Share dealing FAQs

This depends on your individual situation and type of investment you make, although all tax rules may change in the future.

The Stocks and Shares ISA and Junior ISA

You don’t have to pay UK tax on income or capital gains produced by your ISA investments (including any rebates paid to your account). You don’t have to declare your ISA investments on your UK tax return. We reclaim any UK basic rate tax that’s been deducted from property income payments in your ISA and reinvest this amount on your behalf.

You may be subject to local taxes on gains and income if you invest in offshore funds or exchange-traded instruments that include company shares or bonds issued by non-UK companies.

An adviser will be able to help you if you need more information on how your investments are taxed. You can also find more information on tax in our factsheet on  supplementary information about taxation.

The Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) and Junior SIPP

You won’t pay UK tax on income or capital gains produced by your SIPP investments (including any rebates paid to your account) while the money is in your SIPP account. You don’t have to declare your SIPP investments on your UK tax return. We reclaim any UK basic rate tax that’s been deducted from property income payments in your SIPP and reinvest this amount on your behalf.

You will normally only pay tax when withdrawing money from a pension account. Up to 25% of this is usually tax-free (up to your lump sum allowance) and any further money that is taken will be taxed just like any other earnings.

However, there are two other occasions which may result in paying tax on the savings within your pension pot:

• exceeding your annual allowance (see more details on the Annual Allowance)
• when you die and there is still money remaining in the pension, your beneficiaries could pay tax depending on a range of factors

Learn more about pension allowances and taking tax-free cash.

The Investment Account

If you’re a UK resident, you should declare income and capital gains on your HMRC self-assessment tax return.

Selling units or shares for any reason (including those we sell to pay any fees) could make you liable for UK capital gains tax.

Property income payments are subject to basic rate tax of 20%.

Any rebates and ‘Negotiated Fund Manager Discounts’ you receive are subject to income tax. We’ll buy additional units or shares in your investment on your behalf after we have deducted basic rate tax of 20%. In these two cases, you’ll have no further UK tax to pay if you’re a basic rate taxpayer. You may be liable to additional income tax if you’re a higher or additional rate taxpayer.

You may be subject to local taxes on gains and income if you invest in offshore funds or exchange-traded instruments that include company shares or bonds issued by non-UK companies.

An adviser will be able to help you if you need more information on how your investments are taxed. You can also find more information on tax in our factsheet on  supplementary information about taxation.

No. Our service is primarily an online service. If you have paper share certificates, you may want to transfer them to your online account.

Learn more about responding to a corporate action.

Yes, given you’re a UK resident living in the UK and are 18 years of age or over. You can also open an account if you’re a Crown Employee living overseas.

To make an investment you need to ensure there's enough cash in your account. You can do this by adding or topping up your cash balance on your account. The quickest way is with a debit card via our website. Cash is then credited to your account (for example Fidelity's Stocks and Shares ISA or Investment Account) immediately and can be used to make an investment. This is known as 'cash within your account'; it's a place to keep cash that you haven't invested yet and any cash you have chosen to take out of the market. 

You can also pay cash into your account to secure your ISA and SIPP allowances for a tax year before deciding where to invest it.

Whether you’re making an investment or making a withdrawal you can always see what’s happening on your account. You can see the status of each instruction through transaction tracking online, and monitor your investments and cash balances as we process your investment instructions.

Please note: any cash invested in your ISA and SIPP accounts to cover any fees payments will count towards your allowances for that tax year. When buying exchange-traded instruments we buy as many whole shares as possible. Any remaining cash will stay within your account.

If you’d like to move your investments to a new provider you should ask them to arrange this directly with us.

You can invest in exchange-traded instruments such as shares, investment trusts and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) through our online share dealing service. Dealing times will vary depending on the type of order placed. Our service is primarily an online service; however, for some exchange-traded instruments such as investment trusts and ETFs, you can also invest over the phone (fees vary depending on whether you buy online or over the phone).

Please note that when investing, deals are placed at the next available dealing time. If you give an instruction by post, it may be processed on the following business day as investment instructions received in the post are usually processed within 24 hours.

