Wealthy PotFNILX vs VOO: What a 0.00% Fee Actually Buys You
FNILX charges 0.00% and VOO charges 0.03%, a difference of $3 a year on $10,000. Two other differences are larger than that, and both of them favour VOO. FNILX does not track the S&P 500. It tracks the Fidelity U.S. Large Cap Index, an index Fidelity built itself, and at the last portfolio filings 64 of FNILX's 505 stock positions were not in Vanguard's S&P 500 fund at all. And FNILX shares, in Fidelity's own prospectus wording, "are available only to individual retail investors who purchase their shares through a Fidelity brokerage account," so leaving Fidelity is a very different exercise from leaving Vanguard. None of that makes FNILX a bad fund. In a Fidelity IRA it is an excellent one. In a taxable account you might one day move, the free fund is the one with the cost attached.
Table of Contents
The Short Answer
- The fee difference is 3 basis points. FNILX's prospectus prints 0.00% total annual operating expenses and a cost example of $0 at one, three, five and ten years. VOO's prints 0.03% and $3, $10, $17 and $39 on the same $10,000. Each issuer's audited annual report says the same thing: FNILX cost $0 for the year to 31 October 2025, VOO cost $3 for the year to 31 December 2025.
- FNILX is not an S&P 500 fund. It tracks the Fidelity U.S. Large Cap Index, defined in its own prospectus as "the largest 500 U.S. companies based on float-adjusted market capitalization" and "created by Fidelity Product Services LLC (FPS) using a rules-based proprietary index methodology." VOO tracks the S&P 500, which Vanguard licenses from S&P Dow Jones Indices.
- That shows up in the holdings. Matching both funds' SEC portfolio filings position by position, 441 lines were common to both. 64 positions were FNILX's alone, 2.44% of the fund, and 64 were Vanguard's alone, 1.09% of that fund. FNILX owns Snowflake, Cloudflare, CoreWeave, Roblox and MongoDB; the S&P 500 fund does not.
- The zero is real, not a waiver. There is no fee waiver and no expense cap in FNILX's fee table. The prospectus says the fund "does not pay a management fee to the Adviser" and that the adviser "pays the expenses of each fund with limited exceptions." Audited expenses have been under 0.005% in each of the last five fiscal years.
- Returns differ by more than the fee, in both directions. To 31 August 2026, VOO led FNILX by 0.38 points over one year and 0.26 points over five, and FNILX led by 0.22 points over three. All three gaps are larger than 0.03.
- Portability is the real cost. Fidelity's prospectus limits FNILX to Fidelity brokerage accounts. A VOO share can be moved to any broker in the country without selling.
- They are different kinds of fund. FNILX prices once a day at NAV, takes dollar amounts, has no spread and pays its dividend once a year in December. VOO trades all day, carries a published 0.004% median spread, and pays quarterly.
- Size: FNILX $19.35 billion, VOO $1.0 trillion. Both are large enough that scale is not a differentiator.
FNILX Does Not Track the S&P 500
This is the fact that most comparisons skip, and it decides more of the outcome than the fee does. Here is what each prospectus actually says its fund is tracking.
VOO, from Vanguard's summary prospectus dated 28 April 2026:
"The Fund employs an indexing investment approach designed to track the performance of the S&P 500 Index (the 'Target Index'), a widely recognized benchmark of U.S. stock market performance that is dominated by the stocks of large U.S. companies."
The same document adds the licensing note: "The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, a division of S&P Global, or its affiliates ('SPDJI') and has been licensed for use by Vanguard."
FNILX, from Fidelity's summary prospectus dated 30 December 2025:
"Normally investing at least 80% of assets in common stocks of large capitalization companies included in the Fidelity U.S. Large Cap Index."
"The Fidelity U.S. Large Cap Index is a float-adjusted market capitalization-weighted index designed to reflect the performance of U.S. large capitalization stocks... Large capitalization stocks are considered to be stocks of the largest 500 U.S. companies based on float-adjusted market capitalization."
