MSCI Emerging Markets.
Every major UCITS fund tracking MSCI Emerging Markets (~1,200 companies, emerging markets), side by side: the real fee, the domicile, the structure, and how far each actually drifts from the index. The facts and the spread; you pick.
What this index is
The emerging half of the world: China, India, Taiwan, Brazil and more, around 1,200 companies. Usually held as a top-up to a developed-world fund, not on its own.
MSCI · ~1,200 companies · emerging markets
Watch the exact index: the single most-popular emerging-markets ETF, iShares' Core (EIMI), tracks the IMI version. It adds small companies, so it's a different index, and I've left it out of this like-for-like list.
The funds, side by side
- Irish-domiciled
- Largest here
- Lends securities
- Fee (TER)
- 0.18%
- Domicile
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- Structure
- Physical (sampled), accumulating
- Size
- €11.6bn
- Return 1y·3y·5y
- 42.4% · 71.0% · 45.7%
- Vs index (per yr)
- +0.14%
- Irish-domiciled
- Pays income out
- Lends securities
- Fee (TER)
- 0.18%
- Domicile
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- Structure
- Physical (full), distributing
- Size
- €8.9bn
- Return 1y·3y·5y
- 41.7% · 70.3% · 45.5%
- Vs index (per yr)
- +0.51%
- Irish-domiciled
- Lends securities
- Fee (TER)
- 0.18%
- Domicile
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- Structure
- Physical (sampled), accumulating
- Size
- €8.4bn
- Return 1y·3y·5y
- 42.2% · 71.1% · 46.3%
- Vs index (per yr)
- +0.48%
- Synthetic (swap-based)
- Fee (TER)
- 0.20%
- Domicile
- 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
- Structure
- Synthetic (swap), accumulating
- Size
- €5.8bn
- Return 1y·3y·5y
- 42.1% · 71.2% · 45.6%
- Vs index (per yr)
- +0.42%
- Irish-domiciled
- Pays income out
- Lends securities
- Fee (TER)
- 0.15%
- Domicile
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- Structure
- Physical (full), distributing
- Size
- €3.8bn
- Return 1y·3y·5y
- 42.5% · 69.8% · 44.9%
- Vs index (per yr)
- +0.41%
- Irish-domiciled
- Lends securities
- Fee (TER)
- 0.18%
- Domicile
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- Structure
- Physical (full), accumulating
- Size
- €1.8bn
- Return 1y·3y·5y
- 42.5% · 71.7% · 46.6%
- Vs index (per yr)
- +0.31%
- Lowest fee here
- Irish-domiciled
- Synthetic (swap-based)
- Fee (TER)
- 0.09%
- Domicile
- 🇮🇪 Ireland
- Structure
- Synthetic (swap), accumulating
- Size
- €390m
- Return 1y·3y·5y
- 42.0% · 69.7% · 44.4%
- Vs index (per yr)
- +0.62%
Returns are total return in euros to 30 June 2026, from justETF, so every fund is measured to the same date. “Vs index” is each fund’s average yearly tracking difference against its own index, from trackingdifferences.com; negative means it beat its index.
The gap, in money
The priciest fund here (0.20%) versus the cheapest (0.09%), held at €100,000 for thirty years, is roughly €17k, on fee alone. Your own pot and horizon:
How to read the table
The fee (TER) is the promise; the tracking difference is the receipt. It's each fund's average yearly gap against its own index, all in, from trackingdifferences.com: negative means the fund beat its index. A slightly pricier fund with a better receipt is sometimes the better holding.
Most of these funds are Irish, and it isn't an accident: Ireland's US treaty taxes US dividends inside the fund at 15% instead of 30%. On a US-heavy index that edge can outweigh a few hundredths of a percent of fee. The full story, structure by structure, is the withholding guide. The withholding guide
Accumulating funds reinvest dividends untouched; distributing ones pay them out as cash, which some countries tax the year you receive it. Which suits you is a tax question that turns on your country, not a returns one.
Head-to-heads on this index
Common questions
- Which MSCI Emerging Markets UCITS ETF has the lowest fee?
- By fee alone, MXFS at 0.09% a year. Fee is step one, not the answer: the tracking-difference column above shows what each fund actually kept against the index, all in, and a slightly pricier fund sometimes comes out ahead.
- Which is the largest MSCI Emerging Markets fund?
- XMME, at about €11.6bn. Size matters for liquidity and staying power, not returns: every fund here tracks the same index.
- Are there accumulating and distributing MSCI Emerging Markets ETFs?
- Accumulating here: XMME, SEMA, AEEM, SPYM, MXFS. Distributing: IEEM, HMEF. Which suits you is a tax question that turns on your country, not a returns one.
Know a figure here that's wrong or out of date? Point me to the line and a source. Every correction gets checked before the yearly refresh. That's how this page stays right.
Report a correctionChecked July 2026
The structural facts (fee, domicile, structure, size) are each fund’s own, from its factsheet or KID, checked and cited. The returns come from justETF, a reputable ETF data service, so every fund is measured to the same date on the same basis: the only honest way to compare them. The tracking difference (how each fund actually did against its own index) comes from trackingdifferences.com, the standard European source. I don’t compute any of it myself, and there are still no affiliate links.
No affiliate links. No paywall. Nothing on this page is for sale, and no broker pays me to rank one fund above another. The neutrality is the whole point.
Structural facts from the funds’ own reports, returns via justETF, tracking via trackingdifferences.com. Not a recommendation, and I’m not a licensed adviser. Past returns are not a guide to future ones. Which fund suits you depends on your broker, your account and your country’s tax. Not advice.
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