Ongoing charges

Ongoing charges is the regulatory term, introduced with the UCITS KIID, for the recurring costs a fund takes from its assets over a year, expressed as a percentage of average net assets. It covers the management fee and the fund's operating expenses (depositary, administration, audit, legal, regulatory and registration fees) plus the ongoing charges of any underlying funds it holds.

It excludes one-off entry and exit charges, performance fees and the cost of buying and selling securities inside the portfolio. In most cases the figure is based on the previous financial year's actual expenses; for a newly launched share class it is an estimate until real numbers exist.

Why it matters

Ongoing charges are the cost line investors can actually compare across funds, because the definition is standardised by regulation rather than left to each fund house. The label differs by market: UK documents say OCF, continental factsheets often still print TER, and PRIIPs KIDs break costs into "management fees and other administrative or operating costs" plus transaction costs. The underlying concept is the same.

In the API

The published ongoing cost lands in headlineMetrics.ter regardless of the label the fund house uses.

json
{
  "headlineMetrics": {
    "ter": 0.45
  },
  "dataAsOf": "2026-06-30"
}

Example values. Read the figure as a percentage per year.

Common pitfalls

• Do not add transaction costs to the ongoing charges figure yourself; under PRIIPs they are already itemised separately.
• Ongoing charges are per share class. A cheaper institutional class and a retail class of the same fund can differ by a full percentage point, so always key on the ISIN.