How do you exercise stock options without cash?
If your company has IPO'd, a cashless exercise is facilitated by a brokerage firm. When you're ready to exercise your options, the firm covers the share cost, transaction fees and taxes with a short-term loan. Then, they turn around and sell at least a portion of your new shares to pay back the loan.
no you can't exercise a call option without having the cash or a margin account for taxable and limited margin for retirement account. you have to have enough cash.
Cashless Exercise
Such a transaction utilizes a broker to provide a short-term loan so that the holder exercising the options has enough money to do so. Once the loan to exercise the options is in place, the holder then sells enough of the newly acquired shares to pay back the broker for the loan, fees, and taxes.
The option may be exercised only if funds become available within the 60-day period. In the event that sufficient funding is not available within the 60 day period, the Government waives the right to exercise the option, thereby rendering any additional requirements subject to full and open competition requirements.
The holder of a long options position may choose to exercise the options contracts even if they finish out-of-the-money. In some cases, exercising out-of-the-money options may be economically beneficial due to stock price changes in the extended hours session.
If your long option is ITM at expiration but your account doesn't have enough money to support the resulting long or short stock position, your broker may, at its discretion, issue a do not exercise (DNE) on your behalf, and any gain you may have realized by exercising the option will be wiped out.
It's often wrong to exercise an option rather than sell it unless you want to own a position in the underlying stock. Be sure to close it through an offsetting sale if the contract is in the money heading into the expiration and you don't want it exercised.
You have to use your own money: When exercising options early, you can't sell some of your stock to pay for your shares. There's no guarantee that your shares will increase in value: By waiting for the usual one-year vesting cliff, you may get a better idea of whether you should purchase your options or not.
You have taxable income or deductible loss when you sell the stock you bought by exercising the option. You generally treat this amount as a capital gain or loss. However, if you don't meet special holding period requirements, you'll have to treat income from the sale as ordinary income.
Initiate an Exercise-and-Sell Transaction (cashless)
With this transaction, which is only available from Fidelity if your stock option plan is managed by Fidelity, you may exercise your stock option to buy your company stock and sell the acquired shares at the same time without using your own cash.
How much does it cost to exercise an option?
In the US, the exercise price is typically set at the fair market value of the underlying stock as of the date the option is granted, in order to comply with certain requirements under US tax law.
Option holders have until 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time on the business day of expiration, or, in the case of an option contract expiring on a day that is not a business day, on the business day immediately prior to the expiration date, to make a final decision to exercise or not exercise an expiring option.

Non-recourse loans have traditionally been a go-to for startup employees looking to finance the exercise of their stock options without immediate out-of-pocket expenses. These loans are secured by the stock itself, limiting the lender's recourse to the stock as collateral in the event of a default.
Because the warrant allows you to sell the stocks for more than you could on the secondary market, the warrant is in the money and makes sense to exercise. But if the stock's current market price was $35, it wouldn't make sense to exercise the warrant, since you could sell the shares for more elsewhere.
Cashless exercise allows you to pay with vested options, which are worth $40. A $20,000 exercise price divided by $40 equals 500 shares. You will surrender 500 vested options to the company, and in return receive the remaining 500 vested shares.
A cashless exercise, also known as a "same-day sale," is a transaction in which an employee exercises their stock options by using a short-term loan provided by a brokerage firm. The proceeds from exercising the stock options are then used to repay the loan.
There is generally no exercise or assignment activity on options that expire out-of-the-money. Owners usually let them expire with no value. Although this is not always the case as post-market underlying moves may lead to out-of-the-money options being exercised and in-the-money options not being exercised.
When options expire, any in-the-money options are typically exercised automatically, meaning the holder will buy (for calls) or sell (for puts) the underlying asset at the strike price.
If the option is never exercised, you keep the money. If the option is exercised, you still keep the premium but are obligated to buy or sell the underlying stock if assigned.
Since you don't have enough buying power to exercise the option, you close the trade by selling the contract at a higher premium – as long as the call contract is worth more than $10 at any point in your trade, you'd realize a profit if you closed the contract.
Which option selling strategy is most profitable?
Long Straddle
How It Works: A long straddle options strategy involves simultaneously buying a call option and a put option on the same underlying asset with the same strike price and expiration date. This strategy becomes profitable when the stock significantly shifts in one direction or another.
An investor can buy to close an options contract position by buying back the options contracts at either a lower or higher price, depending on the current market price of the option. This can help the investor potentially realize profits or cut losses.
Non-recourse financing
If you don't have enough money to self-fund the exercise of your stock options and loans are too risky, your next best option could be non-recourse financing. Non-recourse financing is a cash advance that covers the cost of exercising plus any tax burden that exercising incurs.
At exercise: When you exercise ISOs, you don't owe regular income tax. However, the difference between the exercise price and the fair market value of the stock at the time of exercise is considered a preference item for the AMT. This means you might have to pay AMT if this amount is large enough.
If for any reason we can't sell your contract, and you don't have the necessary buying power or shares to exercise it, we may attempt to submit a DNE request to the Options Clearing Corporation (OCC), and your contract should expire worthless.