UCITS

Why all your ETFs are UCITS

European rules (PRIIPs/MiFID II) require any product sold to European retail investors to publish a KID. US-domiciled ETFs (VOO, SPY, VTI…) do not publish one, so they cannot be bought from Europe as a retail investor. The solution is always the UCITS version of the same index — which replicates the same thing, at costs that are comparable today.

The domicile detail: Ireland

Within the UCITS universe, domicile matters: Irish funds (ISIN starting with IE) benefit from the Ireland–US treaty and suffer only 15% withholding at source on the American dividends they collect internally, versus 30% for other domiciles. Same index, different domicile, different net return — especially relevant in US-heavy indices like the MSCI World. Luxembourg (LU) is the other big European domicile.

What UCITS does not mean

The label regulates the structure, not the content: a UCITS can be a boring global index or a volatile, expensive sector product. It guarantees rules of the game (diversification, custody, transparency), not returns or low risk. Analysing the TER, the index and the size is still your job — the full checklist is in our ETF guide.