Do I Have to Pay a Commission if My Order to Sell Stock or Buy Stock Doesn’t Get Filled?

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When I was new to online investing in my self-directed brokerage account at BMO InvestorLine, one of my first “newbie” questions was: “If I put in an order to buy a stock at a certain price and no one sells it to me, do I still have to pay the fee?” I could see myself spending my entire investment account on fees for unfilled orders.

Written: 2012
Reviewed: 2023
Revised: 2023

So I asked BMO  by email how the fee works.

They reassured me that no, if the sale does not go through, I don’t have to pay the fee.

Phew.

Also, if I put in an order to sell a stock at a certain price, and no one wanted to buy it, I also would not have to pay a fee.

Partial Fills of Trades Can Result in Fees

There is one exception, though. If you put in a request to buy or sell a stock and they buy or sell part, but not all, of it then you will get charged a fee.

For example, say you want to buy 500 shares of BCE at $40. Someone may offer to sell 200 shares of BCE to you at that price. That will result in a “partial fill” of your order.

If no one else sells you the other 300 shares before the close of trade that day, you will get charged the full commission, which is $9.95 for my BMO InvestorLine account in 2023.

You get charged the $9.95 even though you still want 300 more shares. And if you put in another order the next day for the other 300 shares, if it fills you will be charged another $9.95!

I guess that’s why they call this “playing” in the market. You might have to pay a fee or two you don’t expect. Whether you have to or not is a game of chance.

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Have you ever got zinged with a fee you didn’t expect because of a partial fill? Or did they get you some other way? Please share your experiences with a comment.

6 thoughts on “Do I Have to Pay a Commission if My Order to Sell Stock or Buy Stock Doesn’t Get Filled?”

  1. Thank you for this post, I was wondering this myself. In order to increase the chance of an order being completely filled though, couldn’t you just extend the time the order is available or submit a fok ( fill or kill ) order?

    • Not all online discount brokerages off a “fill or kill” order option. Many of them do not let you choose to cancel an order if it does not completely fill during one business day. If the order extends over more than one day, most online discount brokerages will charge you one commission for each day that part of the order is filled. So if it takes 3 days to completely fill, they charge 3 commissions.

      If you have a hard-to-fill order, it may be worth discussing the details and fees with your brokerage before placing a large volume order.

      Sorry this reply is so late.

  2. What about cancelations with investor line. Do they charge you if you cancel?

    • They don’t charge if you cancel but if the order has filled or even partially filled before you cancel, you have to pay the regular trading commission and you will own the shares when the trade closes.

  3. I day trade with I-trade ive noticed on several occasions the balance of my account the following day is much less than what it was at closing the previous day.for example at Fridays closing I had a balance of 70500.00,this morning its 69500.00. can someone please tell me why

    • Sorry I don’t use i-trade so I don’t know what may be happening in your account. Maybe check into extra fees such as “ecn” fees?

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