SPUS ETF Review 2026: Is It Halal?

SPUS is the SP Funds S&P 500 Sharia Industry Exclusions ETF. It takes the S&P 500, removes every company that fails AAOIFI-based Shariah screens (conventional banks and insurers, alcohol, gambling, tobacco, adult entertainment, pork, weapons, and any business carrying debt above 30% of its market value), and holds the roughly 200 companies left. It trades on NYSE Arca under the ticker SPUS, charges 0.45% a year, and held $3.39 billion in net assets on October 7, 2026, which makes it the largest halal ETF in the United States by a wide margin.

This review covers what SPUS actually holds, how the screening works, what it has returned against the plain S&P 500, how dividends and purification are handled, what it costs, how to buy it, and who it does and does not suit. Figures are taken from SP Funds' own fund page and are dated so you can check them. If you want to compare it against every other halal ETF first, start with our halal ETFs guide.

SPUS at a glance

What SPUS holds

Because conventional financials and heavily indebted companies are removed, SPUS is a more concentrated and more technology-heavy fund than the S&P 500 it is carved from. The ten largest positions made up about 58% of the fund on October 8, 2026, and the top three alone were more than 36%.

Below the top ten you find the rest of the large-cap names that pass the screens: Johnson & Johnson, AbbVie, Cisco, Lam Research, Applied Materials, Merck, Procter & Gamble, Palo Alto Networks, Home Depot, CrowdStrike, GE Vernova and Texas Instruments among them. What you will not find is any bank, insurer, card network or brokerage, and none of the consumer names whose revenue depends on alcohol or gambling. That is the point of the fund, but it also means SPUS behaves differently from a standard index fund: when semiconductors and software lead, it tends to beat the S&P 500; when financials or defensive sectors lead, it tends to lag.

How the Shariah screening works

SPUS does not pick stocks. It tracks an index, and S&P Dow Jones Indices applies the Shariah screens when it builds that index. There are two stages.

1. Business activity screen

Companies whose core business is impermissible are removed outright. The list covers conventional financial services, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, pork products, adult entertainment, weapons and defense, and certain media and entertainment businesses. The "Industry Exclusions" in the fund's name refers to this list, which goes further than the base S&P 500 Shariah index.

2. Financial ratio screen

Companies that pass the first screen must also keep interest-bearing debt, cash plus interest-bearing securities, and accounts receivable each below 33% of market capitalisation on a trailing basis, and impermissible income below 5% of revenue. SP Funds describes the result as a portfolio of companies with debt below 30% of market value. Companies that drift over the limits are removed at the next rebalance, which is why the holding count moves around 200 rather than staying fixed.

These are the AAOIFI thresholds that most halal screening apps and funds use, so a company held by SPUS will usually also pass Musaffa or Zoya. The reverse is not always true, because SPUS only draws from the S&P 500. A mid-cap stock can be perfectly halal and still never appear in the fund. Our stock screening methodology explains how the ratios are calculated and where the main screeners differ.

Performance against the S&P 500

The honest way to judge SPUS is against the index it was carved from. SP Funds publishes both side by side. These are total returns at net asset value as of September 30, 2026, and periods over one year are annualised.

SPUS has beaten the S&P 500 over every published period. Be clear about why: the screens strip out banks and leveraged businesses and leave a portfolio dominated by cash-rich technology companies, and that has been the winning side of the market since 2019. The same tilt works against the fund in years when technology sells off and banks or defensive sectors hold up. Past performance is not a forecast, and the fund's own documents say so. What the record does show is that a Shariah-compliant S&P 500 has not cost investors anything in return so far, which was the main worry when the fund launched.

Dividends and purification

SPUS pays a distribution every month. Through 2026 that has been a flat $0.026 per share, which works out to a 30-day SEC yield of 0.39% at the end of September. The yield is low for a reason: technology companies pay small dividends, and the high-yield sectors that lift the S&P 500's payout, banks and utilities among them, are excluded.

Some of the companies in the fund earn a sliver of interest income or impermissible revenue under the 5% threshold. SP Funds publishes a quarterly purification factor that tells you what fraction of the distribution to give away so your income is clean. You can apply it with our purification calculator. The amounts are small, typically a few cents on every dollar of dividends, but the fund makes it straightforward to do.

Is SPUS halal?

SPUS is built from the ground up to be Shariah-compliant. The index methodology follows AAOIFI standards, SP Funds publishes a Certificate of Sharia Accreditation and an annual Shariah audit, and the purification factors are disclosed every quarter. By the standards most Muslim investors in the United States use, including the ones applied by Musaffa and Zoya and by HalalWallet's own SPUS verdict, SPUS is halal.

Two reservations are worth knowing. A minority of scholars reject any ownership of companies that carry interest-bearing debt at all, even under the 33% threshold; for them no screened index fund passes, SPUS included. And because the fund is passive, you own whatever the index holds. If a particular company troubles you, a fund cannot accommodate that, whereas a self-built portfolio of screened stocks can. Neither point is specific to SPUS. They apply to every halal ETF.

