To transfer an HSA from Optum to Fidelity, open a Fidelity HSA, sell any investments held at Optum so your balance is in cash, then submit a trustee-to-trustee transfer request through Fidelity’s website. Fidelity contacts Optum on your behalf, pulls the funds, and deposits them into your new account. The whole process is done online, takes about two to five weeks, and does not require you to be currently enrolled in a high-deductible health plan.
Why Most People Move
Optum charges a $2.75 monthly maintenance fee unless you keep an average cash balance of at least $2,000, and invested dollars do not count toward that threshold. Its investment menu is also narrower than a full brokerage. Fidelity charges no account fee, no opening fee, and has no minimum balance, and it lets you hold individual stocks, ETFs, bonds, and mutual funds inside the HSA. Those two differences are the reason most transfers happen.
What to Have Ready Before You Start
Gather three things before logging into Fidelity:
- A recent Optum statement. You will upload it during the request; it verifies ownership and shows Optum’s mailing address. Download it from the Optum Bank participant portal or use a mailed copy.
- Your Optum account number, which appears on that statement and in your Optum dashboard.
- An open Fidelity HSA. If you don’t have one yet, you can open it at Fidelity.com in a few minutes. Current enrollment in a high-deductible health plan is not required to open one for the purpose of receiving a transfer.
Make sure the name on your Fidelity HSA matches your Optum account exactly. Small mismatches, like a missing middle initial, can trigger a rejection that adds weeks.
Sell Your Optum Investments First
Optum, like most HSA custodians, will only transfer cash. Anything sitting in mutual funds on Optum’s investment platform has to be liquidated before the transfer can go through. Optum will not sell those holdings for you.
Log into Optum, go to “Sell Investments,” and choose “Liquidate Entire Portfolio.” If you have automatic investing turned on, pause it first under “Manage Automatic Investments.” Otherwise Optum can sweep the cash right back into funds after you sell, creating a loop. Give the sale a business day or two to settle before starting the request at Fidelity, so the full balance is sitting in cash with nothing left behind.
Submit the Transfer Request at Fidelity
Log into your Fidelity HSA and find the option to transfer assets from another provider. The tool walks through four stages:
- You submit the request, entering Optum Bank’s name and address, your Optum account number, and the uploaded statement.
- Fidelity sends the transfer request to Optum electronically. You do not need to call Optum or fill out separate paperwork.
- Optum verifies the account, deducts any outbound fee, and sends the balance to Fidelity.
- Fidelity deposits the money into your core cash position, where it stays until you choose investments.
Choose a Direct Transfer, Not a Rollover
There are two legal ways to move HSA money, and the difference matters.
A trustee-to-trustee transfer is what Fidelity’s online tool uses by default. The money moves directly between custodians and never touches your hands. The IRS does not treat it as a distribution, there is no annual limit on how many you can do, you receive no Form 1099-SA for it, and it does not go on your tax return.
A 60-day rollover is different. Optum sends a check to you, and you have 60 days to deposit it into Fidelity. You can only do this once every 12 months. Miss the deadline and the IRS treats the entire amount as a taxable distribution with an additional 20% penalty on top of income tax. The 20% penalty does not apply if you are 65 or older or if you are disabled, but the income tax still does. For almost everyone, the direct transfer is the right choice.
Timeline, Fees, and Leftover Balances
Plan on two to five weeks from the day you submit the request. Most of the wait is on Optum’s side during verification and processing.
Optum charges a $20 outbound transfer fee, taken from your balance before the funds leave. Fidelity charges nothing to receive the transfer.
Watch both accounts until Optum shows a zero balance. If a stray interest payment or a late-posting employer contribution lands after the main transfer, Optum typically sends a follow-up payment a few weeks later. Once the cash reaches Fidelity, it sits in the core cash position; a standard self-directed HSA will not invest it for you. Placing the trades is the point of the move, so don’t leave the balance idle.
Redirecting Employer Payroll Contributions
The transfer moves your existing balance. It does not reroute future payroll deductions. If your employer is sending pretax contributions to Optum, those keep going to Optum until you change them.
Ask HR or benefits to send your HSA payroll contributions to Fidelity instead. They will need Fidelity’s routing number, 101205681, and your Fidelity HSA account number, which appears on your Account Summary page. Some employers handle the change through a benefits portal; others use a form. Either way, expect one to two pay cycles before it takes effect.
Some employers only allow contributions to a specific HSA provider. If yours is one of them, you have two options. You can keep a minimal balance at Optum to catch payroll contributions and periodically sweep the accumulated cash over to Fidelity. Or you can contribute after-tax to Fidelity directly and claim the deduction on your return. The after-tax route works but costs you the payroll tax savings on Social Security and Medicare, roughly 7.65% of the contributed amount. For the 2026 tax year, the annual HSA contribution limit is $4,400 for self-only coverage and $8,750 for family coverage.
Tax Reporting After the Transfer
What you report depends on which method you used.
If you used the standard trustee-to-trustee transfer through Fidelity’s tool, there is almost nothing to do. The IRS does not consider it a distribution or a contribution. Optum will not send you a Form 1099-SA for the transferred amount, and it does not go on Form 8889. Fidelity reports the incoming funds on Form 5498-SA in box 4, which is informational only.
If you took a 60-day rollover, Optum issues a Form 1099-SA showing the distribution, usually with code 1 in box 3. On Form 8889, you report the distribution amount on line 14a and the same amount on line 14b as a rollover contribution, so they offset. Do not put the rollover on line 2, which is for new contributions only. Both the 1099-SA and the 5498-SA arrive by May 31 of the following year. If you file before those forms are issued, make sure your Form 8889 entries match what the custodians will report, since mismatches are a common audit trigger on HSA accounts.