VTI vs VXUS: Dividend/Income Calculator Comparison
VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF) holds the entire U.S. market while VXUS (Vanguard Total International Stock ETF) holds essentially everything outside it, so this page compares the home-versus-global choice — yield, currency, and dividend-tax treatment — under one shared scenario.
VTI
VXUS
Set one scenario below — the same contribution, horizon, and account run through both funds, so the numbers are comparable rather than pulled from two separate defaults. Each result is a range, not a single figure: forward growth is an editorial preset assumption, not a prediction.
Base-scenario path for each fund at your horizon. After-tax reflects the taxable account and reads as a dash inside an IRA or Roth; note that VXUS carries a partly-ordinary distribution and a foreign tax credit the table treats only approximately. NAV erosion shows a dash for both — each is a plain long-only index fund, not a covered-call product.
| Fund | Annual income | Portfolio value | After-tax (if sold) | Yield on cost | NAV erosion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VTI | — | — | — | — | — |
Which one fits whom
This pairing is not really either-or — the two are the halves of a globally diversified portfolio, which is why holding VTI alongside VXUS is such a common two-fund setup. If you have decided that owning only U.S. stocks is itself a concentration bet, VXUS adds the roughly 40% of global market capitalization that sits outside the United States. If you would rather keep the outcome tied to the domestic market you know — and are comfortable that U.S. equities have outrun international for well over a decade — VTI alone is the home-country choice. VTI yields near 1.1%, VXUS near 2.5%, so VXUS also hands you more current income. Neither is better in the abstract: the calculator shows each fund's income and value bands separately, and many holders own both and rebalance between them rather than pick one.
Why VXUS yields more
VXUS's higher ~2.5% distribution against VTI's ~1.1% is not the result of reaching for income — neither fund has a yield target or a dividend screen. The gap comes from what each basket holds: international companies, from European utilities and banks to Japanese industrials and emerging-market staples, have historically distributed a larger share of earnings as dividends, while U.S. large-caps lean more toward buybacks. So VXUS throws off more cash today, but that is a characteristic of the market it tracks, not a strategy layered on top. Both remain plain long-only index funds — no covered calls, no leverage, no return-of-capital padding the payout — so the yield on each is real dividend income rather than manufactured distribution.
Currency is the extra moving part
Everything VXUS owns is priced in foreign currencies, but the fund reports in dollars, so the exchange rate is a second engine driving your result on top of the underlying companies. A rising dollar quietly shaves foreign returns on translation; a falling dollar adds to them. That is why VXUS's dividend-per-share growth in dollar terms has run near ~4% a year — softer and bumpier than VTI's roughly 5% long-run figure — even when the underlying payouts grow steadily in local currency. VTI carries no such layer: it is priced and paid in dollars start to finish. Read the VXUS band as wider than VTI's for exactly this reason — currency alone can move its reported yield and payout year to year in ways no model forecasts.
The tax split, and where to hold each
Here the two genuinely diverge. VTI's distributions are overwhelmingly qualified, taxed at long-term capital-gains rates; VXUS is only about 68% qualified, with the remaining slice taxed as ordinary income at your marginal rate. On top of that, foreign governments withhold tax on VXUS's underlying dividends before they reach the fund. In a taxable account that foreign withholding is usually recoverable through the foreign tax credit — a real argument for holding an international fund in taxable rather than a Roth, since inside an IRA or Roth the credit is generally forfeited. So the usual instinct to shelter the higher-yielding fund partially reverses for VXUS, while VTI keeps its simpler, fully-qualified treatment either way. For the full single-fund detail, see the VTI dividend calculator and the VXUS dividend calculator.
Compare & go deeper
- VTI dividend calculator
The single-fund projection with year-by-year breakdown and yield-on-cost.
- VXUS dividend calculator
The single-fund projection under the same honest after-tax engine.
- Qualified vs ordinary dividends
Why the tax character of a distribution changes the after-tax number.
- All ticker dividend calculators
The full set across income, dividend-growth, and broad funds.