Fidelity is, in my view, the best mainstream broker for covered call sellers. The educational content is genuinely strong, the order workflow is clean, and Active Trader Pro (ATP) gives you a desktop interface comparable to Schwab's StreetSmart Edge. Per-contract fees are competitive ($0.65 standard).
This post walks through the steps for someone selling their first covered call on Fidelity. I'll cover both the website and Active Trader Pro, since the workflows differ.
Prerequisites
Three things need to be true before you can place a covered call on Fidelity:
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You have 100+ shares of the underlying in a single Fidelity account.
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You have options trading approval — Tier 1 or higher. Fidelity tiers options approval into 4 levels. Tier 1 is "covered calls and cash-secured puts" — that's all you need for the income strategies covered in these guides. Apply via Fidelity.com → "Accounts & Trade" → "Account Features" → "Brokerage & Trading" → "Options."
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You've decided what you actually want to write. Strike, expiration, earnings check, dividend check. The mechanical order entry is the easy part.
The Tier 1 application asks about your trading experience and risk tolerance. Be honest. Even with no experience, Tier 1 covered calls is generally approved for any investor with a real account — covered calls are considered the lowest-risk options strategy because the risk is bounded by the long stock position.
Step 1: Open the Chain (Web)
On Fidelity.com:
- Log in.
- Navigate to "Trade" → "Options."
- Enter the underlying ticker.
- The chain displays with calls and puts side-by-side. Calls are typically on the left.
Fidelity's web chain has a "Strategy: Covered Call" filter at the top. Selecting this filters the view to show only the relevant call strikes for your position. Useful for first-time users.
Step 1a: Open the Chain (Active Trader Pro)
ATP is the desktop platform — recommended for active CC sellers because the chain is denser and the order ticket is faster.
- Launch Active Trader Pro.
- Open the "Option Chain" tool from the top toolbar (or use Ctrl+T to open a generic trade ticket and add the underlying).
- Type the symbol.
- The chain opens with full data: bid, ask, last, IV, delta, theta, gamma, open interest, volume.
ATP lets you customize the chain columns. I show: Bid, Ask, Last, Volume, OI, IV, Delta. Anything else is noise for a covered call workflow.
Step 2: Find Your Strike
In ATP, sort or scroll to find the strike where the call delta matches your target. For most stable names I'm at 0.20-0.25 delta on 30-45 DTE. For high-IV names like NVDA, 0.10-0.15.
Once you've found the strike, look at the bid price (what you'll receive for selling) and the ask (what someone would pay you).
Quick example: AAPL at $215, looking for a 0.22 delta call at 35 DTE. The chain shows the $230 strike with delta 0.22, bid $1.80, ask $1.85. Selling this call gets you $180 in premium per contract before fees.
Step 3: Build the Order
Right-click the bid for your chosen strike and select "Sell to Open" — or click directly on the bid and Fidelity opens the order ticket.
The ticket pre-fills:
- Action: Sell to Open
- Symbol: Auto-populated with the option contract
- Quantity: Defaults to 1
- Order type: Limit
- Time in force: Day (default) or GTC
Critical: keep order type as Limit, never market. Set the limit price between bid and ask. For our $1.80 bid / $1.85 ask example, $1.82 or $1.83 is a reasonable limit. Market makers usually fill within seconds to a couple minutes on liquid names.
Quantity = number of contracts = number of 100-share lots you want to cover. If you have 300 shares of AAPL, you can write up to 3 contracts.
Step 4: Preview and Submit
Fidelity shows a preview screen before final submission. Verify:
- Strategy: Should say "Sell to Open" or "Covered Call" depending on whether the platform recognized the cover.
- Underlying and strike: Match what you intended.
- Expiration: Match what you intended.
- Quantity: Match the number of contracts you want.
- Limit price: Reasonable relative to current bid/ask.
- Estimated proceeds: Premium × 100 × contracts, minus the $0.65 per contract fee.
If everything looks right, submit.
Fidelity may show a brief options-trading disclosure ("you understand the risks of writing options"). Click through to confirm.
Step 5: Watch for the Fill
The order routes immediately. For liquid names with a limit between bid and ask, fills are typically instant or within a few minutes. For less liquid names, you may need to wait or adjust.
Once filled, you'll see:
- The short call position in your account, alongside the existing long stock position.
- The premium credited to your account (minus the fee).
- The order showing in "Activity" with status "Executed."
If the order doesn't fill within ~5 minutes:
- Check whether the underlying has moved. The bid/ask may have shifted.
- Consider lowering your limit slightly (toward the bid) to be more aggressive.
- Don't chase too aggressively — better to walk away than fill at a price that doesn't reflect your decision.
Fidelity Specifics
Fidelity's covered call workflow has a few things worth knowing:
The "Strategy: Covered Call" filter on the web chain. Reduces the noise on the chain to just the strikes useful for a covered call. Good for new sellers; advanced sellers usually prefer the full chain.
Ex-dividend date is shown on the chain in ATP. Fidelity displays the ex-div date in the chain header for the underlying. Easier than digging it up separately.
Earnings is NOT shown on the option chain. You need to check earnings via the underlying's quote page or a separate calendar tool. Just like Schwab, this is a manual check that's easy to forget. Writing through earnings unintentionally is the most common avoidable mistake.
Active Trader Pro is genuinely better than the web for active CC writing. If you write more than a couple calls a month, install ATP. The order ticket is faster, the chain is denser, and the data is more granular.
Common Mistakes on Fidelity
Wrong tier of options approval. If you only have Tier 1 (covered call/cash-secured put), you can write covered calls but not naked puts or spreads. Don't try to write a strategy you don't have approval for — Fidelity will reject the order.
Selling at market. Same warning as on every broker. Always limit.
Forgetting earnings. No automatic flag on the chain. Check separately every time.
Mistaking the cover. Fidelity will let you write a "covered call" if you have the cover. If you sell shares afterward without closing the call first, the position becomes a naked call — which requires Tier 4 approval and may force-close. Don't sell underlying shares while you have an open short call against them, unless you're explicitly closing the position.
Wrong account. If you have multiple Fidelity accounts (Roth IRA, individual taxable, joint, etc.), make sure the order is going to the account that holds the shares. Tax-advantaged accounts can write covered calls in most cases, but the rules are slightly different and not all accounts have options approval.
Schwab vs. Fidelity for Covered Calls
If you have accounts at both: I find Fidelity's Active Trader Pro slightly better than Schwab's StreetSmart Edge for covered call workflow. ATP's order ticket is marginally faster, and the ex-div display on the chain is a small but real convenience.
Schwab's research and educational content is comparable. Fees are essentially identical ($0.65 vs $0.65 per contract).
For most users, the broker you already use is the right answer — the marginal difference doesn't justify a transfer. If you're choosing fresh, either is excellent.
Tooling
The same caveat as the Schwab post: doing this manually for one or two positions is fine. Doing it for 10+ positions every week is where it gets painful. Myron connects to Fidelity via SnapTrade, screens your entire Fidelity-held portfolio at once, and routes the orders back to Fidelity. The mechanical work compresses from 45 minutes to 5.
For broker comparisons, see Selling Covered Calls on Schwab, Selling Covered Calls on Webull, and Selling Covered Calls on Interactive Brokers.