In recent days, the competition between the USA and Europe has not only a political dimension, but thanks to the latest report on the ETF industry, also a financial one. According to the data, 2025 showed that although the Old Continent was breaking its own industry records and becoming more and more entrenched in the bastion of sustainable development, the American ETF fund machine operated on a scale that remains unattainable for Europe for now.
The report prepared by the ETFGI research company indicates a record year for the European ETF sector, which value of assets at the end of December 2025 reached a historic pointlevel 3.22 trillion dollars. Their total value increased by 41.8% compared to the end of 2024.
Record inflows and high concentration in Europe
The industry has taken note highest annual net inflows on record, $396.84 billion. This result significantly exceeded the previous records set in 2024 (USD 270.42 billion) and 2021 (USD 193.46 billion). What is equally important, the trend in inflows is very stable, because December 2025 was the 39th month in a rowwhich recorded positive capital inflows.
The European ETF market remains highly concentrated. At the end of 2025 the three largest suppliers combined to control 63.3% of all assets. iShares (BlackRock) maintained its leadership position with assets of USD 1.30 trillion and a market share of 40.4%. Second place was taken by Amundi ETF with assets of USD 401.74 billion (12.5% share). Xtrackers (DWS) was in third place, managing USD 336.21 billion (10.4% share). The ETF industry in Europe included a total of 3,543 products from 142 suppliers.
The US ETF market is in a different league
That's all about Europe for now, but ETFGI also prepared the same report about the largest ETF market in the world in the USA. The numbers there are truly shocking, and they certainly beat the statistics from Europe for 2025 several times. Firstly, in The USA was also a year of records. The value of assets at the end of December reached USD 13.43 trillion. This means an increase of 29.8% per year. The industry offered investors 4,883 products from 460 suppliers.
They were historic too capital inflows because investors invested a record net amount in ETF funds amounting to USD 1.50 trillion throughout the year. This surpassed previous records of $1.17 trillion in 2024 and $919.77 billion in 2021. December 2025 marked the 44th consecutive month in which the industry recorded positive net inflows.
There was market concentration in the USA even greater than in EuropeThe market remains strongly focused around the so-called The “Big Three”, which together control 72.1% of all assets. It consisted of iShares (BlackRock) with assets of USD 3.99 trillion (29.7% of the market share), Vanguard with assets of USD 3.86 trillion (28.7% of the share) and State Street SPDR with assets of USD 1.83 trillion (13.7% of the market share).
A broad context of ETF market size
The US ETF industry, measured by asset value, accounted for 67.65% of the global ETF market, whose assets reached $19.85 trillion at the end of the year after an increase of 33.7% y/y. According to the ETFGI report, global
the offer included 15,807 products from 967 suppliers. Total the global net inflow in 2025 was $2.37 trillion which is the highest value in history. December was the 79th month in a row of positive net inflows to ETFs.
The three largest ETFs in the world track the same index of US large-cap companies (S&P500). The largest remains the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, with $833.23 billion in assets under management. Next was the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF with assets of USD 752.50 billion, and third place was the good old “spider”, i.e. SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, the oldest fund of this type, which at the end of 2025 had assets worth USD 711.35 billion.
These were, of course, also the largest ETFs in the US. And what was it like in Europe? The largest funds are iShares Core S&P 500 UCITS ETF USD, which managed assets worth USD 120 billion, and iShares Core MSCI World UCITS ETF with assets of USD 112 billion.. The first is the largest European ETF tracking the American S&P 500 index, the second gives broad exposure to developed markets.
Interestingly, according to Morningstar's regular reports, such as “Global Sustainable Fund Flows”, approximately 80% of global sustainable development assets are in the hands of European managers, which makes Europe a real bastion of sustainable investments using ETFs.
Gold ETF in the US and Europe
Given the boom in the precious metals market, it is worth mentioning the largest gold funds in Europe and the USA (in the world).. On the Old Continent, it was iShares Physical Gold ETC with assets amounting to USD 33.67 billion. In the USA (and around the world), the undisputed leader in terms of assets among ETFs with exposure to gold is the popular SPDR Gold Shares. At the end of 2025, the fund managed assets worth USD 145.0 billion.
Summing up the ETF markets in the US and Europe in terms of managed assets, there is a huge gap to be made up by European funds. However, 2025 showed that the growth rate of assets in Europe in 2025 (41.8%) was higher than in the USA (29.8%), which may suggest an attempt to catch up.
