diff --git a/docs/source/main_classes/trainer.rst b/docs/source/main_classes/trainer.rst
index a7e3134eab0..8f3a07d423d 100644
--- a/docs/source/main_classes/trainer.rst
+++ b/docs/source/main_classes/trainer.rst
@@ -335,8 +335,8 @@ Known caveats:
 
 - This feature is incompatible with :obj:`--predict_with_generate` in the `run_seq2seq.py` script.
 - Using :obj:`--sharded_ddp zero_dp_3` requires wrapping each layer of the model in the special container
-  :obj:`FullyShardedDataParallelism` of fairscale. This is not done automatically by any of the example scripts of the
-  :class:`~transformers.Trainer`.
+  :obj:`FullyShardedDataParallelism` of fairscale. It should be used with the option :obj:`auto_wrap` if you are not
+  doing this yourself: :obj:`--sharded_ddp "zero_dp_3 auto_wrap"`.
 
 
 DeepSpeed
diff --git a/src/transformers/trainer.py b/src/transformers/trainer.py
index 7e2df0bf551..7a0ab029faa 100755
--- a/src/transformers/trainer.py
+++ b/src/transformers/trainer.py
@@ -144,6 +144,7 @@ if is_fairscale_available():
 
     if version.parse(fairscale.__version__) >= version.parse("0.3"):
         from fairscale.nn.data_parallel import FullyShardedDataParallel as FullyShardedDDP
+        from fairscale.nn.wrap import auto_wrap
     else:
         FullyShardedDDP = None
 
@@ -775,8 +776,13 @@ class Trainer:
                 cpu_offload = ShardedDDPOption.OFFLOAD in self.args.sharded_ddp
                 zero_3 = self.sharded_ddp == ShardedDDPOption.ZERO_DP_3
                 # XXX: Breaking the self.model convention but I see no way around it for now.
+                if ShardedDDPOption.AUTO_WRAP in self.args.sharded_ddp:
+                    model = auto_wrap(model)
                 self.model = model = FullyShardedDDP(
-                    model, mixed_precision=mixed_precision, reshard_after_forward=zero_3, cpu_offload=cpu_offload
+                    model,
+                    mixed_precision=mixed_precision,
+                    reshard_after_forward=zero_3,
+                    cpu_offload=cpu_offload,
                 ).to(self.args.device)
 
         elif is_sagemaker_distributed_available():
diff --git a/src/transformers/trainer_utils.py b/src/transformers/trainer_utils.py
index 5d7deed2e80..0df6eba5444 100644
--- a/src/transformers/trainer_utils.py
+++ b/src/transformers/trainer_utils.py
@@ -446,3 +446,4 @@ class ShardedDDPOption(ExplicitEnum):
     ZERO_DP_2 = "zero_dp_2"
     ZERO_DP_3 = "zero_dp_3"
     OFFLOAD = "offload"
+    AUTO_WRAP = "auto_wrap"
diff --git a/src/transformers/training_args.py b/src/transformers/training_args.py
index 133a04c9488..36422a83675 100644
--- a/src/transformers/training_args.py
+++ b/src/transformers/training_args.py
@@ -470,10 +470,10 @@ class TrainingArguments:
     sharded_ddp: str = field(
         default="",
         metadata={
-            "choices": ["simple", "zero_dp_2", "zero_dp_3", "zero_dp_2 offload", "zero_dp_3 offload"],
             "help": "Whether or not to use sharded DDP training (in distributed training only). The base option "
             "should be `simple`, `zero_dp_2` or `zero_dp_3` and you can add CPU-offload to `zero_dp_2` or `zero_dp_3` "
-            "like this: zero_dp_2 offload` or `zero_dp_3 offload`",
+            "like this: zero_dp_2 offload` or `zero_dp_3 offload`. You can add auto-wrap to `zero_dp_2` or "
+            "with the same syntax: zero_dp_2 auto_wrap` or `zero_dp_3 auto_wrap`.",
         },
     )
     deepspeed: Optional[str] = field(
@@ -570,7 +570,7 @@ class TrainingArguments:
                 "`--sharded_ddp offload` can't work on its own. It needs to be added to `--sharded_ddp zero_dp_2` or "
                 '`--sharded_ddp zero_dp_3`. For example, `--sharded_ddp "zero_dp_2 offload"`.'
             )
-        elif len(self.sharded_ddp) > 1 and ShardedDDPOption.Simple in self.sharded_ddp:
+        elif len(self.sharded_ddp) > 1 and ShardedDDPOption.SIMPLE in self.sharded_ddp:
             raise ValueError("`--sharded_ddp simple` is not compatible with any other option.")
         elif ShardedDDPOption.ZERO_DP_2 in self.sharded_ddp and ShardedDDPOption.ZERO_DP_3 in self.sharded_ddp:
             raise ValueError("`--sharded_ddp zero_dp_2` is not compatible with `--sharded_ddp zero_dp_3`.")