Private Credit Funds 2026: The 28 Largest You Can Buy, Compared From SEC Filings

What a "private credit fund" is when you are an individual

Private credit means loans made directly by a fund to companies, usually mid-sized and owned by private equity firms, or to pools of assets such as consumer and small-business loans, instead of bonds bought on an exchange. Institutions get it through closed partnerships that call capital and return it over ten years. An individual in the US gets it through one of two wrappers that sell shares continuously at net asset value (NAV) and buy some back each quarter:

Two things are not in this list. Listed BDCs trade on the NYSE or Nasdaq and you can sell any day at the market price; our BDC stocks list covers them, and the private credit ETF holdings page shows what the ETF wrappers really own. And Apollo Asset Backed Credit Company is neither a BDC nor a registered fund: it is a Delaware holding company sold to accredited investors, which is why it has its own page and no row here.

The biggest private credit funds you can buy, ranked

Net assets from each fund's latest Form 10-Q (BDCs, June 30, 2026) or Form N-PORT (interval funds, mostly June 30, 2026). We kept funds whose filings describe lending or credit as the strategy and that individuals can buy, and left out three large BDCs that do not fit: Ares Core Infrastructure Fund ($5.03B, infrastructure equity and debt), Sixth Street Lending Partners ($4.53B) and MSD Investment Corp. ($3.50B), both sold privately to accredited investors with capital called as loans are made, like an institutional fund.

Five of the funds in this table have their own page with every tender or repurchase since launch: Barings Private Credit Corp, Blue Owl Technology Income Corp., Fidelity Private Credit Fund, Calamos Aksia Alternative Credit & Income Fund and Oaktree Asset-Backed Income Fund. Two smaller non-traded BDCs below the top 28 are covered the same way: PGIM Private Credit Fund and Antares Private Credit Fund.

Golub's BDC and Carlyle's interval fund are a near tie: $4,474.9 million against $4,469.9 million. Two caveats on "private": PIMCO Flexible Credit Income describes its strategy as global credit across public and private sectors, Lord Abbett Credit Opportunities as at least 80% in bonds and other fixed income instruments, and their Form N-PORT shows it (Level 3 assets, the hard-to-value kind, are 26.6% and 0.0% of their holdings; see the risk section). Interval-fund net assets on N-PORT are unaudited and can differ slightly from the annual report: PIMCO's audited figure for June 30, 2026 is $4,415.8 million. For the full universe, see the list of 66 non-traded BDCs and the list of 171 interval funds.

What it costs to get in

Minimums and loads from each fund's current prospectus; fees from the 10-Q (BDCs) or the annual report and prospectus (interval funds). "Hurdle" is the yearly return on net assets the fund must earn before the adviser takes an income incentive fee.

The BDC terms are close to a template: 12 of the 15 charge 1.25% of net assets plus 12.5% of income above 5% a year, and most retail classes start at $2,500. The exceptions are worth knowing. Barings charges 0.75% on gross assets, which includes what it borrows, and 10% above an 8.0% hurdle measured over twelve months. StepStone's BDC charges 1.00% and 7.5%. Monroe charges 1.25% on total assets, cut to 1.0% for 2026 by a voluntary waiver. Among interval funds the spread is wider: Cliffwater's two funds, PIMCO, Lord Abbett, Variant and Calamos Aksia list no incentive fee; CION Ares and Carlyle charge 15% above 6%.

The upfront load column needs one more line of reading. Several BDCs (BCRED, ADS, HLEND, ASIF) do not charge a load themselves but let selling agents charge one up to the cap shown, so what you pay depends on the platform. A Class I share bought through an adviser who waives the minimum is usually the cheapest door in.

What each fund pays, and who has cut

A rate the fund itself states is marked "fund"; the others are our arithmetic: the latest regular distribution per share, annualized, divided by NAV per share. A distribution rate is not a return. It can include return of capital and says nothing about NAV, which fell at most of these funds in 2026.

Six of the 15 BDCs lowered what they pay in 2026, by our reading of their 10-Qs and 8-Ks: BCRED, Oaktree Strategic Credit, Barings, North Haven, Fidelity (which split its payout into a lower regular amount and a variable supplement) and HLEND (whose supplement fell while its base held). Two interval funds paid part of their distributions out of capital in their last fiscal year: CELFX ($0.48 of $1.21 a share) and Calamos Aksia ($0.07 of $1.01).

Getting out: the latest repurchase at each fund

This is the column most buyers skip and most holders now read first. "Requested" is the share of the fund that holders asked to sell, as the fund states it or as our arithmetic from shares tendered against an offer for 5% of shares.

Nine of the 15 BDCs prorated their latest offer, and at least four of the 13 interval funds turned requests away (Carlyle, Variant, Apollo Diversified Credit and LENDX). Three interval funds, CCLFX, CELFX and Calamos Aksia, bought 7% of their shares, the 5% offer plus the full 2% Rule 23c-3 allows without a new offer, and none of the three reports how much was asked. The pattern across all 28 is simple: funds where requests stayed under about 5% of shares paid in full, and funds above it paid roughly 5% divided by the share requested. For quarter-by-quarter histories, see the private credit redemptions tracker and, for the evergreen equity and real estate funds, evergreen fund redemptions compared.

