Best Nuclear Energy ETF and Best Uranium ETF Ranked by Fee

The best nuclear energy ETF depends on whether you want uranium or nuclear power, because the funds sold under both labels hold very different things. For reactor operators and builders, VanEck's NLR (0.52%) is the strongest large fund: 53.4% of it sat in utilities and reactor companies on October 8, 2026. For uranium itself, Sprott's URNM (0.75%) is 99.8% miners and physical uranium. Global X's URA, the biggest fund, holds no utilities at all, and Vanguard has no nuclear ETF.

Most lists of the best nuclear ETFs sort by last year's return. That tells you which fund caught the uranium rally, not what you would own next. The labels do not help either: a "uranium and nuclear" fund can be all miners, and a "nuclear renaissance" fund can be mostly turbine makers and construction firms. So we sorted every holding of the six US-listed funds into uranium (miners plus trusts that hold the metal) and nuclear power (reactor operators, reactor builders and the equipment and construction companies), then priced each fund per dollar of the exposure you actually want.

Every fee and weight below comes from the issuer's fund page or daily holdings file for the October 8, 2026 close (Themes' URAN file is dated October 9; Vanguard publishes monthly, so VPU is August 31). We make index construction and backtesting software; we do not sell funds or give investment advice.

Nuclear and uranium ETFs ranked by expense ratio and exposure

The last two columns are the fee divided by the share of the fund in each kind of company. They answer a plain question: if uranium is what you want, how much do you pay each year for every $100 of uranium companies the fund holds, and the same for reactors? By that measure the ranking turns over. NUKZ, a fine fund for reactors at $1.06, is the most expensive way in the market to own uranium miners at $6.71. URA is a reasonable uranium fund at $1.14 but costs $2.41 for each $100 of nuclear power, because nearly all of its non-mining money is in reactor builders and equipment makers rather than the companies that run reactors.

Which nuclear ETF has the lowest expense ratio?

Themes' URAN has the lowest expense ratio of the US-listed nuclear ETFs at 0.35%, followed by VanEck's NLR at 0.52% and Global X's URA at 0.69%. Sprott's URNM charges 0.75%, URNJ 0.80% and Range's NUKZ 0.85%. On a $25,000 position the gap between the cheapest and the dearest is about $125 a year.

URAN comes with a warning. It held $24 million on October 9, and Themes publishes a median bid and ask spread of about 0.8%. On a fund that small, the spread on one round trip can cost more than three years of its fee advantage over NLR. Among the large funds, URA ($5.5 billion), NLR ($3.5 billion) and URNM ($1.8 billion) trade with tight spreads, and NLR is the cheapest of them.

Does Vanguard have a nuclear energy ETF?

No. Vanguard has no nuclear, uranium or nuclear power ETF or mutual fund. The nearest Vanguard fund is the Vanguard Utilities ETF (VPU, 0.09%), where the four utilities most tied to nuclear generation (Constellation, Vistra, Talen and PSEG) were 12.4% of the fund on Vanguard's August 31, 2026 file, plus 0.36% in Oklo. It holds no uranium miners, no Cameco and no BWX Technologies.

Per dollar of those four operators, VPU costs $0.73 a year for every $100, cheaper than any nuclear fund, and State Street's XLU (0.08%) is cheaper still at $0.58, because it held 13.9% in them, including 7.3% in Constellation. But the other 87% of either fund is regulated utilities such as NextEra, Southern and Duke, which own some reactors but mostly sell gas, coal, wind and solar power to captive customers. They are utility funds with a nuclear slice. The S&P 500 is thinner still: on SPY's October 8 file, Constellation was 0.14% and the four operators together 0.27%. If you hold VOO, you own almost no nuclear power and no uranium, because Cameco is a Canadian company and not in the index. Owning a real nuclear allocation through Vanguard means buying the shares in a Vanguard brokerage account.

What is the best uranium ETF?