One-off investments
You can make lump sum investments by using a debit card or by sending us a cheque. If you’re paying by building society cheque or banker’s draft, the cheque should be made payable to Fidelity using your title and name e.g. (Fidelity – re Mr J Smith). You’ll also need to ask your building society to endorse the cheque before you send it to us.

Regular investments
Making regular contributions to a savings plan can be a great way to build up a larger sum over the long term. It can also remove the temptation of trying to ‘time the market’ – changing your long-term plan by buying or selling investments based on short-term market movements.

If you’d like to make regular payments into your account, you can set this up online. Your instructions will be processed within five days, and we’ll start collecting your regular contributions from the next available collection date. When we collect money for regular savings, it is held as cash within your account for two working days before we buy your chosen investments. For example, if we collect your money on the 10th of each month, we may invest it on the 12th. This is because a bank may ask us to return the money for up to two days following its collection, although this rarely happens.

We provide access to a wide selection of investments that can meet a broad range of needs.

Exchange-traded instruments (ETIs) – these are investments that are openly traded on a stock exchange, which means you can buy and sell them through Fidelity.

There are many different types of ETI:

• Company shares (equities) – shares are individual securities and allow you to own part of a company or financial asset. While owning shares in a business does not mean you have any direct control over the day-to-day operations of the business, being a shareholder does entitle you and other shareholders to a proportional share of any profits.

• Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and exchange-traded commodities (ETCs) – ETFs and ETCs combine the benefits of investment funds and shares, offering you diversified, cost-effective and transparent access to global investment markets. They typically track the performance of a stock market index or commodity. They’re bought and sold much like shares and are sometimes known as ‘exchange-traded products’ (ETPs).

• Investment trusts – these are pooled funds set up as public limited companies (PLCs) and their shares are listed on a stock exchange. The trust’s investments are chosen and managed by an experienced team who spread your money across a wide selection of investments. Another difference from funds is that they have a fixed number of shares and so they are sometimes referred to as ‘closed-ended funds’.
   
• CREST Depository Interests (CDIs) – these are UK securities, issued by CREST, which are designed to represent a company share traded on an overseas stock market. They offer a way for you to buy and sell a number of non-UK stocks in sterling.

Not available

• Corporate bonds and UK government bonds (Gilts) (we don't currently offer these investment types) – in simple terms, a bond is a type of loan. When you buy one, you’re effectively lending the issuer your money and they pay you interest in return. At the end of a bond’s term, the face value of the bond will be paid to you, although you can buy and sell a bond at any time during that term. Companies issue corporate bonds while the British government issues Gilts. They are individual securities. 

There are many different types of individual securities and the ones we offer are described below. However, please remember that diversification – maintaining a wide spread of different investments – is one of the most important principles of successful investing. We therefore don’t recommend purchasing individual shares or other securities on their own unless you already have a wide selection of other investments.

If you’re buying exchange-traded instruments, the price you buy at depends on which type of order is placed:

Market order – you’re provided with a quote online based on the latest price which is available for 15 seconds. If you’re happy with the quote, you can buy or sell the shares immediately. If you’re not happy with the price, you can request another quote at the end of the 15 second period.

Limit order – you tell us a specific price online you’re willing to buy or sell per share which, if reached, will trigger your order to be placed. You can invest a monetary amount (for example, £50 of shares at 200p per share) or purchase a quantity of shares (for example, 200 shares at 200p). We send your request to the market and it is executed if your limit price (or better) is achieved for the full amount of your order. Limit orders expire at the end of the day you select your order to end on, which can be any trading date up to 90 days from when you submit your order. 

At best order – you are not provided a quote for these transactions and they will only be processed on an at best price available at the time of execution. This type of order is available online when the markets are closed or a quote cannot be provided for either a market-related or technical reason. This means we send your request to the market for a set quantity of shares or for a set amount of money. We will then attempt to fill that order at the best price available from numerous different market makers. In addition, transactions for regular savings and dividend reinvestments are combined with other customers’ orders (known as aggregated transactions) and are placed at certain times of day, at the best price then available at the time of execution.