"The Fidelity U.S. Large Cap Index was created by Fidelity Product Services LLC (FPS) using a rules-based proprietary index methodology that includes all U.S. stocks meeting certain market capitalization, liquidity, and investability requirements."
Read those two definitions next to each other and the difference is clear. The Fidelity index is a size ranking. The 500 biggest US companies by float-adjusted market value are in it, and nothing else decides membership. The S&P 500 is not a size ranking. It is a committee-maintained index with eligibility rules, and a company can be large and still be left out.
Two further mechanical differences sit alongside that. FNILX's prospectus says it uses "statistical sampling techniques" to attempt to replicate its index. VOO's says it "attempts to replicate the Target Index by investing all, or substantially all, of its assets in the stocks that make up the Target Index, holding each stock in approximately the same proportion as its weighting."
So FNILX is a sampled fund tracking an in-house size index, and VOO is a full-replication fund tracking a licensed committee index. Those are two different products that happen to look the same on a one-line fee comparison.
What the Different Index Changes
Both funds file a complete holdings list with the SEC, so the difference can be measured rather than assumed. We pulled FNILX's Form N-PORT for the period ended 31 July 2026 and the Vanguard 500 Index Fund's for the period ended 30 June 2026, kept the common-equity lines, and matched them on ISIN.
| Portfolios compared | Lines | Weight in its own fund |
|---|---|---|
| Positions held by both funds | 441 | FNILX 97.27% · Vanguard 98.66% |
| Positions held only by FNILX | 64 | 2.44% of FNILX |
| Positions held only by the S&P 500 fund | 64 | 1.09% of that fund |
| FNILX equity lines in total | 505 | |
| Vanguard 500 Index Fund equity lines in total | 506 |
The character of the two lists is what matters, more than the counts. FNILX's exclusive names are companies that are large but are not S&P 500 members: Snowflake at 0.155% of the fund, Cloudflare at 0.136%, Cheniere Energy at 0.084%, Bloom Energy at 0.082%, then Natera, Revolution Medicines, Rocket Lab, Strategy, Twilio, MongoDB, Roblox, Okta, Coupang, CoreWeave, Zscaler and HubSpot further down.
The Vanguard fund's exclusive names run the other way. They are S&P 500 members too small to make the top 500 by float-adjusted market value: Moderna at 0.038% of the fund, Loews at 0.030%, Incyte, Generac, Kimco Realty, Nordson, Ralph Lauren, Host Hotels, Globe Life, Hormel Foods, Brown-Forman.
That is exactly what the two index definitions predict. A pure size cut-off admits fast-growing companies as soon as they are big enough. A committee index admits them when it decides to, and keeps long-standing members that have shrunk.
The honest summary: these are close cousins, not twins. Around 97% of FNILX's money sits in companies the S&P 500 fund also owns. The other 3% tilts, mildly, towards newer large growth companies. Over a year that tilt can be worth more or less than 0.03%, and it has been both.
How a 0.00% Fee Is Possible
A zero expense ratio invites suspicion, so it is worth establishing what the filings do and do not support.
First, the zero is not a temporary waiver. FNILX's fee table has no footnote, no "fee waiver" line and no "net annual operating expenses" line. Management fee 0.00%, other expenses 0.00%, total 0.00%. What the statutory prospectus says instead:
"Each fund does not pay a management fee to the Adviser."
"Each fund is available only to individual retail investors who purchase their shares through a Fidelity brokerage account. Fidelity compensates the Adviser for the services it provides to the funds."
"The Adviser receives no fee from each fund for handling the business affairs of each fund and pays the expenses of each fund with limited exceptions."
That is a structural arrangement rather than a promotion with an end date. It is not a legal guarantee either: the prospectus can be amended, as any prospectus can. But there is no expense-limitation agreement with an expiry to worry about, because there is no fee to limit.
