As investors, we have it pretty easy. Building a comprehensive, diversified portfolio of investments has never been simpler than it is today. And it’s never been cheaper, either.
In fact, one of the most difficult choices left on our plate is deciding which of several low-cost fund providers we want to provide the foundation of our investing accounts. (“Oh no, my lobster is too buttery and my steak is too juicy!”)
You’re not required to select products from only fund provider, of course—you can mix and match funds from numerous offerers. But some people prefer to buy all of their core portfolio holdings from one fund provider. That could be for any number of reasons; you might prefer one provider’s managers, for instance, or you might prefer the way their index funds are built.
Today, I’ll show you the benefits of keeping it all within the Schwab family, and how to go about it. Schwab ETFs only number around 30 or so, but they’re among the lowest-cost products on the market, and they largely tend to earn strong ratings from analysts who cover funds.
Let’s look at some of the best Schwab ETFs you can buy in 2026. I’ll touch on funds that address a variety of core investment needs, which each providing you access to hundreds if not thousands of securities within that space for a low annual cost.
Disclaimer: This article does not constitute individualized investment advice. Individual securities, funds, and/or other investments appear for your consideration and not as personalized investment recommendations. Act at your own discretion.
The Best Schwab ETFs to Buy Now
I’m writing this article about the best Schwab ETFs to buy if you’re trying to address basic portfolio needs across stocks and bonds.
I say that so you understand this isn’t an exhaustive list of every fund you’d want for, say, swing trading or day trading. It’s just a smart place to start if you want to build a buy-and-hold portfolio using Schwab ETFs.
In addition to important data information such as dividend yield and expense ratio, I’ve listed Morningstar’s Medalist and Star ratings for each ETF. Morningstar’s Medalist rating is a forward-looking analytical view of the fund, while Morningstar’s Star rating is a backward-looking view that measures a fund’s risk-adjusted return vs. its peers. Every fund on this list has a minimum Medalist rating of Silver and Star rating of 3 (out of 5), with one exception: a newer fund that has a qualifying Medalist rating but hasn’t yet received a Star rating.
1. Schwab U.S. Large-Cap ETF
- Style: U.S. large-cap stock
- Assets under management: $63.7 billion
- Dividend yield: 1.1%
- Expense ratio: 0.03%, or 30¢ annually on a $1,000 investment
- Morningstar Medalist rating: Gold
- Morningstar Star rating: 4 stars
American investors are commonly told to build their portfolio core around large-capitalization U.S. stocks*. That large-cap stock exposure will often come from an index fund tracking the S&P 500—a collection of 500 major U.S. businesses, and a proxy for the American stock market. That’s why three of the biggest fund providers—Vanguard, State Street, and BlackRock’s iShares—offer up ETFs that track this ubiquitous index.
Schwab doesn’t. Instead, it provides something similar with the Schwab U.S. Large-Cap ETF (SCHX). Rather than track the S&P 500, SCHX tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Large-Cap Total Stock Market Index.
Why not just offer an S&P 500 fund? Well, at the time SCHX was launched, using this index allowed Schwab to keep costs extremely low—at inception in 2009, SCHX was at least as cheap, if not cheaper, than any of the S&P 500 ETFs.
Schwab U.S. Large-Cap ETF holds 750 U.S. large-cap stocks, so you’re enjoying even broader exposure than what you’d receive from an S&P 500 ETF. Of course, 96% of the S&P 500’s stocks are in SCHX. Additionally, like S&P 500 trackers (and many other index funds), Schwab’s fund is “cap-weighted,” meaning the bigger the stock, the more of it SCHX holds—Nvidia (NVDA), Apple (AAPL), and Microsoft (MSFT) are currently top dogs. In fact, 92% of SCHX’s “weight” (the percentage of the fund’s assets dedicated to a specific holding) is placed in S&P 500 holdings.
In short: SCHX doesn’t track the S&P 500, but it’s really similar.
Since Schwab U.S. Large-Cap ETF launched, other fund providers have lowered the expenses on their S&P 500 ETFs, so while SCHX is still cheaper than many similar funds, it doesn’t have a cost edge over as many funds as it used to. Regardless, it remains one of Schwab’s best ETFs: a straightforward and dirt-cheap way to address one of the most crucial aspects of your portfolio.
* There are different ways to define “cap” levels. We’re adhering to Morningstar’s definition, which says the largest 70% of companies by market capitalization within a fund’s “style” are large caps, the next 20% by market cap are mid-caps, and the smallest 10% by market cap are small caps.
Want to learn more about SCHX? Check out the Schwab provider site.
