allocation with a specific job — not as the default answer to "I want some bonds." The broader Treasury guide covers the short and intermediate duration buckets.
Common questions
- Why did long-Treasury funds fall ~30% in 2022?
- Long-term Treasury yields rose roughly two percentage points during 2022, and price sensitivity scales with duration: a ~17-year duration fund like TLT repriced down roughly 31%, and the longer-duration STRIPS funds (EDV, ZROZ) fell further. No defaults, no credit events — pure interest-rate math. The same mechanism produced double-digit gains for long-term Treasuries as an asset class in 2008, 2011, and early 2020.
- What is the difference between TLT and VGLT?
- Mandate and cost. TLT holds 20+ year Treasuries; VGLT tracks the Bloomberg US Long Treasury Index, which starts at 10-year maturities, so VGLT's duration runs modestly shorter. VGLT charges 3 bps to TLT's 15. TLT is far larger and more heavily traded, which is why it remains the ticker written into most published lazy-portfolio recipes; the exposure difference between the two is small relative to the volatility of the asset class.
- What is a STRIPS fund (EDV, ZROZ)?
- STRIPS are Treasury bonds with the coupon payments separated out, leaving a zero-coupon instrument that pays only its face value at maturity. With no interim coupons, duration roughly equals maturity — 20-30 year STRIPS carry durations in the mid-twenties, versus the high teens for coupon-bearing 20+ year funds. EDV and ZROZ exist for allocations that want maximum rate sensitivity per dollar, typically as a smaller hedge sleeve.
Guide. Picks come from the live PlainIndex composite for this category; editorial commentary on each pick is hand-written. Re-pulled with every catalog refresh.
PlainIndex publishes data and editorial commentary — nothing here is personalized investment advice. Read the methodology for how the scores referenced here are computed.