Second, the audited numbers agree. The fund's Form N-CSR for the year ended 31 October 2025 shows the entire expense side of its income statement.
| Fidelity ZERO Large Cap Index Fund, year ended 31 Oct 2025 | Amount |
|---|---|
| Total investment income | $162,860,147 |
| Independent trustees' fees and expenses | $49,291 |
| Total expenses before reductions | $49,291 |
| Expense reductions | $(4,494) |
| Total expenses after reductions | $44,797 |
| Net assets at the fiscal year end | $15,796,427,160 |
| Total advisory fee for the year | $0 |
| Expenses in the financial highlights, each of the five years to 2025 | Reported as less than 0.005% |
The fund's only charge to shareholders for the year was the independent trustees' fees, $49,291 against $15.8 billion of assets. Everything else was absorbed by the adviser.
Third, where does the money come from? Fidelity does not publish an answer and we will not invent one. Two things are on the record. The adviser is paid by Fidelity rather than by the fund, which means the arrangement is subsidised somewhere inside the wider Fidelity business. And the index FNILX tracks was built by a Fidelity affiliate, so there is no third-party index licence on it, where Vanguard states plainly that the S&P 500 "has been licensed for use by Vanguard." Neither firm publishes what an S&P 500 licence costs, so the size of that saving is not a number anyone outside them has.
The fair reading is that the proprietary index is one of the things that makes a zero fee workable, and that the availability restriction covered below is another. It is a genuine product, not a trick, and it is also not free of trade-offs.
FNILX vs VOO Side by Side
| FNILX | VOO | |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Fidelity ZERO Large Cap Index Fund | Vanguard S&P 500 ETF |
| Type | Mutual fund | ETF, an exchange-traded share class of Vanguard 500 Index Fund |
| Index | Fidelity U.S. Large Cap Index (Fidelity's own) | S&P 500 (licensed from S&P Dow Jones Indices) |
| Expense ratio | 0.00% | 0.03% |
| Prospectus cost on $10,000, 10 years | $0 | $39 |
| Annual report cost on $10,000 | $0 (year to 31 Oct 2025) | $3 (year to 31 Dec 2025) |
| Replication method | Statistical sampling | Replication, all or substantially all of the index |
| Equity positions | 505 (31 Jul 2026 filing) | 506 (30 Jun 2026 filing); Vanguard reports 505 stocks against the index's 503 at 31 Aug 2026 |
| Net assets | $19.35bn (31 Aug 2026) | ETF share class $1.0 trillion; whole fund $1.8 trillion (31 Aug 2026) |
| Inception | 13 September 2018 | 7 September 2010 |
| Adviser | Fidelity Management & Research Company, with Geode Capital Management as sub-adviser | The Vanguard Group, through Vanguard Capital Management |
| Minimum | No purchase minimum | No minimum in the prospectus; Vanguard's site lists $1.00 through its own brokerage |
| How you buy | Dollar amounts, at the NAV next calculated after the order | Shares or fractions, at the market price, all day |
| 30-day median bid-ask spread | Not applicable | 0.004% |
| Distributions | December, income and capital gains | Quarterly |
| Portfolio turnover | 3% (fiscal year to 31 Oct 2025) | 2% (fiscal year to 31 Dec 2025) |
| Available at | Fidelity brokerage accounts only | Any broker, NYSE Arca |
| CUSIP | 315911628 | 922908363 |
What the Gap Has Been Worth
Most pages comparing these two put each fund's prospectus return table side by side. That is wrong, because the two prospectuses cover periods a full year apart: FNILX's, dated December 2025, reports through 31 December 2024, and VOO's, dated April 2026, reports through 31 December 2025. So we took both issuers' own websites at the same month end instead, and put each fund next to its own benchmark so tracking quality is visible.
