HSA monthly maintenance fees range from $0 to about $3.95, depending on the custodian. Fidelity and Lively charge nothing. HealthEquity, Optum Bank, and HSA Bank charge somewhere between $1.00 and $3.95 per month, with each offering a waiver if your cash balance stays above a set threshold. The simplest ways to pay nothing: pick a no-fee provider in the first place, keep enough cash to clear the waiver line, or transfer an existing account to a custodian that doesn’t bill you.
What the Major Providers Charge
The fee lives on the cash side of your account. The custodian pulls it directly from your cash balance each billing cycle, and it covers recordkeeping, IRS reporting, debit card access, and the online portal.
- Fidelity: $0 per month, no minimum balance to open or to invest.1Fidelity Investments. Health Savings Account HSA FAQs
- Lively: $0 per month for individual accounts.2Lively. Pricing
- Optum Bank: $1.00 per month, waived at a $500 average balance. Only cash counts toward the waiver.3Optum. Schedule of Fees
- HSA Bank: $1.75 to $2.50 per month depending on the plan, waived at an average daily cash balance between $1,500 and $3,000.4HSA Bank. Health Savings Account Fee and Interest Rate Schedule
- HealthEquity: $2.95 per month, waived if your HSA cash balance exceeds $2,000. The fee can rise to $3.95 per month if you change employers or health plans.5HealthEquity. Schedule of Fees Health Savings Account
If your cash balance ever runs too low to cover a charge, the custodian may liquidate part of your investments to collect what you owe.
How to Get the Fee Waived
The usual route to a waiver is keeping enough cash parked in the account. The thresholds vary:
- Optum Bank: $500 average balance.3Optum. Schedule of Fees
- HSA Bank: $1,500 to $3,000 average daily balance, depending on the plan.4HSA Bank. Health Savings Account Fee and Interest Rate Schedule
- HealthEquity: $2,000 cash balance on the first day of the month.5HealthEquity. Schedule of Fees Health Savings Account
One detail trips people up: only cash counts. Dollars you have moved into investments do not count toward the waiver at any of these providers. If you want to invest aggressively and still skip the fee, you have to keep enough cash sitting on the sidelines to clear the line, which partly defeats the point.
How your provider measures the balance also matters. Some use the average daily balance across the whole month, so a dip after paying a medical bill can cost you. HealthEquity looks at the balance on a single day, the first of the month, which gives you a predictable date to plan around.
Fees That Appear After You Leave a Job
Your HSA belongs to you, not your employer. The money is portable, and the account stays yours no matter where you work. But your employer may have been paying the monthly fee for you as part of the benefits package, and that subsidy ends when you leave.
HealthEquity states plainly that leaving an employer or changing health plans can bump the monthly fee from $2.95 to $3.95.5HealthEquity. Schedule of Fees Health Savings Account HSA Bank uses similar language: once your employment or benefit eligibility changes, responsibility for the service fee shifts to you. The charges start showing up on your statement soon after separation and will keep running indefinitely unless you hit the waiver balance or move the account. If you have an old HSA from a prior job you haven’t checked in a while, look at the fee line on a recent statement.
Other Fees That Can Stack On Top
Monthly maintenance is the headline charge, but it isn’t the only one.
- Paper statements. HealthEquity charges $1.00 per month for mailed paper statements. Switching to electronic statements in your portal eliminates it.5HealthEquity. Schedule of Fees Health Savings Account
- Investment platform access. Some custodians charge a separate monthly fee, as high as $3.00, for access to investment options, on top of any percentage-based investment charge. Optum Bank, for instance, bills 0.03% of the average daily investment balance per month, capped at $10.6Optum Bank. Schedule of Fees – Health Savings Account
- Account closure or transfer-out. Providers that charge monthly fees typically also charge around $25 when you close the account or move your money to another custodian.7HSA Bank. Health Savings Account Fee and Interest Rate Schedule
- Debit card replacement. Usually free. Fidelity charges nothing, and most providers follow suit.
The $25 transfer-out fee is worth knowing about before you see it on a final statement. Fidelity charges nothing to transfer in or out.8Fidelity Investments. Transfer a Health Savings Account HSA to Fidelity If you are leaving a fee-charging provider, expect the final deduction.
How HSA Fees Are Treated for Taxes
The IRS says that administration and maintenance fees withdrawn by the trustee are not reported as distributions from your HSA.9Internal Revenue Service. Publication 969, Health Savings Accounts and Other Tax-Favored Health Plans The fee reduces your balance without creating a taxable event. You won’t get a 1099-SA for it, and you don’t owe income tax or the 20% penalty on the amount pulled.
The flip side: maintenance fees are not a qualified medical expense. You cannot deduct them separately, and paying them doesn’t count toward any other medical expense tax benefit. If your employer pays the fee on your behalf, that payment is not added to your taxable income.
What the Fees Cost Over the Long Run
A $3 monthly fee sounds trivial, but HSA balances roll over indefinitely with no expiration, and many people hold them for decades as supplemental retirement savings. At $3 per month, direct charges run $36 per year, or $900 over 25 years in nominal terms. The real cost is higher, because every dollar pulled for fees is a dollar that stops compounding in a tax-free investment account. Factoring in typical market growth, the total lost value over 25 years approaches or exceeds $1,000. For someone contributing the annual maximum and investing it, the drag is larger still.10Internal Revenue Service. Revenue Procedure 2025-19
Moving Your HSA to a No-Fee Provider
If your current provider charges a fee you’d rather not pay, you can move the money. The method matters.
Transfer, Not Rollover
A trustee-to-trustee transfer moves funds directly from one custodian to another. You never touch the money. There is no limit on how often you can do it, no tax reporting, and no risk of penalties.11Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Forms 1099-SA and 5498-SA This is the method to use.
A rollover is different. Your current provider sends the money to you, and you then have 60 days to deposit it into the new HSA.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 223 – Health Savings Accounts Miss the window and the IRS treats the full amount as a non-qualified distribution: income tax plus a 20% additional tax. Rollovers are also limited to one per 12-month period. The trustee-to-trustee transfer avoids both problems.
How the Transfer Works
Start at the receiving provider, not the current one. Most new custodians have a transfer form on their website. You’ll need your current account number, the legal name of your existing custodian, and a recent statement. The new provider handles the contact with your old one once you submit the paperwork.
If your HSA holds investments, those positions will usually need to be sold to cash before the transfer. Settlement adds a few business days. In-kind transfers are possible only if both custodians share an investment platform, which is uncommon. Figure on two to six weeks for the whole process.13Optum. Transfer Your HSA Fidelity estimates two to five weeks, depending on how quickly the outgoing provider processes the request.8Fidelity Investments. Transfer a Health Savings Account HSA to Fidelity
Expect your old provider to subtract a transfer-out or closure fee, usually around $25, before sending the balance. The new provider typically charges nothing to receive it. Once the money arrives, you can reallocate it into investments and stop watching for a monthly deduction.