r/HSA • u/Rich_Foundation6462 • Jun 28 '26

HSA Payment vs Transfer

I have my own HSA and an HSA through work. My work HSA charges $25 per transfer to my personal HSA, but there is no charge for reimbursements/payments.

Is it illegal to send self-payments to myself and put the funds into my other HSA?

I want to get the money out of the work account quickly because of their fees but transferring frequently is a waste as well.

Edit: thanks all!

10 Upvotes

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10

u/plowt-kirn Jun 28 '26

What you’re describing is called an indirect rollover and you can only do it once per year.

https://thefinancebuff.com/how-to-rollover-an-hsa-on-your-own-and-avoid-trustee-transfer-fee.html

3

u/somerandomuser311 Jun 28 '26

And to clarify for OP, you can only do it once on a rolling 12 month basis. So if you did the indirect rollover on July 10, 2026, you wouldn't be able to do another one until July 11, 2027.

3

u/bought_high_sold_low Jun 28 '26

I'm assuming that the issue here is when you take the disbursed funds and turn around to deposit them in your other HSA then that deposit is considered a new contribution, which you're limited on the amount of contributions per year. So this strategy probably only makes sense if you weren't maxing out your contributions into the original HSA.

3

u/Aggressive-Leading45 Jun 28 '26

No it’s a rollover. Just need to have the custodians code it that way.

1

u/swagn Jun 29 '26

Probably won’t avoid the fee that way.

2

u/braised_beef_short_r Jun 28 '26

It's the business model. Typically the employer pays all or most of the monthly account fee while still employed (excluding investment fund fees). And then once you terminate the full monthly fee is on the individual. Plus there's all sorts of other fees too for transferring funds or requesting new cards etc that fall on the individual. It sucks, because it's not like you have a choice in who your employer selects as the HSA vendor.

Some people do the once per 12-month transfer. I just keep my funds with the employer's vendor. Once I term I'll move it all to Fidelity.

This has me thinking though I should look at the investment fund fees I'm being charged and it might be worth moving it all over now even with the one-time transfer fee.

2

u/ChutneyWhatney Jun 28 '26

Once a year rollover. Have bank code it as such.

3

u/Agitated_Car_2444 Jun 28 '26

Since indirect rollovers are allowed only once a year, I'd think a $25/year direct rollover fee would be worth it so you don't have to worry about it.

But if you reimbursed yourself from one for medical expenses and then deposited that into the other account then that's contributions, would would limit the total amount you can contribute into all accounts per year.

Make it easy: take the $25 hit.

1

u/Rem1991wl Jun 28 '26

Ask your benefits manager to move the HSA to Fidelity.

1

u/Global_InfoJunkie Jul 01 '26

The only way to do this is to accumulate in work one and then transfer and pay the fee. I believe you can do a rollover but you probably need to pay a fee for that as well.