Mutual fund fees and expenses

Mutual fund fees and expenses are charges that may be incurred by investors who hold mutual funds. Running a mutual fund involves costs, including shareholder transaction costs, investment advisory fees, and marketing and distribution expenses. Funds pass along these costs to investors in a number of ways.

Some funds impose "shareholder fees" directly on investors whenever they buy or sell shares. In addition, every fund has regular, recurring, fund-wide "operating expenses." Funds typically pay their operating expenses out of fund assets — which means that investors indirectly pay these costs. Seemingly negligible, fees and expenses can substantially reduce an investor's earnings.

For the reasons cited above, it is important for a prospective investor to compare the fees of the various funds under consideration. Investors should also compare fees against industry benchmarks and averages. There are many different types of fees, as discussed below. To facilitate comparison of funds, it is helpful to compare the total expense ratio. The following table shows the median total expense ratios for different types of mutual funds as published by Morningstar.

Purchase Fee — A type of fee that some funds charge their shareholders when they buy shares. Unlike a front-end sales load, a purchase fee is paid to the fund (not to a ) and is typically imposed to defray some of the fund's costs associated with the purchase.

Redemption Fee — another type of fee that some funds charge their shareholders when they sell or redeem shares. Unlike a deferred sales load, a redemption fee is paid to the fund (not to a ) and is typically used to defray fund costs associated with a shareholder's redemption.

Exchange Fee — a fee that some funds impose on shareholders if they exchange () to another fund within the same "family of funds."

Management fees are fees that are paid out of fund assets to the fund's investment adviser for investment portfolio management, any other management fees payable to the fund's investment adviser or its affiliates, and administrative fees payable to the investment adviser that are not included in the "Other Expenses" category (discussed below). They are also called maintenance fees.

Account fees are fees that some funds separately impose on investors in connection with the maintenance of their accounts. For example, some funds impose an account maintenance fee on accounts whose value is less than a certain dollar amount.

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