| Annualized, as of 31 August 2026 | 1 year | 3 years | 5 years | 10 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FNILX, NAV total return | 19.96% | 21.23% | 12.49% | not yet 10 years old |
| Fidelity U.S. Large Cap Index, FNILX's benchmark | 19.93 | 21.22 | 12.48 | not applicable |
| VOO, NAV total return | 20.34% | 21.01% | 12.75% | 15.34% |
| S&P 500 Index, VOO's benchmark | 20.38 | 21.04 | 12.79 | 15.37 |
| FNILX minus VOO | -0.38 | +0.22 | -0.26 | not comparable |
Look at the size of those gaps. Over one year VOO was ahead by 0.38 percentage points. Over three years FNILX was ahead by 0.22. Over five VOO was ahead by 0.26. Every one of those numbers is many times the 0.03-point fee difference, and they point in different directions. What you are seeing is not a fee effect. It is the difference between owning Snowflake and Cloudflare and not owning them, netted against the difference between owning Hormel and Brown-Forman and not owning them.
The two funds track their own benchmarks about equally well. VOO lagged the S&P 500 by 0.03 to 0.04 points a year, which is its fee. FNILX came in 0.01 to 0.03 points above its index at every horizon, which is what a zero-fee fund with a securities-lending programme can do. Its annual report records $20,106 of security-lending income for the year to 31 October 2025.
For a cleaner read on the index difference alone, FNILX's own annual report prints the life-of-fund growth chart, with the S&P 500 as a comparison line.
| $10,000 invested 13 September 2018, value at 31 October 2025 | Value |
|---|---|
| Fidelity ZERO Large Cap Index Fund | $21,829 |
| Fidelity U.S. Large Cap Index | $21,806 |
| S&P 500 Index | $21,763 |
Three readings fall out of that. The fund beat its own index by $23 over seven years, the lending income at work. Fidelity's index beat the S&P 500 index by $43. And $43 over seven years is roughly the same size as $39, which is what VOO's own prospectus says ten years of its fee costs on $10,000.
In other words, the index choice and the fee are the same order of magnitude, and the index choice is the one that can go either way. Over the five years to 31 October 2025 the S&P 500 actually beat Fidelity's index by 0.24 percentage points a year, on the same page of the same report. Anyone telling you the zero fee wins this comparison is measuring the smaller of the two effects.
| Hypothetical $10,000 held for 30 years | Ending value |
|---|---|
| At 8.00% a year, a 0.00% fee fund | $100,627 |
| At 7.97% a year, the same fund after a 0.03% fee | $99,791 |
| Difference attributable to the fee | about $835, or 0.8% |
This is educational information, not personalized investment advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results, all investing carries the risk of loss, and the figures above are backward-looking arithmetic rather than a projection. Verify current figures with each issuer and consider speaking with a licensed advisor before acting.
Want to run the same maths on your own contribution schedule? Use the compound interest calculator.
The Catch That Is Not on the Fund Page
This is the most practical difference between the two, and the one worth reading twice before you buy FNILX in a taxable account.
What the primary documents say, verbatim. From FNILX's summary prospectus, under "Purchase and Sale of Shares":
"Shares of the fund are available only to individual retail investors who purchase their shares through a Fidelity brokerage account, including retail non-retirement accounts, retail retirement accounts (traditional, Roth and SEP Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs)), health savings accounts (HSAs), Fidelity BrokerageLink accounts, and stock plan services accounts. Shares also may be available to certain broker-dealers that have entered into arrangements with Fidelity."
Fidelity's own website carries the same restriction in a footnote: the four ZERO funds are "available to individual retail investors who purchase their shares through a Fidelity brokerage account."
What that means in practice, and where our certainty ends. An account transfer between brokers moves the positions themselves, and a receiving broker can only take a position it is able to hold. A fund distributed only through Fidelity brokerage accounts is not, in the ordinary case, something Schwab or Vanguard can receive. So the realistic path out of Fidelity is to sell FNILX first and transfer cash, and in a taxable account a sale is a taxable event whatever you do with the proceeds afterwards.
