Top 10 ETFs in India 2026: Screened on Cost, Size, Tracking and Liquidity

On cost, size, tracking and liquidity (AMFI and NSE data, late September 2026), the large-cap leaders are ICICI Prudential Nifty 50 ETF and Kotak Nifty 50 ETF at about 0.03% a year, effectively tied with ICICI Prudential BSE Sensex ETF. HDFC Nifty Smallcap 250 ETF is the only small-cap ETF that passes. The full top 10, one or two per use case, is in the table further down.

Every ETF that tracks the same index earns almost the same return, so ranking by last year's return tells you very little. What does differ between two Nifty 50 ETFs is how much they charge, how closely they follow the index, how big they are and how easily you can buy and sell them. This page screens India's ETFs on exactly those four things.

It is a screen, not a recommendation. It tells you which ETFs are cheapest and best run within each use case. It does not tell you which use case suits you, or whether you should own any of them. For background on how ETFs work, start at our ETF guides hub. For the full catalogue of about 200 ETFs with cost and size data, see our list of ETFs in India.

The Screen: Four Steps

The same four steps apply to every use case. Commodity, debt and international ETFs cannot meet the equity tracking threshold, so their thresholds are stated in each section and apply only there.

1. Size: assets under management (AUM) above ₹1,000 crore at the end of August 2026. Bigger ETFs tend to have more market-maker support and less risk of being merged or closed. The bar is relaxed to ₹500 crore for mid caps and ₹100 crore for small caps, because very few ETFs in those categories are larger.
2. Tracking: AMFI's one-year annualised tracking error below 0.10% for equity index ETFs (AMFI disclosure dated 25 September 2026). Tracking error measures how unevenly an ETF follows its index.
3. Liquidity: an average of at least ₹1 crore a day traded on NSE over the 20 sessions from 31 August to 28 September 2026. This is a pass/fail check, not a ranking key.
4. Cost: among the ETFs that pass steps 1 to 3, the ranking is by the lowest total expense ratio (TER) filed with AMFI for September 2026. The cheapest two or three are the "screen leaders".

Things the screen does not use: past returns (all trackers of one index return about the same), the fund house's brand, and tax. TERs can change daily and trading volumes change month to month, so treat every figure below as a snapshot with the date attached.

1. Large-Cap Core: Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex ETFs

This is the biggest and cheapest part of the ETF market. All eleven ETFs below pass the screen, so the decision comes down to cost and trading volume.

TER: AMFI total TER, latest daily filing 22–28 Sep 2026. AUM: 31 Aug 2026 month-end. Tracking error: AMFI, 1-year annualised, 25 Sep 2026. Traded value: NSE bhavcopy, 20-session average, 31 Aug–28 Sep 2026.

Screen leaders: ICICI Prudential Nifty 50 ETF (NIFTYIETF), Kotak Nifty 50 ETF (NIFTY1) and ICICI Prudential BSE Sensex ETF (SENSEXIETF), all at about 0.03%. They are effectively tied. A gap of 0.01 to 0.02 percentage points in TER is smaller than one day's bid-ask spread on a thinly traded ETF, so trading volume matters as much as the TER here. The most traded pass by far is Nippon India ETF Nifty 50 BeES (NIFTYBEES), at about ₹162 crore a day for a TER of 0.04%. The largest is SBI Nifty 50 ETF, at ₹2.14 lakh crore.

Two big Sensex ETFs, SBI BSE Sensex ETF and Nippon India ETF BSE Sensex, had no NSE listing in the data, so they fail the NSE liquidity check by construction. If you prefer an index fund to an ETF for this slot, our Nifty 50 index fund comparison covers the same index without a demat account.

2. Nifty Next 50 ETFs

Same sources and dates as the large-cap table.

Screen leaders: Mirae Asset Nifty Next 50 ETF (NEXT50, 0.14%), SBI Nifty Next 50 ETF (SETFNN50, 0.15%) and UTI Nifty Next 50 ETF (NEXT50BETA, 0.18%). Junior BeES costs more but trades about ₹26 crore a day, far more than the others. ICICI's Next 50 ETF misses only on tracking error (0.13%).

3. Mid-Cap ETFs

Only two mid-cap ETFs are above ₹1,000 crore, so the size floor here is ₹500 crore.

Same sources and dates as the large-cap table.

