BorderFolio/Irish-domiciled ETF alternatives
Irish-domiciled UCITS alternatives to US ETFs
Last reviewed 25 September 2026
This is a map, not an essay. Each row below takes a US-domiciled ETF, names the Irish-domiciled UCITS funds that stand in for it, says plainly whether the index is actually the same one, and links to the page where the arithmetic is worked out. Two rows — VTI and SCHD — exist to record that no equivalent exists, because that is the answer people most often arrive looking for and least often get straight.
On this page
The routing map
| US fund | Index it tracks | Irish-domiciled route | Same index? | Worked comparison |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| QQQ | Nasdaq-100 | CNDX (acc), EQQQ (dist) | Yes — identical | QQQ alternatives · QQQ vs CNDX |
| SPY | S&P 500 | SPYL / SPY5, CSPX, VUAA / VUSA | Yes — identical | SPY alternatives |
| VOO | S&P 500 | CSPX (acc), VUAA (acc), VUSA (dist) | Yes — identical | VOO vs CSPX · VOO vs VUAA |
| VT | FTSE Global All Cap | VWRA / VWCE — FTSE All-World | Close, not identical — All-World is large and mid cap only | VT vs VWRA |
| VTI | CRSP US Total Market | No clone. S&P 500 UCITS, an MSCI USA UCITS, or either plus a US small-cap sleeve | No — every route is a narrower or differently-built index | VTI alternatives |
| SCHD | Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 | No clone. FUSD, DGRA, UDVD as nearest by intent | No — each applies a different dividend screen | SCHD alternatives |
Tickers and share classes as published by the issuers in September 2026. Funds change share classes, listings and fees; the factsheet is the authority, not this page.
Where the index really is the same
For QQQ, SPY and VOO the exposure question does not arise. The Nasdaq-100 and the S&P 500 are licensed to several issuers, so an Irish fund can hold the identical constituents in the identical weights. The decision is then purely about the wrapper — fee, distribution policy, withholding and estate treatment — and nothing about what you own changes.
VT is the one row where the answer is "close". VWRA tracks FTSE All-World, which covers large and mid caps; VT tracks FTSE Global All Cap, which reaches further down into small caps. The overlap is most of the money and the tracking difference is small, but it is not an identical index, and the VT vs VWRA comparison works through what that costs alongside the fee gap.
Where there is no clone
Two popular US funds have no UCITS counterpart tracking their index, and no amount of searching will produce one:
- VTI. No UCITS ETF tracks the CRSP US Total Market Index. The S&P 500 is the usual stand-in and covers roughly 80% of US market value; an MSCI USA fund reaches about 85%; getting closer means holding a small-cap fund alongside, which is a portfolio you rebalance rather than a fund you buy. The VTI page lays out each route and what it actually misses.
- SCHD. Schwab has no UCITS range, and no European issuer tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100. The nearest Irish funds screen US dividend payers on different criteria and land on different holdings and different yields. The SCHD page compares them by intent rather than pretending they are substitutes.
In both cases the useful question is not "which fund is the equivalent" but "which part of the original am I willing to give up" — and that is a different question for an income investor than for an indexer.
What the wrapper changes, and what it does not
Across every row above, the same four things are at stake. Three of them are the reason the Irish wrapper exists; one is the reason it is not automatic.
- Availability. Retail brokers in the EEA and the UK decline orders for US-domiciled ETFs, because those funds do not publish the Key Information Document PRIIPs requires. For most European readers this settles the matter before any arithmetic starts.
- US estate situs. A US-domiciled fund is a US-situs asset. For a non-US, non-resident estate, US-situs holdings above USD 60,000 can attract US estate tax at rates reaching 40% on the excess, unless an estate tax treaty raises that threshold — and the US has estate treaties with relatively few countries. An Irish-domiciled UCITS is not US-situs for this purpose. This is categorical, not a percentage.
- Withholding. A physically replicating Irish fund suffers 15% US withholding inside the fund under the US–Ireland treaty. A US fund's distribution is US-source income taxed at your own treaty rate on the whole amount — 15% for many countries, 30% with no treaty or no paperwork on file. Your residence's rate is a published number.
- Fees, which can point the other way. The withholding saving scales with yield; the fee gap does not. On the Nasdaq-100, yielding well under 1%, the fee difference can exceed the withholding saving outright — so the US fund wins on annual drag even for a no-treaty holder. This is why there is a page per fund rather than one rule.
To put your own numbers against it rather than a worked example, the US ETF vs UCITS calculator takes an amount, a yield and a residence and shows fee drag against withholding drag. The general mechanics — both withholding layers, estate treatment, accumulating versus distributing — are set out in US ETFs vs Irish UCITS, and the assumptions behind the estimates are in the withholding methodology.
Once you hold both sides of a switch
Anyone who moves from a US fund to its UCITS counterpart ends up holding the old position and the new one, usually across two brokers and two currencies, with a contribution history that spans the change. Neither withholding layer shows up on a brokerage statement — the 15% suffered inside an Irish fund is deducted before the fund is paid, and never appears anywhere. BorderFolio estimates it per instrument, from the domicile of each fund you actually hold against the tax residence you configure, on your real dividend history rather than a hypothetical $100,000.
Limitations
- This page routes; it does not recommend. Naming the fund that tracks an index is not a view on whether you should hold it.
- Fund data ages. Tickers, share classes, listings and fees are as published in September 2026. The factsheet is the authority.
- The second tax step is residence-specific. What your own country charges on the dividend, whether it gives a credit for tax withheld, and how it treats accumulating funds are not modelled here.
- Not advice. This is an informational comparison of fund structures, not a recommendation to buy or sell any of them. See the investment & tax disclaimer.
Common questions
Which US ETFs have an exact Irish-domiciled UCITS equivalent?
Index-for-index equivalents exist where the index is licensed to more than one issuer. QQQ's Nasdaq-100 is tracked by CNDX and EQQQ; the S&P 500 behind SPY and VOO is tracked by SPYL, CSPX and VUAA. VT is close but not exact — VWRA tracks FTSE All-World, which is large and mid cap, while VT tracks FTSE Global All Cap, which adds small caps. VTI and SCHD have no UCITS fund tracking their index at all.
Why would an international investor use the Irish fund instead of the US one?
Three reasons, only one of which is about annual cost. Availability: retail brokers in the EEA and the UK block US-domiciled ETFs because they do not publish a PRIIPs Key Information Document. Estate exposure: US-domiciled funds are US-situs assets, and a non-resident estate holding more than USD 60,000 of them can face US estate tax at rates reaching 40% on the excess unless a treaty raises the threshold. Withholding: an Irish fund suffers 15% inside the fund on US dividends under the US–Ireland treaty, which beats the 30% a no-treaty holder pays on a US fund's distribution — but at a low yield that saving can be smaller than the fee difference.
Is the Irish-domiciled fund always the better choice?
No. The withholding saving scales with yield, and the fee difference does not. On a low-yielding index such as the Nasdaq-100, the fee gap can outrun the withholding saving and the US fund wins on annual drag. What does not depend on yield is availability and US estate situs, and those are categorical rather than arithmetic. The honest answer is per fund and per residence, which is why each route above has its own worked page.