Reviewed August 2026 against USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries and VanEck fund disclosures.

Try it: Run your own numbers →

Vanguard does not currently offer a dedicated gold mining ETF or a dedicated rare earth minerals ETF. Investors searching for a “Vanguard metal ETF” focused on gold bullion or rare earth producers will not find one in Vanguard’s fund lineup — the closest Vanguard product is VGPMX (Vanguard Global Capital Cycles Fund), a broader natural-resources mutual fund, not an ETF, and not a pure gold or rare earth play. This article explains exactly what does and doesn’t exist, what the real alternatives are, and how the underlying mineral markets — gold and rare earths — actually look using official US government production data.

Table of Contents

• Does Vanguard Have a Gold ETF?
• Does Vanguard Have a Rare Earth Minerals ETF?
• What Vanguard Metal ETF Exposure Actually Exists
• US Gold Production: The Numbers Behind the Sector
• US Rare Earth Production vs. China: The Import-Reliance Gap
• REMX: The Rare Earth ETF That Does Exist
• Calculator: Estimating Your ETF Exposure to Domestic vs. Import-Reliant Supply
• A Durable Checklist for Evaluating Any Mineral ETF
• Where the Physical Supply Comes From: Satellite-Based Mineral Exploration
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Conclusion
• Try it: Run your own numbers

Does Vanguard Have a Gold ETF?

No. Vanguard does not list a gold bullion ETF and does not list a gold mining stocks ETF. The two dominant gold bullion ETFs available to US investors are GLD, sponsored by State Street, and IAU, sponsored by iShares (BlackRock) — neither is a Vanguard product. Vanguard’s only fund with meaningful precious-metals and mining exposure is VGPMX, a mutual fund (not an ETF) that invests across metals, mining, and broader natural-resource equities rather than gold alone. If your brokerage search returned a “Vanguard gold ETF” result, it was very likely one of these non-Vanguard tickers surfaced alongside a Vanguard brokerage account, not an actual Vanguard-sponsored fund.

This matters for search accuracy: “vanguard gold etf” draws 548 impressions because a lot of investors assume every major asset manager has a gold product, the way Vanguard has index funds for nearly everything else. It doesn’t, for gold specifically. If you want gold exposure inside a Vanguard brokerage account, you’d buy GLD or IAU as a third-party holding, or use VGPMX for diversified metals-and-mining exposure — Vanguard’s own site and fund prospectus pages are the place to confirm current expense ratios and holdings before acting, since fund lineups change.

Does Vanguard Have a Rare Earth Minerals ETF?

No. Vanguard has no ETF dedicated to rare earth elements. The market-leading rare earth ETF is REMX, the VanEck Rare Earth and Strategic Metals ETF, which held approximately $2.6 billion in assets under management as of the fund data checked in 2026, carrying an annual expense ratio of 0.58%, per VanEck’s own fund page. That page is the correct source to check for the current AUM and expense ratio, since both update as the fund grows and as VanEck files periodic disclosures — a figure you read today should be re-verified against that same page before you act on it.

Vanguard’s closest adjacent exposure is again VGPMX, which is not rare-earth-focused and does not isolate the rare earth supply chain the way REMX does. If your search intent is specifically “which fund tracks rare earth mining and processing companies,” REMX is the answer regardless of which brokerage you use to buy it — Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, and others all let you purchase third-party ETFs like REMX inside a standard brokerage account.

What Vanguard Metal ETF Exposure Actually Exists

Broadening from gold and rare earths specifically, “vanguard metal etf” as a search also has no exact match in Vanguard’s fund lineup. Vanguard does not run a dedicated base-metals, precious-metals, or diversified-metals-and-mining ETF. What exists instead:

• 📊 VGPMX (Vanguard Global Capital Cycles Fund) — a mutual fund, not an ETF, with exposure across metals, mining, energy, and other cyclical natural-resource sectors. Not a pure metals play.
• 📊 Vanguard Materials ETF exposure via broad sector funds — Vanguard’s sector and total-market funds (such as its materials-sector ETF) include mining and metals companies as a sub-allocation within the broader materials sector, not as a standalone metals fund.
• 📊 Third-party metal ETFs purchasable through a Vanguard brokerage account — REMX (rare earths), GLD and IAU (gold bullion), and other issuers’ copper, lithium, and diversified-mining ETFs can all be bought inside a Vanguard account even though Vanguard doesn’t sponsor them.

The practical takeaway: “Vanguard” in these three queries describes the brokerage you might use, not necessarily the fund sponsor of the product you actually want. Confirming the sponsor field on any fund’s prospectus before you invest takes under a minute and avoids this exact confusion.

