The Best REIT ETFs to Buy in 2026

A REIT ETF bundles dozens (or hundreds) of publicly traded real estate investment trusts into a single ticker you can buy on any stock exchange. Instead of picking individual REITs and managing concentrated bets, you get diversified real estate exposure in one trade - with full liquidity and no property management headaches.

Most REIT ETFs hold equity REITs, which own physical properties like apartment buildings, data centers, cell towers, and warehouses. Some include mortgage REITs (which hold real estate loans rather than property directly). One fund on this list, REET, adds international exposure across Japan, Australia, the U.K., and more.

The practical advantage mirrors buying an S&P 500 index fund instead of picking 10 stocks yourself: automatic diversification, automatic rebalancing, and a small annual fee for the convenience.

The five funds below were selected based on expense ratio, dividend yield, assets under management (AUM), number of holdings, and the index each fund tracks. Some prioritize rock-bottom fees. Others lean toward higher income or international diversification. The table gives you a quick side-by-side before the deeper dive on each fund.

VNQ is the default REIT ETF for most investors. With $34.8 billion in assets under management, it is the largest REIT ETF in the world - and that scale translates directly into liquidity: tight bid-ask spreads, massive daily volume, and minimal slippage when you buy or sell.

The fund tracks the MSCI U.S. Investable Market Real Estate 25/50 Index and holds over 160 REITs across 17 property subsectors: cell towers, warehouses, data centers, apartments, healthcare, retail, and more. Expense ratio: 0.12%. Dividend yield: ~3.8%.

One caveat: VNQ is market-cap weighted, so its top holdings - Prologis, American Tower, Equinix - carry outsized influence. That is not necessarily bad (these are best-in-class REITs), but it means more concentration at the top than 160+ holdings might suggest.

SCHH charges just 0.07% annually - the cheapest REIT ETF on this list. The fund tracks the Dow Jones Equity All REIT Capped Index, holds 124 positions, and excludes mortgage REITs entirely, giving you pure equity REIT exposure.

The dividend yield comes in around 3.06%, slightly lower than VNQ's - partly because higher-yielding mortgage REITs are excluded.

The fee gap sounds trivial, but it is not. On a $50,000 investment compounding at 7% annually over 30 years, choosing SCHH over RWR saves you roughly $3,000 in fees. For long-term, cost-conscious investors, that math is hard to argue with.

USRT is BlackRock's answer to the low-cost REIT ETF space, with an expense ratio of 0.08% and over 130 holdings tracking the FTSE Nareit Equity REITs 40 Act Capped Index. AUM sits above $2 billion.

The FTSE Nareit index uses a slightly different methodology than the indexes behind VNQ and SCHH - in practice, USRT tends to have a bit more exposure to mid-cap and smaller REITs, which smooths out the top-heavy concentration you see in VNQ.

USRT is the middle-ground pick: not the absolute cheapest, not the largest, but a broadly diversified, ultra-low-cost option - especially well-suited for investors already in the iShares ecosystem. Compare the best ETFs to buy if you want to see how different fund types stack up.

REET is the only fund on this list that goes beyond U.S. borders. It tracks the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Global REIT Index and holds REITs from the U.S., Japan, Australia, the U.K., Singapore, and other developed markets - giving you genuine international real estate exposure in one fund.

With $4.44 billion in AUM and an expense ratio of 0.14%, REET's standout number is its dividend yield: 5.91% - the highest on this list by a wide margin. That premium comes partly from international REITs (which tend to distribute more) and partly from some mortgage REIT inclusion.

The tradeoff is currency risk. When the U.S. dollar strengthens against the yen or the pound, your returns from foreign holdings shrink in dollar terms. Explore more international ETF options if global diversification is a priority.

RWR is the elder statesman of REIT ETFs - State Street's original fund, tracking the Dow Jones U.S. Select REIT Index with around $1.7 billion in AUM and a dividend yield of approximately 3.9%.

The main drawback is cost. At 0.25%, RWR's expense ratio is more than triple SCHH's and roughly double VNQ's - with no consistent performance advantage to justify the premium.

RWR suits investors who specifically want State Street's fund structure, value the long track record for backtesting, or already consolidate their holdings with SPDR. For everyone else, VNQ or SCHH offers similar exposure at a significantly lower price.

Here is the biggest tax detail most REIT ETF investors miss: dividends are taxed as ordinary income, not at the preferential 15-20% qualified dividend rate. If you are in the 24% federal bracket, that is what you will pay on every distribution - which meaningfully reduces after-tax returns compared to holding a dividend ETF that qualifies for the lower rate.

There is a partial offset. Under Section 199A of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, individual investors may be able to deduct up to 20% of qualified REIT dividends from their taxable income. The deduction has eligibility thresholds and is set to expire unless Congress extends it - worth confirming with a tax professional.

The smartest move for most investors is to hold REIT ETFs inside a tax-advantaged account. In a taxable account, capital gains on ETF share sales are still taxed at the standard long-term rate if held over 12 months. Learn more about the tax advantages of ETFs to compare how different fund types stack up.

REITs are having a strong start to 2026, outperforming the broader equity market by roughly 10% year-to-date. Data center and industrial REITs are the primary drivers - fueled by the massive AI infrastructure build-out and continued e-commerce demand for warehouse space. Companies like Equinix and Prologis are signing long-term leases with the world's largest tech firms, and that revenue visibility is showing up in valuations.

Interest rates remain the single biggest variable for the sector. REITs tend to struggle when rates rise sharply and recover when rates stabilize or decline. The current environment of moderating rate volatility has been a tailwind.

For most portfolios, REIT ETFs work best as a 5-15% allocation - adding real estate income and sector diversification that is not correlated with tech-heavy indexes like the S&P 500. Our guide on how to build an ETF portfolio walks through the allocation process step by step.