Related: 11 Best Vanguard Funds for the Everyday Investor
2. Schwab U.S. Broad Market ETF
- Style: U.S. total market stock
- Assets under management: $38.5 billion
- Dividend yield: 1.1%
- Expense ratio: 0.03%, or 30¢ annually on a $1,000 investment
- Morningstar Medalist rating: Gold
- Morningstar Star rating: 3 stars
You’ll likely be told to hold more than just domestic large caps, of course. It’s also common to put at least a little money into the shares of U.S. mid- and small-cap companies. These firms tend to be less financially secure (and their stocks more volatile) than their bigger counterparts … but, historically speaking, they hold more upside potential for those willing to take on the risk.
You can buy these stocks (in fund form) in one of two ways:
- Purchase mid- and small-cap funds alongside your large-cap funds.
- Purchase a “total market” fund, which allows you to hold stocks of all sizes in one place.
The first option gives you more control of how much, or how little, you want to invest in stocks of each size. But the second option is by far the easier one, allowing you to invest in a diversified portfolio of various-sized stocks with a single click.
The Schwab U.S. Broad Market ETF (SCHB) is a way to achieve the latter. It owns more than 2,400 of the largest publicly traded U.S. companies. That figure includes virtually all U.S. large-cap stocks, sure, but also various amounts of mid- and small-sized equities. Right now, around 70% of SCHB’s portfolio is invested in large-cap stocks, 20% is dedicated to mid-caps, and the remaining 10% or so is invested in small companies.
Like most of the other Schwab ETFs on this list, SCHB is market cap-weighted, so stocks like Nvidia and Apple still have the most impact on the ETF’s performance. But you’re gaining more exposure to mid- and small-sized firms than you would by owning a fund like SCHX.
Want to learn more about SCHB? Check out the Schwab provider site.
Do you want to get serious about saving and planning for retirement? Sign up for Retire With Riley, Young and the Invested’s free retirement planning newsletter.
3. Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF
- Style: U.S. dividend stock
- Assets under management: $84.2 billion
- Dividend yield: 3.5%
- Expense ratio: 0.06%, or 60¢ annually on a $1,000 investment
- Morningstar Medalist rating: Gold
- Morningstar Star rating: 3 stars
Not all equity returns come from stock prices increasing—dividends often play an important role, too.
Dividends are cash payments that companies make to its shareholders. They’re a vital source of return for stocks, especially when prices are flat or down. They can be reinvested to compound your returns over time (over longer time periods, dividends have accounted for roughly 40% to 50% of equity returns). And once you hit retirement, that investment income can be used to pay your regular bills.
While you could try to get that exposure by picking individual dividend stocks, you could also diversify your risk across hundreds of payers via a dividend ETF like the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD).
This Schwab index ETF holds just over 100 dividend stocks selected for their high yields, track records of consistent dividend payments, and relative strength of their financial fundamentals. Specifically, SCHD requires holdings to have paid dividends for at least 10 consecutive years, and it measures them based on yield, five-year dividend growth rate, return on equity (RoE), and free cash flow (FCF)/total debt.
SCHD skews large-cap, at about 60% of the portfolio, but mids are well represented at more than 30% of assets. Small companies occupy the remaining sliver. The fund also holds a number of Dividend Aristocrats—companies that have raised their dividends on an annual basis for at least 25 consecutive years—such as Chevron (CVX) and PepsiCo (PEP). And it even holds a few Dividend Kings (50-plus years) including Coca-Cola (KO) and AbbVie (ABBV).
These holdings help SCHD throw off a sizable annual yield of well more than 3% currently, which is more than triple what you’d earn from holding an S&P 500 fund. Performance is admirable, too: “This simple, transparent strategy effectively identifies high-quality stocks at reasonable prices,” says Morningstar analyst Ryan Jackson. “[That] valuable balance … has helped the fund capably navigate drawdowns and remain competitive during most rallies.”
This all makes SCHD one of the best Schwab ETFs to buy if you want much higher-than-average yield while still paying a low fee.
Want to learn more about SCHD? Check out the Schwab provider site.
Related: 7 Best High-Yield Dividend ETFs for Income-Hungry Investors
4. Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Growth ETF
- Style: U.S. large-cap growth stock
- Assets under management: $50.3 billion
- Dividend yield: 0.4%
- Expense ratio: 0.04%, or 40¢ annually on a $1,000 investment
- Morningstar Medalist rating: Silver
- Morningstar Star rating: 5 stars
Investors who want to outperform the S&P 500 and other major indices often start gravitate toward growth stocks—companies expected to improve their revenues, earnings, and/or other performance metrics at a greater clip than their peers.
