ACATS transfer fees by broker: what an acat transfer costs, and which direct indexing platforms reimburse it.
Seven fee schedules read line by line, from $0 to $100. Then the part the roundups miss: on a direct indexing account the transfer fee is almost never the expensive bit.
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In short
An ACATS transfer fee is charged by the firm you leave, not the one you join, and it runs from $0 to $100. Vanguard and Robinhood charge $100, Frec and Betterment $75, Schwab $50 for a full transfer and nothing for a partial one, and Wealthfront and Fidelity charge nothing at all. Every provider we checked accepts an incoming transfer free, and not one direct indexing platform publishes a reimbursement of the fee your old firm charges. For a direct indexing account the fee is the small number anyway: ACATS carries whole shares only, so every fractional position is sold on the way out and the gain is realized that year.
ACAT transfer fees and brokerage transfer fees compared
What each firm charges to let go of your account
Every figure below comes from the firm's own published fee schedule, read on September 16, 2026. Read the third column first: the incoming side is free everywhere, so the only number that can cost you anything is your current provider's outgoing fee.
| Firm | Type | Incoming ACATS | Outgoing ACATS | Reimburses your old firm's fee? | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wealthfront | Direct indexing | $0 | $0 | No published reimbursement | support.wealthfront.com |
| Fidelity (Managed FidFolios) | Direct indexing | $0 | None in the published fee schedule | No published reimbursement | Brokerage Commission and Fee Schedule |
| Charles Schwab (Personalized Indexing) | Direct indexing | $0 | $50 full, $0 partial | No published reimbursement | April 2026 Pricing Guide |
| Frec | Direct indexing | $0 | $75 full or partial | No. Its own footnote says your external firm may charge you | docs.frec.com fee schedule |
| Betterment | Robo advisor | $0 | $75 flat per investing account | No published reimbursement | betterment.com help center |
| Vanguard (Personalized Indexing) | Direct indexing via an adviser | $0 | $100 account closure and full transfer out | No published reimbursement | Vanguard commission and fee schedule |
| Robinhood | Brokerage | $0 | $100 partial and full | No published reimbursement | robinhood.com support |
Two fees that do not appear in the headline number are worth knowing about. Frec charges $5 per security for a DTC transfer, the manual route used when ACATS will not do, and $10 a month per security for anything sitting in the account that cannot be transferred at all. Vanguard's $100 is waived for clients with at least $5 million in qualifying assets, for Wealth Management clients, and for any brokerage account enrolled in a Vanguard-affiliated advisory service, which includes a Vanguard Personalized Indexing account.
What the fee schedules actually show
Nobody reimburses, the fee runs backwards, and it is not the real cost
Nobody reimburses
Retail brokers compete on this. Direct indexing platforms do not. We read every published schedule and none of them offers to cover the fee your old firm charges. Frec is the only one that mentions the subject at all, and only to warn you: footnote 2 of its fee schedule says "Your external brokerage firm may charge an outgoing ACATS fee." If a platform tells you otherwise on a call, get it in writing before you submit the form.
The fee runs backwards
The firm most people in this cluster are leaving, Wealthfront, charges nothing to leave. The platform they are usually moving to, Frec, charges $75 to leave later. So the exit fee you should actually price is not this move, it is the next one. If you expect to shop again in two years, a $75 exit is part of the cost of the 0.09% you are switching for, and it belongs next to the fee in the comparison.
It is the small number
ACATS moves whole shares. A direct indexing account is several hundred positions, most of them fractional by construction, and every fraction is sold by the delivering firm and forwarded as cash. On an account that has been harvesting for a few years those positions carry low basis, so the realized gain can be several hundred times the $75 you were worried about.
How much of a direct index actually transfers
The fractional residue scales with position count, not with account size
This is arithmetic, not a quote from anybody. Spread an account across roughly 500 S&P 500 names and see what each position is worth. Anything below the price of one share of that company is a fraction, and a fraction cannot travel through ACATS.
| Account size | Per position across 500 names | What a full ACATS moves in kind |
|---|---|---|
| $5,000 | about $10 | Almost nothing. Very few S&P 500 constituents trade under $10, so nearly every position is a fraction and gets sold. |
| $25,000 | about $50 | A minority. Only the lower-priced names hold a whole share; everything else is residue. |
| $100,000 | about $200 | Most positions carry at least one whole share. What is left over is the fraction above it. |
| $500,000 | about $1,000 | Most of the account moves in kind, with a small fractional residue per position. |
The conclusion is uncomfortable and it is the reason this page exists. The smaller the direct indexing account, the larger the share of it that gets liquidated on the way out, because the dollars per position fall below the price of a single share. Wealthfront's S&P 500 Direct account opens at $5,000. At that size roughly $10 sits in each name, and almost nothing in the index trades that low, so a full transfer sells effectively the whole account and sends cash.
That is survivable in year one, when there is barely any gain to realize. It is not survivable in year six, when harvesting has pushed the basis down and the same liquidation realizes the accumulated gain in a single tax year. The mechanics of what moves and what gets sold, including what happens to your cost basis, are set out in our ACATS transfer rules guide for direct indexing accounts.
It also changes how you should read a platform's replication method. A provider that holds whole shares of fewer names transfers out far more cleanly than one holding fractions of everything, and a provider that fills part of the index with ETFs transfers those ETF positions in kind without a problem. We put the four US providers' own descriptions of what they hold side by side on direct indexing with fractional shares.
