AdvisorCensus / Financial advisors in the United States
Financial advisors in the United States
AdvisorCensus lists 43,670 investment advisory firms drawn from Form ADV filings with the SEC and state securities regulators as of October 2026: 17,210 SEC-registered, 16,266 state-registered, and 10,194 exempt reporting advisers. Counts by state and metro area follow, and each firm page carries the facts the firm filed. Firms may request removal from the directory, so this count can differ from the number of firms that file Form ADV.
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AdvisorCensus reports cover metros, fees, custodians, AI visibility, and new-firm formation from the same filings.
| Registration | Firms |
|---|---|
| SEC-registered investment advisers | 17,210 |
| State-registered investment advisers | 16,266 |
| Exempt reporting advisers | 10,194 |
| Compensation arrangements (Item 5.E) | Firms |
|---|---|
| Fee-only (AdvisorCensus test) | 12,294 (37%) |
| Percentage of assets | 30,215 (90%) |
| Hourly charges | 12,827 (38%) |
| Subscription fees (newsletter or periodical) | 448 (1%) |
| Fixed fees | 16,342 (49%) |
| Commissions | 677 (2%) |
| Performance-based fees | 7,451 (22%) |
| Other | 4,408 (13%) |
| No compensation arrangements reported (exempt reporting advisers don't file Item 5.E) | 10,194 |
| Years registered | Firms |
|---|---|
| Under 5 years | 18,637 (43%) |
| 5 to 9 years | 9,773 (22%) |
| 10 to 19 years | 9,616 (22%) |
| 20 years or more | 5,315 (12%) |
| Not reported | 329 (1%) |
| Regulatory assets under management | Firms |
|---|---|
| Under $25 million | 8,917 (20%) |
| $25 million to $100 million | 5,817 (13%) |
| $100 million to $500 million | 7,911 (18%) |
| $500 million to $1 billion | 2,441 (6%) |
| $1 billion to $5 billion | 3,286 (8%) |
| Over $5 billion | 2,104 (5%) |
| Not reported | 13,194 (30%) |
Methodology
What Form ADV is
Form ADV is the registration form investment advisers file with the SEC or with state securities regulators, and update at least once a year. Part 1 reports the firm's identity, registration, ownership, clients, assets under management, compensation arrangements, advisory activities, and disciplinary disclosures. AdvisorCensus reads the SEC's monthly roster, the IAPD compilation feeds for state-registered advisers, and the SEC's filing data, and presents the answers as filed with the period they come from.
How firms are assigned to a metro area
A firm's principal office ZIP code is matched to a core-based statistical area with the HUD-USPS crosswalk, taking the area that holds most of the ZIP's business addresses. A ZIP the crosswalk doesn't carry, such as a PO box, is placed by the filed city and state when every ZIP of that city with the same first three digits falls in one area. Firms whose filing suppresses the office address (a private residence) are placed from the mailing address when one is filed. A state-registered firm that publishes no address appears on the page of the one state it is registered in, because a state-registered adviser registers with the state of its principal office; other firms that publish no address appear on the national index only. Firms in micropolitan areas and outside any statistical area appear on their state page. Metro pages cover the 387 metropolitan statistical areas in the 50 states and the District of Columbia (OMB Bulletin 23-01); Puerto Rico's six are not included.
What AdvisorCensus does not do
AdvisorCensus does not verify, rate, review, rank, or recommend firms. Every figure is a filed figure with its period and a link to the firm's record on the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure site. Order on this page is alphabetical unless you choose another sort, and it never depends on whether a firm has claimed or paid for its page.
Cite this page
AdvisorCensus. Financial advisors in the United States: 43,670 firms from Form ADV filings as of October 2026. https://advisorcensus.com/advisors