Of course, growth stocks sometimes offer a bumpier ride along the way. Investors are happy to bid growth stocks higher, often ignoring too-hot valuations, as long as future expectations remain high. However, if the growth story gets interrupted, those investors can flee just as quickly as they arrived.
Rather than gamble on one or two individual plays, then, some investors buy ETFs to spread that risk across a few hundred names.
The Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Growth ETF (SCHG) allows investors to do just that. SCHG tracks an index of companies that have been selected based on metrics including trailing revenue growth, trailing earnings growth, and projected earnings growth. The 200-stock portfolio is about 85% large-cap in nature, with virtually all of the remainder invested in (larger) midsized companies.
SCHG is pretty consistent with many growth funds in that a huge chunk of assets are parked in technology and tech-esque sectors. The technology sector itself accounts for almost half of this Schwab ETF’s assets; another quarter is split between communication services and consumer discretionary stocks.
While completely unremarkable from a portfolio construction point of view, SCHG is nonetheless one of the best Schwab ETFs you can buy because it has it where it counts: returns. While past performance isn’t a guarantee of future returns, it has done extremely well against its peers—SCHG’s trailing three-, five-, 10-, and 15-year returns are all in the top 20% (or better) of its Morningstar category.
Want to learn more about SCHG? Check out the Schwab provider site.
Related: 9 Best Fidelity Index Funds to Buy for 2026
5. Schwab Fundamental U.S. Large Company ETF
- Style: U.S. large-cap value stock
- Assets under management: $24.1 billion
- Dividend yield: 1.6%
- Expense ratio: 0.25%, or $2.50 annually on a $1,000 investment
- Morningstar Medalist rating: Silver
- Morningstar Star rating: 5 stars
Typically on the opposite side of growth stocks are value stocks: companies that the market is somehow undervaluing, based on one or more metrics, with the expectation that buyers will recognize that value and send shares higher.
Schwab has a value fund similar to the aforementioned SCHG: Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Value ETF (SCHV). However, I think a better Schwab fund for the task is the Schwab Fundamental U.S. Large Company ETF (FNDX).
SCHV is similar to SCHG in that it’s a market cap-weighted group of stocks that exhibit value characteristics. The index FNDX tracks, however, evaluates stocks differently: “It selects, ranks, and weights securities by fundamental measures of company size—adjusted sales, retained operating cash flow, and dividends plus buybacks—rather than market capitalization.”
The resulting portfolio is 710 stocks wide. While 60% of assets are invested in large caps, you still get significant exposure to mid-caps (30%) and some exposure to smalls (10%). Top sectors include technology, financial services, health care, communication services, and industrials, all of which enjoy double-digit weightings at the moment.
There’s nothing special about that. Where FNDX’s selection process shines is that it boasts equivalent (and sometimes even better) valuation metrics compared to SCHV, as well as superior performance over time.
To wit, Schwab Fundamental U.S. Large Company ETF has outperformed Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Value ETF over every meaningful time frame since inception in 2013. Meanwhile, as I write this, FNDX’s portfolio price-to-earnings (P/E), price-to-book (P/B), price-to-sales (P/S), and price-to-cash flow (P/CF) are all lower than SCHV. That makes it one of the best (if not the best) Schwab ETFs to buy if you’re looking too add a value strategy to your portfolio.
Want to learn more about FNDX? Check out the Schwab provider site.
Make Young and the Invested your preferred news source on Google
Simply go to your preferences page and select the ✓ box for Young and the Invested. Once you’ve made this update, you’ll see Young and the Invested show up more often in Google’s “Top Stories” feed, as well as in a dedicated “From Your Sources” section on Google’s search results page.
6. Schwab International Equity ETF
- Style: International large-cap stock
- Assets under management: $60.8 billion
- Dividend yield: 3.2%
- Expense ratio: 0.03%, or 30¢ annually on a $1,000 investment
- Morningstar Medalist rating: Silver
- Morningstar Star rating: 4 stars
Up until now, every Schwab ETF I’ve talked about has focused on U.S. companies.
America’s stock markets have long been among the best-performing on the planet. Thus, most advisers will tell you to put the lion’s share of your assets into owning U.S.-based stocks and bonds.
But those same advisors will also typically tell you to get a little geographic diversification, too. The U.S. might not carry the torch every single year, and having international exposure might help smooth out rough patches when American stocks struggle. (And in some cases, like 2025, they outperform even when U.S. equities shine.)
The Schwab International Equity ETF (SCHF) is an extremely low-cost way to do so, at just 0.03% annually. It holds a broad selection of about 1,500 equities of companies domiciled outside the U.S., with most of those coming from developed-market countries such as Japan, the U.K., Canada, and France.
