The invention concerns a method for charging an actively shielded magnet coil arrangement (20) comprising a first partial region (21) which can be superconductingly short-circuited using an additional switch (23), and a second partial region (22), wherein the two partial regions (21, 22) generate dipole moments of different signs. The magnetic fringe field B* is measured close to the desired operating state of the arrangement (20) and operating currents are determined for each of the two partial regions (21, 22) at which the overall magnetic field B is free from an additional dipole moment caused by production tolerances to permit setting of the theoretically optimum fringe field, irrespective of production tolerances. These operating currents are adjusted taking into consideration the inductive coupling between the partial regions (21, 22) through initially charging the entire magnet coil arrangement (20) and, after closing the additional switch (23), through continuation of the charging process in the second partial region (22) only. This eliminates deviations, which are caused by production tolerances, from the optimum theoretical fringe field of the arrangement (20) in a simple and inexpensive manner.