For pure uranium exposure, Sprott's URNM is the best of the large funds: 99.8% of it was uranium miners and physical uranium on October 8, 2026, at a fee of $0.75 per $100 of uranium held. URA is cheaper per year in dollars than URNM only on paper; per $100 of uranium it costs $1.14, because about 40% of URA is something else.

Look at the top of both funds before choosing. Cameco was 21.1% of URNM and 22.8% of URA, and the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust another 15.7% of URNM and 7.0% of URA. Those two holdings are more than a third of URNM. The funds share 25 companies and 57.5% of their money, so holding both is mostly holding Cameco twice. Sprott's URNJ is the different bet: smaller developers with no Cameco at all, led by NexGen at 13.5%, Paladin at 11.5% and Denison at 11.0%. It swings harder than URNM in both directions.

Is NLR or URA the better nuclear ETF?

NLR is the better nuclear power ETF and URA the better uranium ETF. On October 8, 2026, NLR held 30.0% in utilities that run reactors, led by Constellation at 9.2% and PSEG at 8.2%, plus 23.4% in reactor builders such as BWX Technologies, Oklo and NuScale. URA held no utilities, 60.7% uranium, and Cameco at 22.8%. NLR is also cheaper, 0.52% against 0.69%.

The two still overlap 51.3% across 20 companies, mostly the big miners, so they are less different than the labels suggest. NLR's weak spot is its size: 25 holdings with a top ten of 63.6%, and none of Vistra, Talen or GE Vernova. If the AI power contracts are the reason you are buying, check whether the companies signing them are in the fund. Constellation is in NLR; Vistra and Talen are only in NUKZ and URAN.

Which nuclear ETF holds Constellation, Vistra and Talen?

NLR held the most Constellation Energy at 9.2% on October 8, 2026, and URAN 8.9%. NUKZ held all three operators but small amounts: Talen 3.5%, Vistra 3.2% and Constellation 3.0%, because its index caps diversified companies at 3%. URA, URNM and URNJ held none of them. Oklo, the best-known small reactor developer, was 5.5% of URA, 4.8% of NLR, 3.2% of NUKZ and 2.6% of URAN.

Which nuclear ETF should you buy?

Match the fund to the bet you mean to make:

• The uranium price: URNM at 0.75%, if you accept Cameco and the Sprott trust at more than a third.
• Uranium developers: URNJ at 0.80%, a higher-risk basket of companies that mostly do not produce yet.
• Reactor operators and builders in one large fund: NLR at 0.52%, the cheapest large fund and the one with the most Constellation.
• The whole supply chain, with equipment makers: NUKZ at 0.85%, which is 39% turbine, engineering and construction companies.
• Through Vanguard: there is no fund; VPU gives a 12% nuclear operator slice at 0.09%, or buy the shares yourself.

If none of those mixes is yours, say Constellation, Vistra, Talen, Cameco, Centrus, BWX Technologies and Oklo, capped at 15% each, no fund will sell it to you. That is the case for building the basket yourself: pick the names, set the weights, backtest it against NLR and URA, and buy the shares at your broker with no expense ratio. Our nuclear energy ETF alternative page charts what each fund holds and walks through the five groups of nuclear stocks. The same data center demand drives the AI infrastructure stocks index, and if you want the reactor maker BWXT next to the contractors it supplies, the defense stocks index builder works the same way.

Several of the names a nuclear fund adds are young companies with no revenue, such as Oklo and NANO Nuclear, so it is worth reading the filings before you give one a 10% weight. If you would rather start from a summary, you can pull a research summary on Oklo or Centrus before deciding how much of either to hold. When you trim a fund to switch into your own basket, run the dates through the wash sale calculator first, because selling a fund at a loss and buying back the same fund within 30 days disallows the loss.

Fees, assets and holdings change, so confirm them on each fund page before you buy. Indexes is not affiliated with any fund issuer named here, and nothing in this article is investment advice.