Can You Sell Fractional Shares? Selling, Transfers and Dividends

Yes — you sell a fraction the same way you bought it

A fractional share is a slice of one share: invest $100 in a stock that costs $1,000 and you hold 0.1 of a share. At brokers that offer fractions, you can sell all or part of that slice whenever the market is open, either as a dollar amount ("sell $40 of this stock") or as a number of shares ("sell 0.05 shares"). The cash lands in your account like any other sale, and any gain or loss is taxed like any other sale. What fractional shares are, in one page.

What you cannot usually do is sell a fraction outside the regular session, move it to another broker, or count on a vote. Those limits, not the sale itself, are what catch people out.

Why fractions matter: what one share costs

Of the 164 US stocks we track, 99 cost more than $100 a share, 20 cost more than $500 and 2 cost more than $1,000 at the last close in our data (2026-10-19). The most expensive are Eli Lilly ($1240.95), BlackRock ($1128.00) and Costco ($993.01). With whole shares only, a $500 account cannot hold even one of those; with fractions it can hold all of them.

How selling a fractional share actually works

• Regular hours only, usually. FINRA notes that fractional shares often cannot be traded outside 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern. Fidelity, for example, lets you place a fractional order at any time but only executes it during normal market hours. US market hours.
• The fill may not be instant. Some firms execute fractional orders in real time; others collect them through the day and fill them as whole-share orders, which can change the price you get. Ask your broker which it does.
• Small minimums. Robinhood and Fidelity both set a $1 minimum on dollar-based orders. Robinhood also offers "Sell All" for a position worth less than $1.
• Mixed positions. If you hold 3.4 shares, the 0.4 sells like the 3. At Fidelity, once your account is enabled for fractions, sell orders must state the whole and fractional amount you want to sell.

What happens to fractional shares when you change broker

This is the limit that costs money. FINRA says fractional shares cannot currently be transferred to another brokerage firm, so they are sold first, which can trigger tax and fees. Robinhood sells them and sends the cash on a full transfer out; Fidelity says they cannot be transferred and no certificate is available. If you are moving a large portfolio built from fractions, the forced sale of every fraction is a taxable disposal you did not choose — worth knowing before you pick the first broker.

Dividends and voting on a fraction

Dividends are paid in proportion to what you hold. Robinhood splits the payment by your fraction and rounds to the nearest cent; Fidelity pays to the cent and can reinvest the dividend into more fractions. Voting is less certain: FINRA warns that fractional owners may not have voting rights, and that some firms pass proxy votes through while others do not. Robinhood says it aggregates and reports votes on fractional shares. As a non-US investor, the same US withholding tax on dividends applies to a fraction as to a whole share.

Which brokers we cover sell fractional US shares

Of the 13 brokers we track that sell the real share, 8 offer fractions and 5 sell whole shares only:

Not every broker is open to every country. Best brokers for fractional US shares filters this list, and brokers by country shows which ones accept residents where you live.

A CFD position is not a fractional share

CFD brokers also let you take a position smaller than one share, but you own nothing: there is no share to sell, transfer or vote, only a contract on the price that you close. Dividends arrive as cash adjustments and leverage applies. If that is what you want, our partner Capital.com offers share CFDs:

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