---
title: "Ongoing charges"
description: "Ongoing charges are the annual recurring costs a UCITS fund deducts from its assets, shown as a percentage in the KIID or KID; the regulatory name for what many call the TER."
canonical: https://fundfactsapi.com/glossary/ongoing-charges
published: 2026-09-04
updated: 2026-09-04
publisher: FundFacts API
---

# Ongoing charges (Ongoing costs, Ongoing charges figure)

> Ongoing charges are the annual recurring costs a UCITS fund deducts from its assets, shown as a percentage in the KIID or KID; the regulatory name for what many call the TER.

**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](https://fundfactsapi.com/glossary/ocf), continental factsheets often still print [TER](https://fundfactsapi.com/glossary/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](https://fundfactsapi.com/glossary/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](https://fundfactsapi.com/glossary/isin).

## In the FundFacts API payload

- `headlineMetrics.ter`

## About FundFacts API

FundFacts turns any fund or ETF ISIN into one dated factsheet (fees and KID costs, the 1–7 risk indicator, holdings, sector and country exposure, returns) read from the fund house's own documents: as a client-ready PDF under your firm's name for advisers and wealth managers, as JSON through its API for developers, or inside ChatGPT and Claude through its MCP server.

FundFacts works inside ChatGPT and Claude as a connector (a remote MCP server): ask about any fund or ETF by ISIN, ticker or name and the assistant answers from FundFacts' dated figures, fees, risk, holdings, exposure and returns, with fund cards, side-by-side comparisons, holdings overlap and portfolio look-through.

- Free API key, no card: https://fundfactsapi.com/signup
- Documentation: https://fundfactsapi.com/docs (OpenAPI: https://fundfactsapi.com/openapi.json)
- MCP server: https://fundfactsapi.com/api/mcp (set-up for every client: https://fundfactsapi.com/mcp-server)
- Pricing: https://fundfactsapi.com/pricing
- Site index for AI assistants: https://fundfactsapi.com/llms.txt
- Informational data, not investment advice.