US Gold Production: The Numbers Behind the Sector

Whether or not a Vanguard-branded gold fund exists, the underlying US gold mining sector has concrete, sourced numbers worth knowing if you’re evaluating any gold ETF or mining stock. According to the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025 report on gold, US domestic mine production totaled 160 metric tons, valued at approximately $17 billion. Production is heavily concentrated geographically: Nevada accounted for 64% of US gold production, and Alaska accounted for 22% — together the two states produced 86% of all domestically mined gold, leaving the remaining 14% spread across the rest of the country.

This concentration is a durable fact worth understanding independent of any single year’s tonnage: any gold mining ETF or individual mining stock with US-based operations is disproportionately exposed to Nevada and Alaska regulatory, labor, and permitting conditions specifically, more than to the US as a whole. USGS republishes this state-level breakdown annually in its Mineral Commodity Summaries series — the 2025 edition is linked above, and a reader checking this months or years from now should look for the most recent edition of that same USGS series to get the current tonnage and state split, since both shift year to year with new discoveries, mine openings, and mine closures.

To put the $17 billion domestic gold value in context against any ETF’s own reported AUM, check the fund’s fact sheet on its sponsor’s site (VanEck, State Street, or iShares, depending on which fund you’re evaluating) — AUM moves with both flows and the gold price, so a figure quoted today needs re-checking at the time you actually invest.

US Rare Earth Production vs. China: The Import-Reliance Gap

The rare earth story is defined by one gap: scale. Per the same USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025 rare earths dataset, US rare earth oxide-equivalent mine production totaled 51,000 metric tons, valued at approximately $240 million. Over the same period, China’s rare earth oxide-equivalent mine production totaled 270,000 metric tons — more than five times US output. This is the single number that explains why every rare earth ETF, including REMX, holds a mix of US, Australian, and Chinese-linked or China-adjacent processing companies rather than a purely domestic portfolio: there simply isn’t enough non-Chinese processing capacity yet to fill a fund with domestic-only names.

This production gap is the durable spine of the rare earth story: it is not a one-year anomaly but a structural feature of the global supply chain, driven by decades of Chinese investment in separation and refining capacity that the US and its allies are only beginning to rebuild. The gap will narrow or widen depending on new refining capacity coming online in the US, Australia, and elsewhere — the way to track that is the same USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries series (rare earths edition) checked annually, since USGS republishes both countries’ tonnage every year.

REMX: The Rare Earth ETF That Does Exist

Since Vanguard doesn’t offer this product, REMX is worth detailing on its own terms. Per VanEck’s REMX fund page, the fund carries an expense ratio of 0.58% annually and reported assets under management of approximately $2.6 billion as of the data checked in 2026. Both figures move — expense ratios rarely but occasionally change with fund restructuring, and AUM shifts daily with flows and the underlying basket’s price moves — so treat these as a snapshot and re-check VanEck’s own page for the current numbers before making a decision.

REMX tracks a basket of companies involved in rare earth and strategic metals mining, refining, and recycling — not a single country’s producers, and not physical rare earth metal itself the way a gold bullion ETF holds physical gold. That structural difference (equity basket vs. physical commodity) is the same distinction that separates GLD/IAU (physical gold) from a hypothetical “gold mining stocks ETF” (equity basket) — worth understanding regardless of which specific fund you’re comparing it to, since it changes how the fund responds to commodity price moves versus company-specific operating news.

Where this table lists “check the fund page,” that’s a gap the research behind this article could not fill with a verified, sourced number as of the review date above — rather than invent an expense ratio or AUM figure for GLD, IAU, or VGPMX, the honest answer is to pull it directly from the sponsor’s own current fund page, since all three update these figures periodically.

Calculator: Estimating Your ETF Exposure to Domestic vs. Import-Reliant Supply

Use the figures above to see how a hypothetical dollar allocation splits between domestic (US) and import-reliant (non-US) rare earth or gold supply, based on the actual USGS production shares.

Assumptions: this tool applies a US-revenue-share percentage you set yourself against your investment amount — it does not know any specific fund’s actual US revenue mix, since ETF sponsors do not publish a per-company domestic-revenue breakdown. It excludes taxes, fees, bid-ask spread, and price volatility. Use it to reason about concentration risk, not as investment advice.

