Rule 6c-11 ETF Requirements: Disclosure, Baskets, and Records

SEC Rule 6c-11 lets an exchange-traded fund operate without its own exemptive order, provided the fund fits the rule’s definition of a standard ETF and meets ongoing conditions on daily website disclosure, custom basket policies, and recordkeeping. The Rule 6c-11 ETF requirements fall into those three operational pillars, sitting on top of the structural requirements that decide whether a fund can rely on the rule at all.¹

Which Funds Qualify

The rule is available to open-end management investment companies that issue and redeem creation units through authorized participants and whose shares are listed on a national securities exchange at market-determined prices.² Index trackers, actively managed transparent funds, thematic funds, and standard fixed-income ETFs generally fit.

Several categories are shut out and must continue operating under individual exemptive orders:

Unit investment trusts, including some of the earliest large index products such as the original SPDR S&P 500 ETF.
Leveraged and inverse ETFs, which are also subject to separate derivatives regulation under Rule 18f-4.
Mutual funds that offer an ETF share class alongside traditional mutual fund shares, because the non-exchange-traded class does not fit the rule’s definition.
Non-transparent and semi-transparent actively managed ETFs that do not disclose their full portfolio daily.³

The transparency exclusion matters most in practice. Because the rule’s conditions turn on posting the full portfolio each morning before trading opens, only funds willing to reveal their holdings on that schedule can qualify.

Daily Website Disclosure

Every fund relying on the rule must maintain a public, free website that publishes specific information each business day. The disclosure splits into pre-market portfolio data and end-of-day pricing data.

Portfolio Holdings Before Market Open

Before the primary listing exchange opens for regular trading, the fund posts its full portfolio holdings as of the prior business day’s close. For each holding, the website must show the ticker symbol, CUSIP or other identifier, a description, the quantity held, and its percentage weight in the portfolio.² That level of detail is what allows authorized participants to price creation and redemption baskets accurately, which in turn keeps the market price aligned with the underlying portfolio value.

End-of-Day Pricing, Premium/Discount, and Spread

After each trading day, the fund publishes its net asset value per share, closing market price, and the premium or discount between the two.¹

The website also has to carry a table and line graph showing premium and discount history for the most recently completed calendar year, plus quarters of the current year. For newer funds, that history covers the fund’s entire lifespan. Alongside it, the fund must display its median bid-ask spread over the most recent 30 calendar days, calculated by sampling the national best bid and offer at 10-second intervals throughout each trading day and reporting the median as a percentage.²

The 2% Premium or Discount Trigger

If a fund’s premium or discount exceeds 2% for more than seven consecutive trading days, additional disclosure kicks in. The fund must post a statement acknowledging the persistent deviation and discuss the factors it reasonably believes caused it. That statement stays on the website for at least one year.² It is one of the few places in the rule where a specific numeric threshold triggers a specific new obligation, and it is worth building into monitoring systems from the day a fund launches.

Custom Basket Policies and Procedures

In a standard creation or redemption, the basket of securities mirrors the fund’s portfolio proportionally. Rule 6c-11 also permits custom baskets, which contain a non-representative selection of the fund’s holdings or differ from the standard basket used earlier the same day.²

Any fund using custom baskets must adopt written policies and procedures that:

Set out detailed parameters for how baskets are constructed.
Explain when deviations from those parameters are permitted.
Establish that custom baskets are in the best interests of the fund and its shareholders.
Designate specific employees or officers of the investment adviser who are responsible for reviewing each custom basket before it goes through.¹

Most compliance programs concentrate here, because a poorly managed custom basket process can be used to dump unwanted securities, favor certain authorized participants, or manipulate the fund’s portfolio composition.

Recordkeeping

Records of basket transactions must be kept for at least five years, with the first two years in an easily accessible location. For each basket exchanged with an authorized participant, the record must include the ticker symbol, CUSIP or other identifier, description, quantity, and percentage weight of every holding, along with any cash balancing amount and the identity of the authorized participant.²

If a basket was a custom basket, the record has to identify it as such and confirm compliance with the fund’s written policies and procedures. The fund must also preserve all written agreements between authorized participants and the fund or its service providers. Examiners use these records to reconstruct every creation and redemption transaction and to verify that custom baskets followed the fund’s own rules, so gaps in the documentation are usually the first thing they flag.

What the Rule Does Not Replace

Rule 6c-11 eliminates the need for an individual exemptive order, but it does not replace the ordinary registration and reporting regime for registered funds. ETFs still register on Form N-1A, the same form used by open-end mutual funds, with a prospectus, a statement of additional information, and administrative filings. When the SEC adopted the rule, it removed several Form N-1A disclosure items that had been specific to ETFs (including the requirement to disclose creation unit size) on the rationale that the website conditions already covered them.⁴

Portfolio holdings still get filed with the SEC monthly on Form N-PORT, which captures detailed holdings along with interest rate, credit, and liquidity risk metrics. As of early 2026, the SEC has proposed reverting the filing deadline to 45 days after each month-end and reducing the frequency of public disclosure from monthly to quarterly, with reports becoming publicly available within 60 days after each fiscal quarter-end.⁵

Each year, ETFs also complete Form N-CEN, which collects census-type information about fund operations. ETFs must complete Part E of the form, which is specific to exchange-traded funds operating either under Rule 6c-11 or under individual exemptive orders.⁶

Dual-Class ETFs and Indirect Application

Rule 6c-11 explicitly excludes funds that offer an ETF share class alongside a traditional mutual fund class, but the rule’s conditions still reach those products indirectly. Starting in late 2025, the SEC began granting separate exemptive relief allowing dual-class structures where a single fund offers both share types. In March 2026, the Commission extended that relief to give broker-dealers the same regulatory framework for trading dual-class ETF shares that single-class ETFs received under Rule 6c-11.⁷

A condition of that dual-class relief is that the ETF share class must operate in compliance with Rule 6c-11’s conditions, even though the fund as a whole cannot technically rely on the rule. For a sponsor building compliance systems, the operational standard is effectively the same whether the fund relies on Rule 6c-11 directly or mirrors it through a separate order.

1
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Exchange-Traded Funds: A Small Entity Compliance Guide
2
eCFR. 17 CFR 270.6c-11 – Exchange-Traded Funds
3
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. SEC Adopts New Rule to Modernize Regulation of Exchange-Traded Funds
4
Federal Register. Exchange-Traded Funds
5
K&L Gates. Fast Track to Fine-Tuned: How the SECs New Form N-PORT Proposed Amendments Refine the Rules for Fund Reporting
6
Securities and Exchange Commission. Form N-CEN
7
Vedder Price. SEC Grants Exemptive Relief and No-Action Relief from Exchange Act Requirements to Facilitate the Operation of Dual-Class ETFs