Pricing a transfer properly
Work out the real number before you submit the form
Look up one fee, not two
The receiving side is free everywhere in our table. Find your current provider in the fourth column and that is your entire fee exposure: $0, $50, $75 or $100.
Export the lots first
Pull the unrealized gain on every fractional position from your current statement. That total, taxed at your rate, is the cost the fee schedule does not show you.
Ask about a partial transfer
At Schwab a partial transfer is free and a full one is $50. Leaving a single position behind can also keep the old account open so you can keep harvesting in it.
Price the next exit too
Whatever you move to will have its own outgoing fee. Frec charges $75, and adding that to the annual fee is the honest way to compare it with the 0.25% you are leaving.
There is a step before all four of these that costs nothing. Build the index you are thinking of moving to in the studio at the top of this page, weight it the way the new provider would, and backtest it against what you already hold. A transfer you are making for a 16 basis point fee saving is worth a forced liquidation only if the destination is genuinely the same exposure, and quite often it is not. The fees themselves are laid out on our direct indexing fee comparison, and the full menu of providers on direct indexing platforms compared.
ACATS transfer fee questions
What people ask before they move an account
Are there any direct indexing platforms that reimburse incoming ACATS fees when moving from Wealthfront?
No. We checked the published fee schedule of every US direct indexing provider on September 16, 2026 and not one advertises reimbursing the outgoing fee your old firm charges. Frec goes the other way and warns you about it: footnote 2 of its fee schedule reads "Your external brokerage firm may charge an outgoing ACATS fee." The good news for this specific move is that Wealthfront charges nothing to leave, so there is no fee to reimburse.
How much does an ACATS transfer cost?
Between $0 and $100, and the firm you are leaving sets it, not the one you are joining. Every provider in our table accepts an incoming transfer free. On the way out, Wealthfront and Fidelity charge nothing, Schwab charges $50 for a full transfer and nothing for a partial one, Frec and Betterment charge $75, and Vanguard and Robinhood charge $100.
Does Wealthfront charge an ACATS transfer fee?
No, in either direction. Wealthfront charges no account opening fee, no withdrawal or closing fee and no transfer fee, so moving a Wealthfront direct indexing account to another platform costs nothing in fees. Wealthfront also does not reimburse a fee charged by a firm you transfer in from. If your old firm does charge one, it is usually deducted from the balance in transit.
Does Schwab reimburse the ACAT transfer fee?
Schwab publishes no reimbursement offer on its own transfer pages or in its April 2026 Pricing Guide. What it does publish is the other half: incoming transfers are free, and going the other way a full transfer out of Schwab costs $50 per account while a partial transfer costs nothing. Third-party roundups that quote a Schwab rebate are describing promotions, not the fee schedule, so ask Schwab before you count on one.
What is the best direct indexing platform that lets you transfer shares out in kind without fees?
On published fees, Wealthfront and Fidelity, which charge nothing to transfer out at all. But "without fees" and "in kind" are two separate questions and the second one costs far more. ACATS moves whole shares only, so every fractional position is sold by the firm you are leaving and forwarded as cash, which realizes gains. On a direct indexing account most positions are fractional, which is why the $75 rarely decides anything.
How do I ACATS fractional shares from Wealthfront to Frec?
You cannot. Fractional shares are not transferable through ACATS at any broker, so a full transfer request sells them and sends the cash. Robinhood states the mechanism plainly: it "will automatically sell any fractional security shares and transfer the cash proceeds to the outside brokerage in a residual transfer." The question worth answering first is how much gain that sale realizes, which our ACATS transfer rules guide walks through.
How long does an ACATS transfer take?
Plan on one to two weeks for a straightforward full account transfer. The delivering firm has to validate the request, then the positions settle across, and a residual cash transfer for the liquidated fractions follows afterwards. Managed accounts take longer than plain brokerage accounts because the portfolio has to be released from discretionary management first.
Is a partial ACATS transfer cheaper than a full one?
At some firms, yes, and it is worth checking before you fill in the form. Schwab charges $50 for a full transfer out and $0 for a partial one, so moving everything except one token position can be a $50 decision. Frec and Robinhood charge the same fee either way. A partial transfer also leaves your old account open, which matters if you want to keep harvesting there.
Does an ACATS transfer trigger taxes?
The transfer itself does not. Whole shares move in kind with their cost basis intact and nothing is realized. What creates the tax is the forced sale of everything ACATS cannot carry: fractional shares, and any holding the receiving firm will not accept. On a direct indexing account with several hundred positions that residue can be most of the balance, and any gain in it is realized in the year you move.
Sources
Frec fees from the Frec pricing and fee schedule at docs.frec.com. Schwab fees from the April 2026 Charles Schwab Pricing Guide for Individual Investors. Vanguard fees from the Vanguard Brokerage Services commission and fee schedules. Betterment from the Betterment help center article on fees for transferring out. Robinhood from its support article on transferring stocks out of a Robinhood account. Fidelity from the published Fidelity Brokerage Commission and Fee Schedule, which contains no account transfer or account closing fee. Wealthfront from its support center. Every schedule was read on September 16, 2026; brokerage fees change, so confirm the number with your own provider before you submit a transfer. Indexes is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any firm named here. We make index construction and backtesting software: we do not manage money, place trades, custody assets or give tax or investment advice.
Check the destination index is worth the liquidation
Build the benchmark you are about to pay a new provider to track, weight it their way, and backtest it against the account you already own. A transfer that realizes gains needs to buy you more than a few basis points.
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