If a fund's 3-year return is 26%, is that per year or in total?

Per year. Any return quoted for a period of one year or longer is a CAGR — the compound annual growth rate, the steady yearly rate that would have carried your money from the start value to the end value. So a 26% three-year return means roughly 26% a year, compounded, not 26% spread across three years. Returns for periods under a year (1-month, 3-month, 6-month) work the opposite way: those are absolute, not annualised.

The difference is enormous, and it is where most beginners misjudge a fund. Money compounding at 26% a year roughly doubles in three years; 26% in total over three years is about 8% a year. Same headline number, wildly different outcome — so always check which convention a site uses. FundLens annualises every period from one year up and labels the shorter ones as absolute.

One caveat matters more than the convention itself: a trailing CAGR is a single line drawn between two dates, so it hides the entire ride. A fund that compounded 26% a year may have fallen 30% somewhere in the middle, and a CAGR measured from the bottom of a crash flatters a fund that simply recovered. Year-by-year returns and downside measures like the Sortino ratio tell you what a trailing number cannot.