Overview of Fidelity fees and charges
It's safe to say that Fidelity's fees are low in general. They either don't charge a brokerage fee for things other brokers do charge for, or they only charge a small amount. This means that you can use Fidelity even in case you trade frequently like multiple times a week or daily.
Here's a high level overview of Fidelity's fees
Assets | Fee level | Fee terms |
---|---|---|
US stock fee | Low | Free stock and ETF trading |
EURUSD fee | - | Not available |
US tech fund fee | High | $49.95 or $75.0 for buying while selling is free; some 3,600 free mutual funds |
Inactivity fee | Low | No inactivity fee |
Fidelity fees
Fidelity fees explained
Online brokerages in general charge much lower brokerage fees than traditional brokerages do - this is largely due to the fact that online brokerages' businesses can be much better scaled: From a purely technical standpoint it doesn't make that much of a difference for them if they have 100 or 5000 clients.
This is not to say however that they don't have any fees at all. They make money by charging you at various events for various rates. Usually you need to keep an eye on these 3 types of fees:
- Trading fees - these are brokerage fees that you pay when you actually do a trade, i.e. buying an Apple stock or an ETF. What you pay is either a commission, a spread or financing rate. Some brokers apply all of these.
- A commission is either based on the traded volume or it is fixed.
- A spread is the difference between the buy price and the sell price
- Financing rate or overnight rate is charged when you hold your leveraged positions for more than one day.
- Non-trading fees. These occur related to some operations you make in your account, i.e. depositing money to your account, withdrawing money from it or not trading for an extended amount of time.
We compare Fidelity fees with its closest competitors, Interactive Brokers and Charles Schwab.
Fidelity fees
Fidelity trading fees
Fidelity's trading fees are low which makes it suitable for you even if you trade often (i.e. multiple times a week).
Let's break down the trading fees into the different asset classes available at Fidelity.
Trading fees
Fidelity's trading fees are low.
Stock fees and ETF fees
Fidelity has low stock trading fees.
Fidelity | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
---|---|---|---|
US stock | $0.0 | $1.0 | $0.0 |
UK stock | $11.7 | $7.8 | - |
German stock | $22.8 | $4.8 | - |
Fund fees
Fidelity fund fees are high.
Fidelity | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
---|---|---|---|
Mutual fund | $37.5 | $15.0 | $24.8 |
EU mutual fund | - | $4.4 | - |
Bond fees
Fidelity has low bond fees.
Fidelity | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
---|---|---|---|
US Treasury bond | $0.0 | $5.0 | $0.0 |
EU government bond | - | $10.0 | - |
Options fees
Fidelity's options fees are low.
Fidelity | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
---|---|---|---|
US stock index options | $6.5 | $6.5 | $6.5 |
UK stock index options | - | $22.1 | - |
German stock index options | - | $13.2 | - |
Financing rates
Fidelity financing rates are .
If you want to trade on margin and prefer to hold your positions long, financing costs can be significant.
Fidelity | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
---|---|---|---|
Apple CFD financing rate | - | 1.6% | - |
Vodafone CFD financing rate | - | 1.3% | - |
EURUSD financing rate | - | 1.8% | - |
EURGBP financing rate | - | 1.6% | - |
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Fidelity fees
Fidelity non-trading fees
When it comes to looking at all the non-trading fees Fidelity is a cheap broker. This means that they don't charge you a lot for non-trading related activities on your trading account, like withdrawal fee.
Non-trading fees include various brokerage fees and charges at Fidelity that you pay not related to buying and selling assets. Among some others, typical non trading fees are withdrawal fee, deposit fee, inactivity fee and account fee.
Fidelity | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
---|---|---|---|
Withdrawal fee | $0 | $0 | $0 |
Deposit fee | $0 | $0 | $0 |
Inactivity fee | No | Yes | No |
Account fee | No | No | No |
Fidelity fees
Fidelity deposit fee
Deposit fees are applied when you send money to your trading account from your bank account. Usually brokers don't charge money for that and Fidelity is not different: you will see the exact same amount on your brokerage account that you sent by any of the deposit methods Fidelity offers.
Fidelity | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
---|---|---|---|
Bank transfer | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Credit/debit card | No | No | No |
Electronic wallets | Yes | No | No |
Deposit fee | $0 | $0 | $0 |
Fidelity fees
Fidelity withdrawal fee
Unlike the majority of the online brokers we have reviewed Fidelity does not charge a withdrawal fee. This means that you'll see the same amount of money on your bank account that you transferred from your brokerage account.
Fidelity | Interactive Brokers | Charles Schwab | |
---|---|---|---|
Bank transfer | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Credit/debit card | No | No | No |
Electronic wallets | Yes | No | No |
Withdrawal fee with bank transfer | $0 | $0 | $0 |
Fidelity fees
Fidelity inactivity fee
Fidelity does not apply an inactivity fee which is great because your account will not be charged even if you do not trade for a longer time period (months or years).