How fees are taken from your Fidelity account

You might notice money being moved into your Cash Management Account, or a small part of an investment being sold, when your monthly service fee is collected.

That’s usually because we’re collecting your service fee. When you invest with Fidelity, you may pay a service fee for the accounts and services we provide. This includes things like administering your account, giving you access to a wide range of investment options and helping keep your savings secure.

Understanding how we collect fees can help you avoid surprises and reduce the likelihood of investments being sold.

This guide explains how the process works and what you can do to stay on top of your fees. Feel free to read in full or use the links below to go to the relevant section.

1. What is the Cash Management Account?
2. How we collect your service fee
3. How your service fee is calculated
4. Where do we take fees from?
5. Service fee transactions
6. Which account are fees taken from first?
7. How are joint accounts treated?
8. How to reduce the chance of investments being sold to pay fees
9. Other fees and charges 

1. What is the Cash Management Account?

If you hold a Stocks and Shares ISA, Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) or Investment Account, you’ll also have a Cash Management Account. This is a separate account for holding cash and it cannot be used to invest.

You can use this account to:

• pay fees
• move money between accounts
• hold cash in

We don’t charge a service fee on cash held in any of your Fidelity accounts, including your Cash Management Account.

Money held in the Cash Management Account is not invested in the stock market so will not go up or down as a result of market movements. However, we do pay interest on cash held in the Cash Management Account (alongside our other accounts). The current interest rates can be found by here.

The only time you may not have a Cash Management Account is if you only hold a Joint Investment Account. This is because Cash Management Accounts aren’t available for Investment Accounts that you hold jointly with someone else. 

2. How we collect your service fee

We deduct your service fee around the 1st of every month.

For ISAs, SIPPs and single Investment Accounts, we collect the service fee from your Cash Management Account first.

This ensures that, where possible, your investments remain untouched, and we can use available cash to pay the fee instead.

The service fee for a Joint Investment Account, however, is directly taken from cash held in that account, not from the Cash Management Account. 

3. How your service fee is calculated

Your service fee is calculated based on the total value of your investments held during the previous month.

Where your service fee is calculated as a percentage of your investments, the amount you pay can therefore change from month to month as the value of those investments change. Any applicable flat fees or caps will still apply.

For example, if the investment value used to calculate your fee is £10,000 one month and £12,000 the next, a percentage-based monthly fee would be slightly higher in the second month because it is being calculated on a higher value. If the value falls, the fee may also fall. 

4. Where do we take fees from?

Service fees are collected in a specific order depending on if - and where - cash is available.

• Cash Management Account
  If there is enough cash in your Cash Management Account, we take the fee from there.
•  Cash in the account the fee has come from
  If there is not enough cash in your Cash Management Account, we look for cash in the account the fee relates to and transfer that to the Cash Management Account. For example, this could be your ISA, SIPP or Investment Account.
• Investments in that account
  If there is still not enough cash in that specific account, we may sell part of an investment in that account to cover the outstanding fee. We follow a set order, starting with your largest investment by value within each investment type. For example, we may sell from your largest fund first, followed by an investment trust and then an exchange-traded fund.

The service fee will always be taken from the Cash Management Account (unless you hold a Joint Investment Account). 

5. Service fee transactions

If there is not enough cash available to pay your fee, you may see several transactions in your account.

For example, you may see an investment being sold, cash being transferred to your Cash Management Account and then the service fee being taken. These are all separate transactions but appear as part of the same fee collection process. 

6. Which account are fees taken from first?

If fees are due for more than one account, the available cash in your Cash Management Account is used to pay them in the following order:

• ISA
• SIPP
• Investment Account

For example, if fees are due on both your ISA and SIPP, we’ll use the available cash in your Cash Management Account to pay the ISA fee first, followed by the SIPP fee.

Keeping enough cash in your Cash Management Account gives you the best chance of paying these fees without investments being sold. 

7. How are joint accounts treated?

The service fee for a Joint Investment Account works differently as we take the fee directly from cash held in that account, not from the Cash Management Account.

However, a Joint Investment Account still follows the same order of collection. If there is not enough cash in the joint account, we may sell investments in that account to cover the fee. 

8. How to reduce the chance of investments being sold to pay fees

The best way to stay on top of your service fees and reduce the chance of investments being sold to pay for fees is to keep some cash available in your Cash Management Account.

Our Estimate my fees tool can give you an indication of how much you may pay in fees, helping you decide how much cash to keep available.

Having a topped-up Cash Management Account can help cover your monthly service fee without needing to sell investments from your ISA, SIPP or Investment Account.

You may want to check the balance from time to time, particularly if the value of your investments or the accounts you hold have changed. 

9. Other fees and charges

In addition to our service fee, there may also be charges set by the company managing your funds, and there will be additional charges for any share dealing you engage in. For more details, please visit our main fees and charges page.

Important information - investors should note that the views expressed may no longer be current and may have already been acted upon. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and all tax rules may change in the future. Withdrawals from a pension product will not be possible until you reach age 55 (57 from 2028. This information is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment you should speak to one of Fidelity’s advisers or an authorised financial adviser of your choice.