Being precise about the evidence matters here, because this claim gets repeated everywhere without a source. We could not find a sentence in FNILX's prospectus, its statement of additional information or its annual report stating that the shares cannot be transferred in kind to another brokerage. We searched all three documents for that language. What the filings establish is the distribution restriction quoted above, not a transfer prohibition, and Fidelity's own wording leaves a door open: "Shares also may be available to certain broker-dealers that have entered into arrangements with Fidelity." If you are planning around this, ask both brokers before you act rather than relying on any page, including this one.
Why it still decides the choice. The asymmetry is what counts. With VOO, moving brokers is a form and a week of waiting, and nothing is sold. With FNILX, moving brokers is at best a question you have to ask, and at worst a realised capital gain on years of growth. Inside an IRA, a Roth IRA or an HSA that risk costs nothing, because selling inside those accounts triggers no tax. In a taxable brokerage account, the potential tax bill on a long-held position dwarfs a lifetime of 3-basis-point savings.
Rule of thumb: in a Fidelity IRA, Roth IRA or HSA, the lock-in is harmless and FNILX's 0.00% is a fine choice. In a taxable account you might one day want to move, buy something any broker can hold.
The same logic applies to Fidelity's other zero-fee funds, which is why our FZROX vs FXAIX comparison lands in the same place, and why FNILX vs FXAIX comes down to this point rather than to performance.
A Mutual Fund and an ETF Behave Differently
FNILX is a mutual fund and VOO is an ETF, and the day-to-day consequences are small but real.
- Pricing. FNILX has one price a day. Its prospectus: "The price to buy one share is its net asset value per share (NAV). Shares will be bought at the NAV next calculated after an order is received in proper form." VOO's: "ETF Shares may only be bought and sold in the secondary market through a brokerage firm. The price you pay or receive for ETF Shares will be the prevailing market price, which may be more (premium) or less (discount) than the NAV of the shares."
- Spreads. FNILX has none, by construction. VOO's published 30-day median bid-ask spread is 0.004%, which is 40 cents on $10,000 and works out to roughly one and a half months of its own expense ratio. For a buy-and-hold investor neither number is decisive.
- Buying in dollars. FNILX takes any dollar amount with no minimum, so $137.42 buys $137.42 of fund. VOO trades near $700 a share, and whether you can buy a fraction of one depends on your broker. Vanguard's own page lists a $1.00 minimum because its brokerage supports fractional ETF orders; not every broker does.
- Dividend timing. FNILX pays its income distribution once a year, in December, along with any capital gains. VOO pays quarterly. If you are spending the income, quarterly is more convenient. If you are reinvesting, it makes no difference.
- Tax plumbing. An ETF can flush appreciated stock out of the portfolio through in-kind redemptions, which is why broad-market ETFs rarely distribute capital gains. An index mutual fund with low turnover usually manages the same outcome by simply not selling much: FNILX turned over 3% of its portfolio in its last fiscal year. We are not publishing a numeric tax-efficiency comparison here, because the two funds' standardized after-tax tables cover periods a year apart and are not comparable.
Which One Fits You
You have a Fidelity IRA, Roth IRA or HSA: FNILX is genuinely excellent. The lock-in costs you nothing inside a tax-sheltered account, the fee is zero and stays zero, the portfolio is 97% the same companies as an S&P 500 fund, and the fund has tracked its own index slightly better than VOO tracks the S&P 500. There is no catch you need to worry about. This is the case where the free fund really is free.
You have a Fidelity taxable brokerage account: think about the next ten years first. If you are confident you will still be at Fidelity when you sell, FNILX is fine. If there is a realistic chance you consolidate elsewhere, buy something portable. A 3-basis-point saving is $3 a year per $10,000. A forced sale of a position that has doubled is a capital-gains bill on the gain, which is orders of magnitude larger. Check your 2026 tax bracket before you decide, and if you want a Fidelity mutual fund that can be moved, FNILX vs FXAIX covers the alternative.
Your account is anywhere other than Fidelity: VOO, because FNILX is not available to you. That is the whole answer. You are not giving anything up either, since the two have delivered the same returns to within a fraction of a point in both directions.