Screen leaders: Mirae Asset Nifty Midcap 150 ETF (MIDCAPETF, 0.12%), ICICI Prudential Nifty Midcap 150 ETF (MIDCAPIETF, 0.18%) and Motilal Oswal Nifty Midcap 100 ETF (MOM100, 0.28%; note it tracks a different index). The largest mid-cap ETF, Nippon's MID150BEES, is also the most traded, and fails only because its tracking error is 0.15%. Our guide to equity ETFs beyond the Nifty 50 explains what mid caps add to a portfolio and how deep their falls have been.

4. Small-Cap ETFs

Only one plain small-cap ETF is above ₹1,000 crore, so the size floor here is ₹100 crore.

Same sources and dates as the large-cap table.

Screen leader: HDFC Nifty Smallcap 250 ETF (HDFCSML250, 0.26%) is the only pass. It is also by far the most traded small-cap ETF, at about ₹33 crore a day. Small-cap index funds are a comparable-cost alternative if you don't want to trade on the exchange. Our small-cap ETFs guide lists every small-cap ETF, including the newer, smaller ones and factor variants.

5. Gold ETFs

Gold ETFs hold physical gold and some cash, and their benchmark is the domestic gold price, so none of them tracks as tightly as an equity ETF. The lowest tracking error in the category is 0.29%. The tracking threshold here is 0.50%.

Same sources and dates as the large-cap table. Gold ETFs with AUM above ₹1,000 crore only.

Screen leaders: Aditya Birla Sun Life Gold ETF (BSLGOLDETF, 0.44%), LIC MF Gold ETF (LICMFGOLD, 0.45%) and ICICI Prudential Gold ETF (GOLDIETF, 0.49%). The three cheapest gold ETFs, at 0.35–0.39%, fail on tracking error. Gold BeES is the most traded ETF in the category (about ₹298 crore a day) but also the most expensive. Our gold ETF comparison goes deeper on each fund.

6. Silver ETFs

Silver ETFs track less tightly than gold ones; their tracking errors range from 0.55% to 1.65%. The threshold here is 0.80%.

Same sources and dates as the large-cap table. Silver ETFs with AUM above ₹1,000 crore only.

Screen leaders: Kotak Silver ETF (SILVER1) and Aditya Birla Sun Life Silver ETF (SILVER), tied at 0.35%, then ICICI Prudential Silver ETF (SILVERIETF, 0.40%). Silver BeES is the most traded ETF in India on this measure, at about ₹425 crore a day. Silver is far more volatile than gold and fell sharply in early 2026; read why silver ETFs fell in 2026 and our silver ETF comparison before using it.

7. Liquid ETFs (Parking Cash)

Liquid ETFs track an overnight or one-day money-market rate. Brokers often use them so that idle cash in a trading account earns something.

Same sources and dates as the large-cap table. LIQUIDPLUS TER is for its Growth option.

Screen leaders: Mirae Asset Nifty 1D Rate Liquid ETF (LIQUIDPLUS, 0.21%), Kotak Nifty 1D Rate Liquid ETF (LIQUID1, 0.2127%) and Zerodha Nifty 1D Rate Liquid ETF (LIQUIDCASE, 0.28%). Cost matters more here than anywhere else: when the underlying yield is about 5% a year, a 0.5 percentage point gap in TER takes away a tenth of your return. Liquid BeES is the most traded but charges 0.71% and pays out daily as extra units (IDCW) rather than growing its NAV, which works differently from the Growth-option ETFs.

8. International ETFs: Screen With Caution

Same sources as the large-cap table; tracking threshold 0.25% for this category. Price vs NAV compares the NSE close on 28 Sep 2026 with the AMFI NAV for the same date. It is indicative only, because the NAV reflects the previous overseas close.

All four pass the cost, size, tracking and liquidity screen. But the screen misses the biggest cost in this category. Fund houses cannot create new units once they hit the overseas investment limit, so demand pushes the market price well above the value of what the ETF owns. On 28 September 2026, three of the four traded 14% to 44% above NAV. If you buy at a 30% premium and it later shrinks, you lose that gap even if the US index does nothing. The only one near NAV, the Hang Seng ETF, tracks Hong Kong, not the US. So this page doesn't name screen leaders here. NRIs should also read our NRI guide to Indian ETFs; US-based NRIs have extra PFIC reporting to think about, covered in our PFIC tax guide.