Like many ETFs heavy in developed-nation exposure, SCHF is loaded with blue chips; large companies enjoy an 85% weight, with virtually all the rest of assets dedicated to mid-caps. Developed-market stocks tend to offer higher dividends on average than their American counterparts; holdings such as SAP (SAP), HSBC Holdings (HSBC), and Nestlé (NSRGY) contribute to a fund yield that’s about thrice what the S&P 500 pays.
Want to learn more about SCHF? Check out the Schwab provider site.
Related: The 11 Best Fidelity Funds You Can Own
7. Schwab U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF
- Style: U.S. intermediate core bond
- Assets under management: $10.1 billion
- SEC yield: 4.1%*
- Expense ratio: 0.03%, or 30¢ annually on a $1,000 investment
- Morningstar Medalist rating: Gold
- Morningstar Star rating: 3 stars
Investors are also told to allocate some of their nest egg to bonds, which serve a very different purpose than stocks.
With stocks, price changes are the primary driver of returns—you can receive dividend income, too, but in general, you’re expected to get more performance from the stock growing in value. But bonds tend to be much less volatile and mostly trade around a “par” value. Instead, their performance largely comes from the interest income they generate. As a result, younger investors are told to invest almost exclusively in stocks, then slowly raise their allocation to bonds as they get older, as they shift from wealth creation to wealth preservation.
You could hold individual bonds, but they’re even more difficult to assess than stocks, and it’s much more difficult to find publicly available information and analysis on them. So, many investors buy a bond fund instead and let a fund manager or index do the heavy lifting.
The Schwab U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (SCHZ), for instance, gets you under a vast umbrella of nearly 12,000 bonds and other debt securities in just one click. It’s a diversified portfolio largely made up of U.S. Treasury bonds, corporate bonds, and mortgage-backed securities, all of which have earned ratings within the “investment-grade” spectrum of debt. SCHZ’s holdings also span a wide number of maturities, from just a few months to more than 20 years.
SCHZ has a portfolio duration of 5.8 years. Duration is a measure of interest-rate risk—in this ETF’s case, a duration of 5.8 years implies that if interest rates fell by a percentage point, SCHZ’s price would enjoy a short-term improvement of 5.8% (and vice versa). Remember: Bond prices and interest rates have an inverse relationship.
If you’re building a basic portfolio, SCHZ is one of the best Schwab ETFs to buy to get essential debt exposure. It’s is not a scintillating fund (few bond funds are!), but it offers a moderate level of income for a moderate amount of risk.
* SEC yield reflects the interest earned across the most recent 30-day period. This is a standard measure for funds holding bonds and preferred stocks.
Want to learn more about SCHZ? Check out the Schwab provider site.
Related: The 10 Best Vanguard Index Funds to Buy in 2026
8. Schwab Short-Term U.S. Treasury ETF
- Style: U.S. short-term government bond
- Assets under management: $11.7 billion
- SEC yield: 3.5%
- Expense ratio: 0.03%, or 30¢ annually on a $1,000 investment
- Morningstar Medalist rating: Gold
- Morningstar Star rating: 3 stars
As a general rule, the longer a bond’s maturity, the higher the risk. Think about it: If you buy a two-year bond from a financially strong company, you’ll be pretty confident it can repay that bond in full. But if you buy a 20-year bond from that same company … sure, you might still have plenty of faith in the company, but 20 years is a lot longer for something to go wrong. As a result, issuers typically have to offer higher yields to convince investors to take that added risk.
Thus, short-term bond funds typically offer investors a relatively safe place to invest while earning a modest amount of income.
The Schwab Short-Term U.S. Treasury ETF (SCHO) further ratchets down risk by holding only short-term debt from the U.S. Treasury—an institution that enjoys some of the highest debt ratings on the planet given their long history of paying back its debtors. This Schwab ETF currently invests in almost 100 different Treasury issues with an average maturity of two years. And it has a duration of just 1.9 years, meaning if interest rates rose a full percentage point, SCHO’s price would decline by a mere 1.9%.
Also worth noting: The “yield curve” was inverted (meaning short-term rates were higher than long-term rates) for a two-year stretch that started in 2022. While the inversion ended in 2024, SCHO still offers a yield of 3.5% that’s mighty competitive given its relatively modest risk profile. That’s only a little less yield than SCHZ, which has a significantly longer average maturity and a much higher level of interest-rate risk.
Want to learn more about SCHO? Check out the Schwab provider site.