You want the actual S&P 500: VOO. If your plan, your policy statement or your own preference calls for the S&P 500 specifically, then a proprietary large-cap index is not that, however close the holdings are. Pay the 3 basis points and own the thing you meant to own.
Do not own both. They overlap by roughly 97% of FNILX's weight. Holding both gives you a duplicate portfolio with two tax lots to track, and the tiny tilt you gain is one you could get more precisely elsewhere.
Already hold one? Stay put, especially in a taxable account. Neither fund has an advantage worth realising a gain over. If you have changed your mind about which you want, send new contributions to the other one instead of selling.
Comparing something else? Fidelity's actual S&P 500 fund against Vanguard's ETF is FXAIX vs VOO. The whole-market versions of this same question are FZROX vs FXAIX and VTI vs VOO. Everything we have compared is in the ETF comparison index.
Sources & Methodology
Every figure on this page was read from an issuer document, an SEC filing or the fund's own page, not from a secondary summary or another comparison site.
- FNILX summary prospectus, Form 497K dated 30 December 2025: the fee table and cost example, the index definition and the sampling language, the purchase and sale restriction, the no-minimum statement and the standardized returns to 31 December 2024.
- Fidelity ZERO funds statutory prospectus and SAI, Form 485BPOS filed 29 December 2025: the advisory fee language, the statement that the adviser pays the fund's expenses, the availability restriction and the December distribution schedule.
- Fidelity Concord Street Trust Form N-CSR, fiscal year ended 31 October 2025: the audited Statement of Operations, the financial highlights expense ratios, the $0 total advisory fee, the holdings count, the securities-lending income and the life-of-fund growth chart.
- FNILX Form N-PORT, period ended 31 July 2026 and Vanguard 500 Index Fund Form N-PORT, period ended 30 June 2026: the complete holdings lists behind the overlap table.
- VOO summary prospectus, Form 497K dated 28 April 2026: the ETF Shares fee table and cost example, the S&P 500 tracking and licensing language, the replication method, the secondary-market purchase language and the standardized returns to 31 December 2025.
- Vanguard Index Funds Form N-CSR, year ended 31 December 2025: the ETF Shares annual cost disclosure of $3 on $10,000, the holdings count and the turnover rate.
- Fidelity, FNILX fund page: the net assets, the expense ratio as of 30 December 2025, the inception date and the average annual returns to 31 August 2026 with the benchmark row.
- Vanguard, VOO profile page: the net assets for the fund and the share class, the holdings count, the median bid-ask spread, the quarterly distribution schedule and the month-end return table as of 31 August 2026.
- Fidelity, index funds page: the footnote restricting the four ZERO funds to Fidelity brokerage accounts.
How the overlap was computed. We took both funds' Form N-PORT filings, kept the lines classified as common equity, and matched them on ISIN. ISIN is the right key here: matching on the legal entity identifier instead produces false differences, because the two filers report different identifiers for the same company, and Cisco, Roper, Expedia, DoorDash and HEICO all appear on both exclusive lists that way. Weights are each filing's own percent-of-net-assets field, summed by us.
What we could not verify, stated rather than guessed. First and most importantly, no primary Fidelity document we read says FNILX cannot be transferred in kind to another brokerage. The prospectus, the statement of additional information and the annual report contain the distribution restriction quoted above and nothing about outbound account transfers. We have described the consequence as an inference and said so in the text. Second, neither issuer states why FNILX's fee is zero; the proprietary-index explanation is our reading of two separate disclosures, not a claim either firm makes, and no index-licence cost is published anywhere. Third, the two N-PORT filings are one month apart because the funds have different fiscal years, so we report the holdings that differ and each fund's own internal weights, and we do not compare position weights across the two filings. Fourth, we have not compared 30-day SEC yields, because Fidelity does not publish one for FNILX on the page we read. Fifth, we have not compared after-tax returns, because the two standardized tables cover periods a year apart. Sixth, we have not used any Morningstar rating, category average or star count, even where the Fidelity page displayed them.
