Goldman Sachs Reports Global Active ETF Assets Reach Record $1.8 Trillion

Active ETFs worldwide held nearly $1.8 trillion in assets at the end of 2025, delivering an organic growth rate of 53%, according to data compiled from Morningstar and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The figure marks a record high and reflects a structural shift in how investors use ETF wrappers, moving well beyond passive index replication toward strategies built for outperformance, income generation, and risk hedging.

"Clients want more choice in the ETF space," said Brendan McCarthy, global head of ETF distribution at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. "They want to try and beat the market rather than just track it."

The appetite for active strategies is showing up sharply in flow data. On a global basis, flows into active ETFs measured as a percentage of assets ran roughly four times stronger than those into passive ETFs last year. In the U.S., nearly one-third of all ETF flows went to active funds, double the share recorded in 2022. More than 85% of new ETF launches in the U.S. were active strategies, and a Goldman Sachs first-quarter 2026 market review counted 1,162 total ETF launches across the industry in 2025.

The broader ETF market also posted records across every major metric in 2025. The Goldman review placed U.S. ETF assets at $13.4 trillion at year-end, with global assets at $18.5 trillion, up more than $3 trillion on the year, a 30% expansion. Net inflows reached nearly $1.5 trillion into U.S. ETFs and exceeded $2 trillion globally, driven by what Goldman described as a generational wealth transfer, a continuing exodus from mutual funds, and sustained demand for the liquidity and transparency that ETF structures provide. U.S. ETF trading volume for the year hit $58.6 trillion.

Other data providers put the year-end global total somewhat higher. ETFGI, the London-based research firm, reported global ETF assets at $18.81 trillion through the end of September 2025, with net inflows during that month alone of $267.66 billion, bringing year-to-date inflows to $1.54 trillion at that point. By December 31, ETFGI's figures, cited by Brown Brothers Harriman, placed the global total at $19.85 trillion. InvestmentNews reported a full-year 2025 figure of $19.5 trillion, noting that the industry gathered a record $2.1 trillion in net inflows, nearly 3.5 times the amount that flowed into mutual funds. The variation across providers reflects different cut-off dates and dataset methodologies rather than contradictory findings.

NAV growth got a meaningful assist from underlying markets. U.S. equities returned 18% in 2025, fixed income gained 7%, and gold surged 65%, according to the Goldman market review. Among the largest individual funds tracked by ETFGI in September, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF held $764 billion in assets with $85.7 billion in year-to-date net new assets, while the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF held $692.8 billion. Active funds also appeared in ETFGI's top-flow table: the iShares U.S. Equity Factor Rotation Active ETF gathered $10.6 billion in net new assets through September, and the iShares AI Innovation and Tech Active ETF pulled in $5.4 billion over the same period.

Active launch activity accelerated alongside the flow data. InvestmentNews reported that active ETF launches rose 72% from 2024, and that for the first time, active launches matched passive launches in number. More than 100 new ETF issuers entered the market in 2025, intensifying competition for shelf space and investor attention. The InvestmentNews figure for global active ETF assets at year-end 2025 was $1.7 trillion, slightly below Goldman's $1.8 trillion, a gap that both sources attribute to data methodology and timing differences.

Forward expectations remain aggressive. A PwC survey of 72 global executives found that more than one-third expect total ETF assets to reach $35 trillion or more by June 2030, more than double mid-2025 levels. Sixty percent of those surveyed expect global active ETF assets specifically to at least double to $4 trillion or more by the same date. Brown Brothers Harriman, tracking toward its own earlier $30 trillion forecast, noted that private markets represent a potential next frontier for ETF packaging, though it flagged the operational tension in wrapping traditionally illiquid assets inside a vehicle built for daily liquidity. Committed and deployed private markets capital is forecast to reach between $20 and $25 trillion by 2030, according to research cited by BBH from Ardian and the World Economic Forum, suggesting the structural incentive to solve that packaging problem is not going away.