As of . Rebuilt every trading night.
The cheapest defense ETFs
A fee is one fact and not a verdict on the fund. Where the funds on a theme hold different companies, the cheapest is not even the same bet, and the holdings are on the theme page.
| # | Ticker | Fund | Fee | Net assets | Weight in S&P 500 companies | Total return, 1Y |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AV | Corgi Aerospace & Commercial Aviation ET | 0.35% | $773,395 | 66.3% | too new |
| 2 | NATO | Themes Transatlantic Defense ETF | 0.35% | $95m | 58.4% | +0.6% |
| 3 | XAR | State Street(R) SPDR(R) S&P(R) Aerospace | 0.35% | $6.1bn | 34.9% | +6.0% |
| 4 | XDEF | Xtrackers Europe Defense Technologies ET | 0.35% | $4m | 0.0% | too new |
| 5 | ITA | iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF | 0.37% | $12.5bn | 79.3% | +5.6% |
| 6 | DUTY | U.S. Defense ETF | 0.45% | $2m | 61.8% | too new |
| 7 | WDAF | WisdomTree Asia Defense Fund | 0.45% | $12m | 0.0% | −1.4% |
| 8 | WDEF | WisdomTree Europe Defense Fund | 0.45% | $83m | 0.0% | −7.6% |
| 9 | WDGF | WisdomTree Global Defense Fund | 0.45% | $5m | 34.9% | −0.4% |
| 10 | FOWF | Pacer Solactive Whitney Future of Warfar | 0.49% | $15m | 73.5% | +12.7% |
| 11 | EUAD | Select STOXX Europe Aerospace & Defense | 0.50% | $1.2bn | 0.0% | −4.4% |
| 12 | SHLD | Global X Defense Tech ETF | 0.50% | $7.1bn | 39.9% | −5.1% |
| 13 | PPA | Invesco Aerospace & Defense ETF | 0.58% | $7.6bn | 71.7% | +6.0% |
| 14 | MISL | First Trust Indxx Aerospace & Defense ET | 0.60% | $704m | 62.4% | +6.4% |
| 15 | WAR | U.S. Global Technology and Aerospace & D | 0.60% | $41m | 38.3% | too new |
Method
The 20 of 22 ETFs in the defense theme that publish an expense ratio, cheapest first. Across the funds listed here the annual fee runs from 0.3% to 0.6%. A fee is the one number a fund controls and the one a holder pays whatever happens. The ranking is the published field sorted, nothing else: no scoring, no weighting and no view on any fund. Every fund ETFIQ covers in this category is eligible, including funds that have closed, because leaving them out would flatter the category.
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Where these figures came from
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A ranking is not a recommendation and no order on this site is an opinion. ETFIQ is an independent publisher, not an adviser. Standards and sources
Cite this page. ETFIQ, The cheapest defense ETFs, ranked by the annual fee the fund charges, data as of Sep 18, 2026. https://etfiq.com/rankings/themes-cheapest-defense Free to use with attribution; the underlying files are at Open data.