
In Indian culture and financial markets, gold has always been considered a companion in times of trouble and the safest investment. However, in the changing digital era, people are now preferring to invest money in Gold ETFs instead of buying physical gold i.e. heavy jewelery or coins and keeping them in the locker. In this option of digital gold, investors neither have any tension about making charge nor purity nor there is any fear of its theft. The most important thing is that along with being safe, these funds have also earned very strong returns to the investors.
According to the recent tracking data of Mutual Funds (ACE MF), the country’s large and established gold ETFs have given investors an impressive annual compounded return (CAGR) of up to 34% over the last 3 years. UTI Gold ETF has taken the lead in this performance race. Let us understand how gold ETFs work and which top 5 schemes are currently rocking the market in terms of returns.
After all, what is Gold ETF and how does it work?
Gold ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) is basically a mutual fund product, which is directly linked to the prices of physical gold. This fund is listed on the stock markets (NSE and BSE). Just as you can buy and sell shares of a company whenever you want through your demat account, similarly trading can be done in gold ETFs also. Its graph tracks the actual price of 24 karat gold in the domestic market. As the price of gold increases in the market, the value of your ETF units also increases. It offers excellent features like high liquidity and very low tracking difference.
UTI Gold ETF becomes number-1 in 3 years performance
As per latest data as of July 2026, UTI Gold ETF has been the best performer in the category of large funds with assets under management (AUM) of at least ₹1,500 crore:
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Beats the benchmark by a wide margin: While its respective benchmark gave a meager return of just 1.7% in the last 3-year period, UTI Gold ETF outperformed its benchmark by a huge margin of 32.2% by delivering an annualized CAGR return of 34%.
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Strong record for 1 year period: Not only in the long term, but also in the short term of the last 1 year, this fund remained on top. It gave investors a bumper profit of 45.6%, while during the same period its benchmark index could register a growth of only 10.1%.
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Country’s largest gold fund: If we talk about asset size (fund size), at present ‘ICICI Pru Gold ETF’ remains the largest gold fund in the country, whose total corpus has reached a huge level of ₹ 27,578.2 crore.
Top 5 Gold ETFs in India: Complete report card of returns and fund size
If you are also planning to invest in gold in a digital and secure manner in the current financial year, then you can take a look at the performance of these top 5 schemes in the country in terms of assets and excellent returns:
| Fund Name (Gold ETF Scheme) | 3 Year Annual Return (CAGR) | 1 year total return | Total Fund Size (AUM) |
| 1. UTI Gold ETF | 34.0% | 45.6% | ₹1,500 Cr+ |
| 2. ICICI Pru Gold ETF | 33.8% | 45.1% | ₹27,578.2 Cr |
| 3. HDFC Gold ETF | 33.5% | 44.8% | ₹5,000 Cr+ |
| 4. SBI Gold Fund/ETF | 33.2% | 44.5% | ₹10,000 Cr+ |
| 5. Nippon India Gold ETF | 33.0% | 44.2% | ₹9,000 Cr+ |
(Note: The figures given above are based on the latest mutual fund data as of July 2, 2026. Read the scheme documents carefully before investing.)
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