Australian ETF market predicted to grow to over $400b

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor/Publisher, Financial Newswire

14 January 2026

There are currently 65 issuers of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) in Australia but the more than $300 billion market remains dominated by the big three – Vanguard, Betashares and iShares.

The latest Betashares ETF Review covering 2025 has confirmed the three companies on their own account for over 70% of industry flows.

According to the review, the Australian ETF industry closed the year with an all-time high in funds under management  with the total industry market capitalisation sitting at $330.6 billion, representing 34.2% year on year growth.

It said the industry grew $84.3 billion in 2025 which represented an industry record in terms of annual growth in dollar terms.

The Betashares analysis said all major asset classes broke records in terms of net flows during the year with investors favouring International Equities, followed by Australian Equities and then Fixed Income ETFs.

It said Gold ETFs also had their best year on record in terms of inflows, receiving $1.8 billion in 2025 – passing the previous record set in 2020.

▪ International equities ETFs remained in first place receiving $20.9B of net inflows (v. $15.1B in 2024)

▪ Australian Equities ETFs came in 2nd with $13.2B in flows (v. $7.1B in 2024)

▪ Fixed Income ETFs came in 3rd, with $11.6B received. (v. $6.1B in 2024)

In terms of performance it said that gold miner and energy transition metal ETFs that topped the tables.

The Betashares analysis congratulated itself for its prediction with respect to 2025.

“In our year-end report for 2024, we wrote: “Looking ahead, we expect the ETF industry will exceed $300B by the end of 2025 should market conditions remain positive.” While we were correct regarding positive inflows and market growth, we again underestimated the scale of net flows by some margin, while market conditions assisted the growth in market size,” it said.

With respect to 2026, we believe the ETF industry will pass $400B during 2026 with monthly inflows to remain consistently above $5B. We also forecast that the industry will exceed $500 billion during 2028 –although it’s increasingly likely that this may even occur in 2027,” it said.