According to ECB data, a total of 16 trillion euros of private and institutional investors’ money is invested in mutual funds across the EU. Germany, with assets of around 4.1 trillion euros, is by far the largest market. Over the past 10 years, assets grew by an average of 8.0 percent a year, according to the German Investment and Asset Management Association (BVI). By contrast, annual growth was significantly lower in Italy (6.5 percent), France (5.1 percent), and the Netherlands (2.7 percent). 

Big increase

Only a small portion of that large pool of assets has been invested in ETFs so far, but this segment is growing rapidly. By mid-2026, investors in Germany held exchange-traded funds worth 697 billion euros. A year earlier, the figure was 500 billion euros; in 2023, it was just 308 billion euros. 

ETF assets have therefore more than doubled within three years. The latest figures come from a study published in October by the German fund association BVI, which analyzes holdings together with the custodian Clearstream.

Between mid-2025 and mid-2026 alone, ETFs saw net inflows of around 70 billion euros, according to the BVI. Since not all providers take part in the statistics, the actual amount could be higher. A large share of the increase in assets also comes from market gains over recent months.

MSCI dominates with 320 billion euros

Strong demand is concentrated among relatively few index providers. In total, German investors hold 584 billion euros in passive equity ETFs. Of that amount, 561 billion euros is invested in indices from just five companies.

With 320 billion euros and a market share of around 55 percent, MSCI is in the lead. It is followed by S&P Dow Jones Indices with 16 percent, STOXX with 15 percent, FTSE Russell with six percent, and Nasdaq with five percent.

Together, these providers account for around 96 percent of the market analyzed. The large number of different ETFs therefore does not mean that just as many independent indices are being used.

Much more MSCI World 

The concentration is particularly pronounced in the MSCI World. This index family accounts for 178 billion euros in Germany, or 30.5 percent of passive equity ETF assets.

Source: Clearstream

One key reason is likely the high importance of private investors, who hold more than two-thirds of ETF assets in Germany. The MSCI World is especially popular as a core building block of a simple, globally diversified equity portfolio. For professional investors, these advantages are less decisive, as they often manage their portfolios in a more differentiated way. 

In the European ETF market, the share of the MSCI World family is just under 20 percent, according to the BVI, and thus significantly lower than in Germany. In Switzerland, there are evidently major differences in this regard: 53 percent of German-speaking Swiss ETF investors use an MSCI World ETF, compared with only 15 percent in French-speaking Switzerland.

The BVI statistics cover a total of 330 products from this family. In addition to classic MSCI World ETFs, these also include variants with sustainability, factor, sector, or thematic filters.

In second place among equity indices popular with German investors is the S&P 500, with 77 billion euros and a market share of 13.1 percent. The MSCI Emerging Markets family accounts for 49 billion euros, or 8.4 percent.

iShares dominates in Europe

By far the largest player in the European market is iShares. According to current data from Morningstar Direct, BlackRock’s ETF subsidiary accounts for 40.7 percent of assets under management in the European UCITS market, leaving Amundi with a market share of 12.8 percent and DWS’s ETF arm Xtrackers with 10.4 percent far behind. Half of the 10 largest ETFs in Europe are from iShares, including the clear No. 1 and two others with assets under management of around 130 billion euros each. 

According to Morningstar, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF has almost 74.8 billion euros invested in the index. There are also many, many small providers: according to Lipper, 127 companies currently offer ETFs in Europe, but only 39 of them manage more than 1 billion euros. 

Many retail clients

The dominance of ETFs is particularly evident in new business: between mid-2023 and mid-2025, according to BVI figures, almost 90 percent of the money newly invested by German investors in retail funds flowed into ETFs. "Overall, the ETF market is growing by around 20 percent a year and is therefore roughly doubling every five years," says Patrick Diel, Germany sales head at DWS Xtrackers.

The digital retail market is said to be particularly dynamic, meaning investors who make their own decisions and invest in ETFs via online platforms and neobrokers. 

Active ETFs are gaining ground in the product lineup

Despite numerous new products, passive ETFs continue to dominate. Their share of total German ETF assets is 97.6 percent. Actively managed ETFs account for just 2.4 percent, or 16.6 billion euros.

The picture is different when it comes to new launches: according to the BVI, 37 percent of new ETFs are now actively managed. However, more than 40 percent of existing active ETF products are no older than 12 months. As a result, many of them still lack scale.

Private retirement provision helps

Plans by the German federal government to promote private retirement savings should provide further growth. "The reform is regarded as a game-changer for investment culture in Germany," says Simon Klein, Global Head XTrackers Sales at DWS. 

The draft of the federal government’s retirement savings reform law aims to modernize tax-advantaged private retirement provision in Germany. Under the government’s plan, private retirement savings are to become cheaper, more performance-oriented, more flexible, and more transparent. This includes new product standards, a stronger focus on return-oriented retirement portfolios without guarantees, simplified and streamlined certification criteria, and contribution-based state support, from which small investors in particular are expected to benefit, according to Berlin.

The new private retirement savings scheme is planned to launch as early as January 1, 2027.