This article is for general education and is not investment, tax or legal advice. Fund data changes daily, index returns are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly, and past performance does not guarantee future results. All investing carries the risk of loss. Check current figures with the issuer and consider speaking with a licensed financial professional before making a decision.
FAQ: FNILX vs VOO
Is FNILX the same as VOO?
No. VOO tracks the S&P 500 and FNILX tracks the Fidelity U.S. Large Cap Index, Fidelity's own index of the 500 largest US companies by float-adjusted market value. At the most recent portfolio filings 441 positions were common to both funds, 64 were held only by FNILX and 64 only by Vanguard's fund. Around 97% of FNILX's money is in companies the S&P 500 fund also owns.
Is FNILX or VOO better?
It depends on the account. In a Fidelity IRA, Roth IRA or HSA, FNILX's 0.00% fee and near-identical portfolio make it hard to beat. In a taxable account you might one day move to another broker, VOO is better, because FNILX is sold only through Fidelity brokerage accounts and leaving would mean selling. The 0.03% fee difference is $3 a year per $10,000 and is the least important part of the decision.
Why is FNILX free?
Fidelity does not publish a reason. What the filings show is that the fund "does not pay a management fee to the Adviser," that the adviser "pays the expenses of each fund with limited exceptions" and is compensated by Fidelity instead, and that the index the fund tracks was built by a Fidelity affiliate rather than licensed from an outside provider. Its audited expenses have been below 0.005% in each of the last five fiscal years, and the total advisory fee for the year to 31 October 2025 was $0.
Can I transfer FNILX to Vanguard, Schwab or another broker?
Plan on no. FNILX's prospectus says shares "are available only to individual retail investors who purchase their shares through a Fidelity brokerage account," and adds that shares "also may be available to certain broker-dealers that have entered into arrangements with Fidelity." A receiving broker can only accept a position it is able to hold, so the usual route out of Fidelity is to sell and move cash. We could not find a Fidelity document stating outright that the shares cannot be transferred in kind, so confirm with both brokers before you rely on it, and remember that in a taxable account a sale realises a capital gain.
Is the 0.00% expense ratio temporary?
There is no expiry in the filings. FNILX's fee table shows no waiver, no expense cap and no footnote, unlike a fund whose low headline fee depends on a contractual reimbursement with an end date. The zero comes from the fund paying no management fee at all and the adviser absorbing the running costs. Fidelity could change the arrangement in a future prospectus, as any issuer could, but nothing is scheduled to expire.
Which has performed better, FNILX or VOO?
Both, depending on the window. To 31 August 2026, VOO returned 20.34% over one year against FNILX's 19.96%, and 12.75% over five years against 12.49%. Over three years FNILX was ahead, 21.23% against 21.01%. Every one of those gaps is far larger than the 0.03% fee difference, and it comes from the two indexes holding different companies, not from costs.
Does FNILX pay dividends?
Yes, once a year. The prospectus schedules both the income distribution and any capital gains for December. VOO distributes quarterly. In a tax-sheltered account the timing is irrelevant; in a taxable account it means FNILX gives you one 1099 line instead of four, and no income between Januarys.
Can I buy VOO at Fidelity?
Yes. VOO is an ETF listed on NYSE Arca and trades at any US broker, Fidelity included. FNILX is the one with the restriction, not VOO. That asymmetry is most of the case for VOO in a taxable account.
Is FNILX good for a Roth IRA?
It is one of the strongest options available if your Roth is at Fidelity. Selling inside a Roth triggers no tax, so the portability restriction costs you nothing, and you get large-cap US exposure at a genuine 0.00%. If you ever moved the Roth to another custodian you would sell first and rebuy, which inside a Roth is a form and a few days out of the market rather than a tax bill.
Cite This Page
Journalists, educators and bloggers are welcome to cite this comparison. Please link back so readers can reach the underlying filings.
"FNILX vs VOO: What a 0.00% Fee Actually Buys You." Wealthy Pot, 2026. https://wealthypot.com/fnilx-vs-voo/
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