How to find equivalent US or Worldwide ETFs that are compliant with European PRIIPS regulations?

Question

I used to invest in the following hyper-diversified portfolio :

+--------+--------------------------------------------------+-------------+
| ticker | Exchange-traded Fund                             | Percent (%) |
+--------+--------------------------------------------------+-------------+
| BWX    | SPDR Bloomberg Barclays Intl Treasury Bond       |  13         |
| EMLC   | VanEck Vectors JP Morgan Emer Mkts Loc Curr Bond |  10         |
| BND    | Vanguard Total Bond Market                       |   9         |
+--------+--------------------------------------------------+-------------+
| IAU    | iShares Gold Trust                               |  11         |
| DBC    | PowerShares DB Commodity Tracking                |   5         |
+--------+--------------------------------------------------+-------------+
| VEU    | Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-U.S.                  |  17         |
| VWO    | Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets Index             |  14         |
| VNQI   | Vanguard Global ex-U.S. Real Estate              |   4         |
| VNQ    | Vanguard REIT                                    |   6         |
| VTI    | Vanguard Total Stock Market                      |  11         |
+--------+--------------------------------------------------+-------------+
| Composite Portfolio                                       | 100         |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+-------------+

I live in France and my broker is Interactive Brokers.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to buy those ETFs since PRIIPS regulations came into force in Europe on January 01, 2018.

I thought the required document (KID) would be issued by the companies selling those ETFs. This has been nearly 2 years now and I'm losing hope.

I'm looking for a way to either:

• Find ETFs that track the same index and have low fees that I could buy in Europe

• Find a good regulated broker that would allow EU citizen to buy those products.

I wonder why the KIDs documents haven't been issued yet?

Answer 1

If you are an EU citizen and NOT an US citizen, https://justetf.com is meant for you, and I found IE (Ireland)-domiciled versions of several Vanguard and iShares funds. The fees for IE-domiciled Vanguard funds are somewhat higher than the US-domiciled ones, but not outlandishly so - 0.07% vs. 0.03% for Vanguard's S&P 500.

Key: the ISIN should begin with IE or the letter code for another EU country (US-domiciled funds begin with US), and there should be UCITS in the name.

If you also have US citizenship and therefore perpetual US tax liability, though, forget everything I said. We're in a Catch-22 - cannot buy non-EU-domiciled ETFs on our own because PRIIPS, and are stupid to buy non-US-domiciled ETFs because PFIC (a high likelihood of having to pay gains at the top US marginal rate, no matter what your income is).