Advisers report Fidelity pauses new tax-aware long/short accounts until mid-Jan 2026
An adviser said it was "tech and process improvements"
This article is educational content, not investment, tax, or legal advice. Hire an adviser or tax attorney for personalized guidance.
This reporting is based on second-hand chats with half a dozen advisers, mostly on Dec 12-13, 2025, and may be incomplete or inaccurate. I did not receive confirmation or comment from Fidelity before publication. If Fidelity provides clarification or correction, I will update the post.
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Advisers report Fidelity pauses new tax-aware long/short accounts until mid-Jan 2026
I first heard of the pause on Friday morning1.
An adviser friend and I were on a video call, and he mentioned that Fidelity had paused opening new 3rd-party separately managed tax-aware long/short accounts until mid-Jan 2026.
This isn’t totally weird. Plenty of firms slow their operations near the end of the year as holidays and vacations take over.
Some think opening new accounts this time of year is dumb.
“Nobody should be launching tax aware sma in December,” a person on twitter comments, and several hours later continued… “Well, typically you need to fund it with something. Jan is ideal since you can sell your business and fund a high lev tax sma. You will then have a whole year to generate loses [sic]. Year end is also a busy time for existing tax accounts, squeezing manpower.”
The unusual thing was that many advisers pinged me at once.
The extra two weeks in Jan surprised them.
Several advisers interpreted this as “uh oh, we have way more demand than we expected and need to catch up” scenario, not a “something went wrong” scenario.
Below is what I heard from several advisers in my network about the pause.
While this pause is likely operational and brief, it’s a reminder that onboarding and financing terms can change quickly, so I’m also including a preliminary version of my tax-aware long/short risk framework.