Related: What Is a Roth Conversion? [A Tax-Smart Retirement Strategy]
9. Schwab High Yield Bond ETF
- Style: U.S. high-yield corporate bond
- Assets under management: $2.3 billion
- SEC yield: 6.5%
- Expense ratio: 0.03%, or 30¢ annually on a $1,000 investment
- Morningstar Medalist rating: Gold
- Morningstar Star rating: N/A*
The major credit rating agencies (Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch) have a spectrum of grades that helps bond investors understand the likelihood that they’ll receive their initial capital, and interest, back in full. The higher grades collectively are referred to as “investment grade,” while those below are cleverly referred to as … well, “below investment grade.”
Bonds in this category are considered to have a greater risk of default, so there’s an elevated amount of risk—which is why below-investment-grade bonds are also referred to as “junk.”
That’s not to say that you can’t or even shouldn’t invest in below-investment-grade bonds. Many people do, and they might be right for you. Because in exchange for that higher risk, these bonds have to offer higher yields to attract investors, hence these debt issues are also referred to as “high-yield bonds.”
The Schwab High Yield Bond ETF (SCYB) is one of the most cost-effective ways to gain exposure to these bonds.
For all of 3 basis points (a basis point is one one-hundredth of a percentage point), Schwab High Yield Bond provides access to a portfolio of more than 1,800 corporate bonds with composite ratings of BB (the highest junk grade) or below. SCYB invests more than 55% of its assets in BB-rated bonds, another 30%-plus in B-rated securities, around 10% in CCC debt, and the small remainder in “unrated” issues. (Unrated securities aren’t rated by the major agencies, but that doesn’t imply that their grades would be any higher or lower than the rated bonds SCYB chooses to hold.)
The relatively high credit-quality risk is tamped down by short maturities; more than 70% of the portfolio has a remaining maturity of five years or less. That filters down to a moderate duration of just 2.9 years for SCYB. And at a yield of well north of 6% right now, you’re getting a lot more income than you’d get out of similarly dated but higher-quality bonds.
* SCYB was launched in July 2023. Morningstar has not yet assigned a star rating to this ETF.
Want to learn more about SCYB? Check out the Schwab provider site.
Do you want to get serious about saving and planning for retirement? Sign up for Retire With Riley, Young and the Invested’s free retirement planning newsletter.
Want to talk more about your financial goals or concerns? Our services include comprehensive financial planning, investment management, estate planning, taxes, and more! Schedule a call with Riley to discuss what you need, and what we can do for you.
How Do You Invest in Schwab ETFs?
Once you know which Schwab ETFs you want to invest in, buying them couldn’t be easier.
As long as you have a brokerage account that allows you to buy ETFs that trade on a major U.S. exchange (which is the vast majority of brokerage accounts), you simply pop in the ticker and buy your desired number of shares.
That’s literally it.
If you’re asking us, Young and the Invested’s highest-rated brokerages include Robinhood, Webull, and Moomoo. But you can get Schwab ETFs through E*Trade, Fidelity, Schwab (of course), Vanguard, and many, many other brokerages.
Related: Buy ‘The Future’: 5 Tech Stock ETFs You Should Own in 2026
Learn More About These and Other Funds With Morningstar Investor
If you’re buying a fund you plan on holding for years (if not forever), you want to know you’re making the right selection. And Morningstar Investor can help you do that.
Morningstar Investor provides a wealth of information and comparable data points about mutual funds and ETFs—fees, risk, portfolio composition, performance, distributions, and more. Morningstar experts also provide detailed explanations and analysis of many of the funds the site covers.
With Morningstar Investor, you’ll enjoy a wealth of features, including Morningstar Portfolio X-Ray®, stock and fund watchlists, news and commentary, screeners, and more. And you can try it before you buy it. Right now, Morningstar Investor is offering a free seven-day trial and a discount on your first year’s subscription when you use our exclusive link.
- Morningstar Investor offers expert research, investing analysis, and advisor-grade portfolio management tools that are tailor-made for buy-and-hold investors.
- Morningstar is one of the most prized sources of mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) data in the world.
- How does your portfolio stack up? Put it through Morningstar's Portfolio X-Ray, which will provide insights such as whether you have too many overlapping holdings or whether you're paying too much in fees.
- Special Offer 1: Click our sign-up link to receive $50 off your first year of Morningstar Investor. (Annual plan only.)
- Special Offer 2: Students receive one year of Morningstar Investor access for just $25!
- Special Offer 3: Teachers receive a 60% discount on Morningstar Investor access.
- Top-flight fund research and analysis
- Portfolio management tool
- Powerful screener
- Watchlists
- Tailored news and commentary
- Below-average charting
- High monthly billing rate