What SPUS costs

The expense ratio is 0.45%, which is $45 a year on a $10,000 holding and comes straight out of the fund's returns. That is lower than HLAL at 0.50% and most of the other SP Funds ETFs at 0.55%, and slightly above MNZL at 0.40%. Compared with a plain S&P 500 fund at 0.03% it is expensive, but the plain fund is not halal, so the comparison that matters is between halal options, where SPUS sits near the bottom of the range. There are no loads or platform fees beyond whatever your brokerage charges to trade, which at most large U.S. brokerages is nothing.

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How to buy SPUS

• Open or log into any U.S. brokerage account. Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, Robinhood, M1 Finance and Interactive Brokers all carry it. Our halal brokerage guide compares them.
• Search for the ticker SPUS. The full name is SP Funds S&P 500 Sharia Industry Exclusions ETF.
• Place a limit order during market hours. The fund's median bid-ask spread is about 0.02%, so you will not lose much to the spread, but a limit order avoids surprises at the open.
• Hold it in a taxable account, a traditional or Roth IRA, or a 401(k) that offers a brokerage window. If your employer's 401(k) has no window, you cannot buy it there and will need to look at the plan's own funds.
• Record the purchase date. Zakat on shares held as a long-term investment is calculated on your zakat date, not the purchase date, but the record helps at tax time.

SPUS vs HLAL vs MNZL

These are the three U.S. large-cap halal ETFs, and most investors are choosing between them.

For a full head-to-head see SPUS vs HLAL, and for the fee argument see our lowest-cost halal ETF breakdown. Holding two of the three gives you little extra diversification, since the large-cap holdings overlap heavily. Pair one of them with an international fund (SPWO or UMMA) and a sukuk fund (SPSK) instead.

Who SPUS suits, and who it does not

SPUS fits an investor who wants a single U.S. core holding, wants it to be as close to the S&P 500 as the screens allow, and values the deepest liquidity and longest track record in the halal ETF market. It is the default U.S. equity sleeve in most halal model portfolios for good reason.

It is a weaker fit if you want mid- and small-cap exposure (MNZL covers mid caps), if you are uncomfortable with a third of your money in three technology companies, if you need meaningful dividend income, or if you want global diversification in one fund. None of those are flaws in the fund; they are consequences of tracking a screened S&P 500, and the fix is to combine it with something else rather than to avoid it.

Frequently asked questions

Is SPUS a halal ETF?

Yes by the standards most Muslim investors use. It tracks an AAOIFI-screened index, publishes a Sharia accreditation certificate and annual audit, and discloses quarterly purification factors. Scholars who reject any interest-bearing debt in a company would not accept it, but they do not accept any screened index fund.

What is the SPUS expense ratio?

0.45% a year, per SP Funds' fund page. That is $45 a year for every $10,000 invested.

How many stocks does SPUS hold?

About 200. The number moves with each index rebalance as companies pass or fail the financial ratio screens.

Does SPUS pay dividends?

Yes, monthly. In 2026 each payment has been $0.026 per share, a 30-day SEC yield of 0.39% at September 30, 2026. The yield is low because the fund is dominated by technology companies and excludes the high-dividend financial sector.

Has SPUS outperformed the S&P 500?

Over every period SP Funds publishes to September 30, 2026: by 5.5 points over one year, 2.4 points a year over three years, 2.6 points a year over five years and 3.1 points a year since inception. The outperformance comes from the fund's heavy weighting to technology, which cuts both ways.

Can I hold SPUS in an IRA or 401(k)?

In any IRA, yes. In a 401(k) only if the plan offers a brokerage window; most plans limit you to their own menu of funds. Our halal 401(k) guide explains the options when they do not.

What is the biggest risk with SPUS?

Concentration. The top three holdings were more than 36% of the fund in October 2026, and the top ten about 58%. A sharp fall in semiconductor or software stocks hits SPUS harder than it hits the S&P 500.

The bottom line

SPUS is the largest, most liquid and one of the cheapest halal ETFs available to U.S. investors, and it has beaten the S&P 500 since launch while staying inside AAOIFI screens with published purification. Its weaknesses, concentration and a near-zero yield, come from the same screens that make it halal. For most Muslim investors building a passive portfolio it is the right U.S. core holding; the decision is less whether to own it than what to pair it with. Compare the alternatives in our halal ETFs guide, or read how it stacks up against its closest rival in SPUS vs HLAL.

Sources: SP Funds, SPUS fund page (fund details, pricing, distributions, holdings and performance tables), read October 8, 2026; S&P Dow Jones Indices, S&P Shariah Indices Methodology; Wahed, HLAL fund page (expense ratio), read October 8, 2026.