Top 10 ETFs in India by the Screen

This table pulls the results together. Read it for what it is: the top results of a cost, size, tracking and liquidity screen across seven domestic use cases. It is not a ranking by returns, and it is not a list of ETFs to buy. A Nifty 50 ETF and a silver ETF do completely different jobs, so they are not compared with each other.

How the ten were chosen: the lowest-TER pass in each of the seven domestic use cases, plus the runner-up wherever it was less than 0.01 percentage points more expensive than the leader (large cap, silver and liquid). International ETFs are left out because of the premium problem above.

Listed by use case, not ranked against each other. TER: AMFI, 22–28 Sep 2026. AUM: 31 Aug 2026. Tracking error: AMFI, 25 Sep 2026. Traded value: NSE, 20 sessions to 28 Sep 2026. The screen can change with any TER revision; check the latest AMFI figures before acting.

Two things the table hides. First, the large-cap leaders are effectively tied with SENSEXIETF (0.0309%) and only a hair cheaper than NIFTYBEES (0.04%), which trades about ten times as much. Second, the most traded ETFs in gold, silver and liquid (Gold BeES, Silver BeES, Liquid BeES) all pass the screen but cost more. If you trade large amounts or often, a tighter spread on a busier ETF can be worth more than a few basis points of TER.

What These Categories Returned (Context Only)

Returns are not part of the screen, but here is what each category returned, so you can see how different the jobs are. Within a category, ETFs on the same index returned almost the same; the differences below come from the asset, not the fund.

Context only, not a screening criterion and not a guide to future returns. NAV-to-NAV returns computed from AMFI NAV history, ending 28 Sep 2026 (1-year from 26 Sep 2025, 3-year from 28 Sep 2023), before brokerage and tax. Market-price returns differ by any change in premium, which is large for MON100.

People searching for the best-performing ETFs over the last 10 years usually find that few ETFs are that old in their current form. The index is a better guide. To 25 September 2026, the Nifty 50 total return index returned 11.45% a year over 10 years and the Nifty Smallcap 250 total return index 14.63% a year (NSE Indices). Those are index figures before any ETF costs. One strong year, like silver's above, says nothing about the next one. To work out what your own ETF holdings have actually earned, use the XIRR calculator.

How to Use This List

1. Pick the use case first. Decide what job the money is doing: a long-term equity core, a satellite in mid or small caps, a hedge in gold, or parking cash. That decision drives your outcome far more than which fund house runs the ETF.
2. Then pick the cheapest liquid ETF for that use case. Within one index, choose from the screen leaders, and check that the ETF trades enough for the size of your orders.
3. Compare against an index fund. If you invest monthly through a SIP and don't want a demat account, an index fund on the same index can cost about the same in total. The ETF vs index fund calculator lets you compare TER, brokerage and demat costs for your own amount.
4. Recheck before you buy. TERs and trading volumes move. Look up the current TER on AMFI or the fund house site and the current iNAV on the exchange.

For a step-by-step method of comparing two trackers of the same index, see how to pick the right index fund. If you are weighing factor ETFs such as momentum or low volatility instead of plain index ETFs, our smart beta ETF guide covers their higher costs.

The Hidden Costs the TER Doesn't Show

The TER is only part of what an ETF costs you. Buying on the exchange adds four more costs:

• Bid-ask spread. You buy at the seller's asking price and sell at the buyer's bid. On a busy ETF like NIFTYBEES the gap is tiny. On an ETF that trades a few lakh rupees a day it can cost more than a whole year's TER, every time you trade.
• Premium or discount to iNAV. The fund house publishes an indicative NAV (iNAV) during market hours. If the market price is above it, you pay a premium. This is small for most domestic ETFs but very large for international ones, as shown above.
• Brokerage. Some brokers charge nothing for delivery trades, others charge per order. On small, frequent purchases this adds up.
• Demat charges. Your depository participant charges an annual maintenance fee and usually a fee each time you sell. Index funds don't need a demat account.

Placing a limit order close to the iNAV, rather than a market order, keeps the spread and premium under your control. Our ETF vs mutual fund vs index fund guide works through these costs in rupees, and the ETF vs index fund calculator puts them side by side for your own investment. For how gains on ETFs and index funds are taxed, see our mutual fund tax guide.

This page screens ETFs on published cost, size, tracking and liquidity data. It is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any ETF. Figures change; check AMFI, NSE and the fund house before investing.