The open windows as of October 8, 2026: Golub's offer closes October 28 (up to 9,255,407 shares); PIMCO's interval funds take requests until November 5; Apollo Diversified Credit until November 3; Oaktree Asset-Backed Income until November 9. Lord Abbett Credit Opportunities takes requests until October 20. The third-quarter offers of BCRED, OCIC, ADS, HLEND, OTIC, TPG Twin Brook, Fidelity and StepStone's BDC have expired but have not filed final results.

The risks the filings show

Three numbers in the quarterly reports say more about credit quality than the distribution rate does.

Non-accruals. A loan goes on non-accrual when the fund stops booking its interest because it doubts it will be paid. Each BDC reports the share of its portfolio on non-accrual at June 30, 2026, at amortized cost (what it lent) and at fair value (what it marks it at today):

BCRED stands out on the first column: 2.2% of its portfolio at cost was on non-accrual at June 30, 2026, against 0.6% six months earlier, the highest among the 15. Its fair-value figure, 1.1%, is half of that because those loans are already marked down. North Haven (1.4%), Barings (1.3%) and HLEND (1.27%) follow. The funds do not all use the same denominator (HLEND, Oaktree and TPG measure against debt investments only), so compare levels, not decimals.

Payment-in-kind income. PIK interest is interest a borrower pays by adding to its loan instead of paying cash. It counts as income, and it is paid out to you in cash, but the fund has not received that cash. The share runs from 1.3% (StepStone, TPG Twin Brook) to 6.0% (OTIC) of total investment income in the first half of 2026 (our arithmetic). Apollo Debt Solutions' PIK interest went from $14.5 million in the first half of 2025 to $36.6 million in the first half of 2026. Line definitions vary: some funds report only the non-affiliated line, and Goldman Sachs and Fidelity show PIK only in the cash flow statement.

Leverage. Most of these BDCs borrow 0.6 to 1.2 times their equity; the law lets them go to 2 times (asset coverage of 150%). A fund at 1.2x has $2.20 of loans for every $1 of your money, so a 1% loss on the portfolio costs you about 2.2% of NAV (our arithmetic).

For interval funds, the monthly portfolio report, Form N-PORT, lets us compute the same kind of signal from every holding:

All three columns are our arithmetic from each fund's own answers, holding by holding, weighted by value. Level 3 means the fund values the asset with its own model because there is no market price; it is the measure of how "private" a portfolio is. The PIK and default columns answer the form's questions “Is any portion of the interest paid in kind?” and “Currently in default?”, and the answers are self-reported and not consistent across funds: Apollo Diversified Credit flags 28.1% of its holdings as paying in kind and CION Ares 20.1%, while Cliffwater Corporate Lending flags none, although 25 of its holdings carry "PIK" in their names (our count). Read those two columns as what each fund chose to tell the SEC, not as a ranking. The last column includes every liability; Carlyle's Form N-PORT reports no bank borrowings in its borrowing items, but its semiannual report shows $991.2 million drawn on two credit facilities at June 30, 2026 (our sum of $300.0 million and $691.2 million).

How to use this before you buy, or while you hold

• Start from the exit, not the yield. The yields cluster between 8% and 10%. The repurchase column does not: the same 5% offer paid 100% at Golub and 13.1% at OTIC. Ask your adviser for the fund's last two tender results and the share of the fund requested.
• Check what class you are offered. Class I avoids loads and servicing fees but often needs $1 million or an adviser's waiver; Class S can carry up to 3.5% upfront. On $250,000 that is up to $8,750 before the first dollar is invested (our arithmetic).
• Read the non-accrual and PIK lines in the 10-Q. A rising non-accrual rate (BCRED from 0.6% to 2.2% in six months) or a rising PIK share (ADS, 2.5 times in a year) arrives before NAV moves.
• Count the 2% fee. Most BDCs here charge 2% if you sell within a year of buying, and the fee comes off even if you are prorated.
• If you already hold a prorated fund: unfilled requests do not carry over automatically at the funds we have read; you resubmit each quarter. The fund page links above have each one's history.

This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.

FAQ

Sources, all read on SEC EDGAR on October 8, 2026: the Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 of each of the 15 BDCs (accessions in the CSV: BCRED 0001803498-26-000048, OCIC 0001812554-26-000047, ADS 0001193125-26-341358, HLEND 0001628280-26-056772, ASIF 0001628280-26-054923, Goldman Sachs Private Credit Corp. 0001193125-26-340582, GCRED 0001930087-26-000099, Oaktree Strategic Credit Fund 0001872371-26-000013, North Haven Private Income Fund 0001193125-26-342549, Barings Private Credit Corp 0001859919-26-000068, StepStone Private Credit Fund 0001193125-26-351731, Monroe Capital Income Plus 0001742313-26-000046, OTIC 0001869453-26-000053, TPG Twin Brook 0001913724-26-000024, Fidelity Private Credit Fund 0001193125-26-346851); their latest Schedule TO-I and TO-I/A filings and the shareholder letters filed with them; their monthly 8-Ks; their current prospectuses (486BPOS or N-2); for the 13 interval funds, the latest Form N-PORT, annual or semiannual report (N-CSR or N-CSRS), Form N-23C-3 repurchase notice and prospectus; and the SEC's Form N-PORT instructions. Sums, shares, rates marked "ours" and every N-PORT percentage are our arithmetic. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.