Unlike with fund deals, you will be able to deal at any time of day, while the markets are open – there isn’t just one daily pricing point. With a market order your deal will go through straightaway at the price you have been quoted. If you place a limit order, the transaction will go through if the stock reaches the price you have specified, regardless of when this happens, as long as it is on the same business day that you placed the order. You can place a deal when markets are closed and it will go through as soon as they re-open. London markets are open from 8am to 4.30pm.

You can sell any exchange-traded instruments you hold with us. You have the option of placing a market order, limit order or at best order.

We normally pay your money into ‘Cash within the account’ and then you can instruct us to pay this by direct credit to your personal bank or building society. This could take up to 3 days after we receive your money from the sale of relevant exchange-traded instruments.

The London Stock Exchange is open Monday to Friday from 8am to 4.30pm (local time), except on holidays declared in advance.

The US stock market exchanges - particularly the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Nasdaq - are typically open between 9.30am to 4pm EST, which is 2.30pm to 9pm GMT.

We will actively monitor trading levels and may refuse at our discretion to accept your Investment instruction because of your trading history or if we believe your request may be disruptive. We discourage short term or excessively frequent trading in the Investments we make available through our platform as this can harm performance and increase costs.

Yes, you can set up a regular savings plan into shares within your account, and select the shares, amount and frequency you wish to buy. There is a dealing fee of £1.50 for each instruction, and additional charges such as Stamp duty or FX fee may apply. Due to the volatile nature of shares unfortunately you cannot set up a regular withdrawal plan from them. 

You can invest in European and US shares in a Stocks and Shares ISA, Investment Account or Junior ISA.

Learn more about investing in international shares.

We don't provide advice on individual securities. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment, you should speak to an authorised financial adviser.

Should a company decide to pay a dividend, you can receive the payment in a number of ways:

• Paid out to your bank account
• Paid out as cash within your Fidelity account
• Reinvested within the same stock - a charge of £1.50 is applicable

The timing of dividend payments can vary as they are paid at a company’s discretion depending on a number of factors (such as company performance). If and when a company pays out a dividend, we will reinvest or pay it out to you based on your income preference as soon as practicable after we receive them. For more information, you can find out specific stock information through our factsheets.

Yes, you can use your investment to provide you with an income in a number of ways:

• Income payments
• Selling all or part of your investment

Income cannot be taken from a Junior ISA.

Income payments

You can choose to have any income generated from your investments to be paid out to you. The cash will be placed in ‘Cash within your account’ before the payment is made.

If you choose to receive income, we’ll add together all the income payments received from your investments over a period. We’ll then make one single payment to you. You can choose from monthly, quarterly, half yearly or annual periods.

Selling all or part of your investment

You can also make withdrawals by selling all or part of an investment. Selling your investments is covered in more detail below

Our share dealing service is primarily an online service. We charge a flat fee of just £7.50 for buying or selling shares online within a SIPP (investing in UK investments only), ISA or Investment Account and only £1.50 for dividend re-investments and regular savings plan payments.

In exceptional circumstances, you will be allowed to trade over the phone and the fee will be £30 for each order.

In most cases, when you buy UK shares, or shares in a foreign company with a share register in the UK, regulatory charges such as Stamp Duty Reserve Tax and PTM levy may apply.

When you deal an international share, you'll pay a foreign exchange (FX) charge. There may be additional government and local stock exchange charges for certain international markets. You can see these charges when you place the deal and on your contract note.

See details on charging 

For share dealing charges (including exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and investment trusts) - there is a charge made for each buy and sell transactions you place. This will be deducted from the amount invested or raised through the sale. 

Fidelity’s Personal Investing service fee - we will give you a Cash Management Account that is separate from your other accounts. We collect fees from any cash held there, before we look to take money or sell from investments held in other accounts, for example your tax-wrapped ISA or SIPP.

Learn more about our share dealing fees.