A Durable Checklist for Evaluating Any Mineral ETF

Regardless of which specific fund exists when you read this, the same five checks apply to any gold, rare earth, or broader metals ETF:

• ✔ Confirm the sponsor, not just the ticker. Search the fund’s official prospectus page, not just your brokerage’s search bar.
• ✔ Check whether it holds physical metal or equities. A bullion ETF (like GLD or IAU) tracks the metal price directly; an equity ETF (like REMX) tracks a basket of mining/processing companies, which move on operating results as well as commodity price.
• ✔ Pull the current expense ratio and AUM from the sponsor’s own page. Both figures move over time; a number quoted in an article is a snapshot, not a live feed.
• ✔ Check country concentration. For rare earths specifically, US production (51,000 metric tons) is roughly a fifth of China’s (270,000 metric tons) per USGS 2025 data, so “US-focused” rare earth funds still carry meaningful non-US exposure.
• ✔ Re-verify state or regional concentration for mining equities. US gold production alone is 86% concentrated in two states (Nevada 64%, Alaska 22%, per USGS 2025), meaning region-specific regulatory or permitting news can move a US-heavy gold fund disproportionately.

Where the Physical Supply Comes From: Satellite-Based Mineral Exploration

Every ETF discussed above ultimately depends on physical mine output — and finding new gold and rare earth deposits, or verifying reserves at existing ones, is the upstream step that determines whether production numbers like the 160 metric tons of US gold or the 51,000 metric tons of US rare earth oxide equivalent can grow. Farmonaut works at that upstream layer, using satellite-based multispectral and hyperspectral analysis to identify mineral prospectivity without invasive ground surveys.

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• 🌐 Multi-country coverage — active across more than 18 countries, adapting to varied geological settings.
• 🌲 Non-invasive early screening — reducing unnecessary drilling and ground disturbance before a site is validated.
• 📈 Actionable outputs — prospectivity heatmaps, 3D subsurface models, and drilling-target recommendations.

Learn more on our satellite-based mineral detection page, or see the methodology in detail via this 3D mineral prospectivity mapping resource. For a broader view of critical-minerals investment vehicles that do exist today, see our related coverage of top critical minerals ETFs.

Get a custom quote for your mining site, or contact us for tailored advice on integrating satellite-based mineral intelligence into an exploration or investment due-diligence workflow.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Q: Does Vanguard have a gold ETF?
   A: No. Vanguard does not sponsor a gold bullion ETF or a gold mining stocks ETF. The dominant gold bullion ETFs are GLD (State Street) and IAU (iShares/BlackRock). Vanguard’s only related product is VGPMX, a diversified metals-and-mining mutual fund, not a gold-specific ETF.
2. Q: Does Vanguard have a rare earth minerals ETF?
   A: No. The market-leading rare earth ETF is REMX, sponsored by VanEck, with roughly $2.6 billion in AUM and a 0.58% expense ratio per VanEck’s fund page as of the 2026 data checked for this article. Vanguard has no equivalent product.
3. Q: Is there a “Vanguard metal ETF” for base or industrial metals?
   A: Not as a standalone fund. Vanguard’s materials-sector ETFs include mining and metals companies as part of a broader materials-sector allocation, and VGPMX covers metals within a wider natural-resources mutual fund, but neither isolates metals the way a dedicated metals ETF would.
4. Q: How much gold does the US actually produce?
   A: 160 metric tons in 2025, valued at approximately $17 billion, per USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries. Nevada produced 64% of that total and Alaska 22%. Check the current-year edition of the same USGS series for updated figures.
5. Q: How does US rare earth production compare to China’s?
   A: The US produced 51,000 metric tons of rare earth oxide equivalent in 2025 (valued at about $240 million) versus China’s 270,000 metric tons over the same period, per USGS. That gap is why most rare earth ETFs, including REMX, are not US-only portfolios.
6. Q: Where can I get tailored support for satellite-based mineral exploration?
   A: Visit our Contact Us page to start a project or request a custom quote via the mining query form.

Conclusion

The direct answer to “vanguard gold etf,” “rare earth minerals etf vanguard,” and “vanguard metal etf” is that none of these three products currently exist in Vanguard’s fund lineup. What exists instead: GLD and IAU for gold bullion, REMX for rare earth and strategic metals equities, and Vanguard’s own VGPMX mutual fund for broader metals-and-mining exposure. Behind all of them sits the same physical reality — 160 metric tons of US gold production worth $17 billion, concentrated 86% in Nevada and Alaska, and 51,000 metric tons of US rare earth oxide-equivalent output running well behind China’s 270,000 metric tons, both per USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries. Those production figures update annually; the fund sponsor pages linked throughout this article update more often. Check both before you invest, and use the checklist above as a repeatable process rather than a one-time read.

Continue exploring:
– Map Your Mining Site Here
– Learn about satellite-based mineral detection
– Top critical minerals ETFs
– Contact us for advice or customized solutions