Fund charges
Information on what fund charges are and how to compare fund charges.
What fund charges are
Fund charges are the charges you pay to the manager of your fund investments, for example, Legal & General, BlackRock, or Jupiter. These are separate to the account management or other charges you pay to HL.
If you're looking for an overview of all of our charges, you can find them on our charges page.What you need to know
- Fund charges vary and are set by the investment company managing your fund.
- We negotiate savings with fund managers on hundreds of funds.
- Fund charges are separate to HL's annual account charge.
- With HL there is no initial charge (your cost of entry when buying a fund).
How fund charges work
The main fund charge is called the ongoing charge.
This is the annual charge you’ll pay for as long as you hold that fund. It includes operating costs (which can go up or down) and the annual management charge.
You do not need to hold money on your account to pay your fund charges (like you do with your HL charges) as these costs are accounted for in the fund’s value on a daily basis.
That means each day when the price of the fund updates, and you see the value of your investment change, your fund charges have already been taken into account.
For most funds the ongoing charge is shown as an Ongoing Charges Figure (OCF). Some funds publish a Total Expense Ratio (TER) instead of an OCF. This is very similar but unlike an OCF, it includes any performance fees applied in the last year.
Some funds may also have:
- a separate performance fee
- transaction costs
- a bid-offer spread (a charge applied by the fund manager when you buy or sell)
These costs will also be included in the fund price. You do not have to pay for them separately.
Example of fund charges
If you invested £1,000 into a fund for 1 year:
Ongoing charge0.65%
£6.50
Saving with HL0.11%
-£1.10
What you pay0.54%
£5.40
What you pay is made up of the ongoing charge from the fund manager minus any saving that HL has negotiated with them.
For this example we've used the average fund charge, and average saving from the top 100 funds held with HL. The amount you pay will depend on the fund, and the exact value of your investment each day. To keep things simple here, we didn't include any investment growth. (Data correct as at: 15 February 2024)
Remember, you'll also pay HL charges for holding funds.
Savings on hundreds of funds
We negotiate with many fund management groups to offer lower ongoing charges on hundreds of funds. You can find the ongoing charge and any savings on the fund factsheet or using our fund search tool.
In some cases the ongoing saving is provided by our loyalty bonus. This is a rebate on the annual charge which is tax-free in an ISA or SIPP but may be subject to tax in a Fund and Share Account.
To make it easier to compare fund charges, we've rated them from the lowest (£) to the highest (£££££).
Funds are compared against other funds in the same Investment Association (IA) sector available at HL, allowing you to make like-for-like comparisons. Read more on how we compare charges.
Got more questions on fund charges?
For answers to any other questions you have on funds, see our fund FAQs.
Download our guide to investing in funds