Registered31 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
AdvisorCensus / Financial advisors in the United States / Illinois / Financial advisors in Chicago, IL
Financial advisors in Chicago, IL
AdvisorCensus lists 1,071 investment advisory firms with a principal office in the Chicago metro area, drawn from Form ADV filings as of October 2026. Firms are listed alphabetically; sort by years registered or assets band using the controls below. Firms may request removal from the directory, so this count can differ from the number of firms that file Form ADV.
1,071
investment advisory firms
277
fee-only firms
635
SEC-registered
299
state-registered
596,838
households earning $200k+
64 of 1,071 firms matchShowing 1 to 50
Registered1 year
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered2 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered29 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered5 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered14 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered18 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered0 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered0 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered6 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered6 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered2 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered0 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered8 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered1 year
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered13 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered5 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered5 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered22 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered1 year
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered2 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered32 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered12 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered36 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered8 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered6 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered0 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered1 year
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered4 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered5 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered19 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered11 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered1 year
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered10 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered11 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered37 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered6 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered0 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered1 year
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered7 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered7 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered7 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered4 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered1 year
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered14 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered11 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered1 year
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered4 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered4 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Registered16 years
Assets managed$100 million to $500 million
Market overview
Chicago has 1,071 investment advisory firms with a principal office in the metro area as of October 2026: 635 SEC-registered, 299 state-registered, and 137 exempt reporting advisers. 277 of them meet AdvisorCensus's fee-only test (paid only by client fees, with no sales-related compensation ties such as an employee registered with a broker-dealer or licensed as an insurance agent), and 266 report under $100 million in regulatory assets under management. The metro area has 3,643,783 households, 596,838 of them with income of $200,000 or more, or 557 such households for each firm (Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-year estimates).
| Registration | Firms |
|---|---|
| SEC-registered investment advisers | 635 |
| State-registered investment advisers | 299 |
| Exempt reporting advisers | 137 |
| Compensation arrangements (Item 5.E) | Firms |
|---|---|
| Fee-only (AdvisorCensus test) | 277 (30%) |
| Percentage of assets | 864 (93%) |
| Hourly charges | 307 (33%) |
| Subscription fees (newsletter or periodical) | 9 (1%) |
| Fixed fees | 432 (46%) |
| Commissions | 38 (4%) |
| Performance-based fees | 286 (31%) |
| Other | 160 (17%) |
| No compensation arrangements reported (exempt reporting advisers don't file Item 5.E) | 137 |
| Years registered | Firms |
|---|---|
| Under 5 years | 358 (33%) |
| 5 to 9 years | 237 (22%) |
| 10 to 19 years | 293 (27%) |
| 20 years or more | 183 (17%) |
| Not reported | 0 (0%) |
| Regulatory assets under management | Firms |
|---|---|
| Under $25 million | 140 (13%) |
| $25 million to $100 million | 126 (12%) |
| $100 million to $500 million | 260 (24%) |
| $500 million to $1 billion | 100 (9%) |
| $1 billion to $5 billion | 132 (12%) |
| Over $5 billion | 111 (10%) |
| Not reported | 202 (19%) |
How to compare these firms
How the firm is paid
Form ADV Item 5.E lists every way a firm is paid for advice, and the "How paid" filter above lists each one. Of the 1,071 firms on this page, 864 charge a percentage of assets, 307 charge hourly, 432 charge fixed fees, and 38 list commissions. Commissions and other sales pay more often reach a firm through its people's broker-dealer registrations or insurance licenses, or through a related company, which Item 5.E doesn't cover; the 277 firms that meet AdvisorCensus's fee-only test have none of these ties. Read the guide on fee-only, fee-based, and commission arrangements.
Fee-only, fee-based, and commissionsWho regulates the firm
635 firms here are registered with the SEC, which generally means at least $100 million in regulatory assets under management; 299 are registered with a state securities regulator, typical of smaller firms; 137 are exempt reporting advisers (private fund and venture advisers that file a shorter form and generally do not serve individual clients). The registration type says who examines the firm, not how good it is.
SEC and state registrationDisclosures
Every firm page shows how many of the Form ADV Item 11 disciplinary questions the firm answered yes, with a link to the full record on the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure site. A yes can range from a decades-old matter at an affiliate to a recent regulatory action; read the record before drawing a conclusion.
Reading a firm's disclosuresSize and tenure
Regulatory assets under management and years registered describe scale and track length, not quality. A small firm may be a single planner who works with a few dozen households; a large one may be an institutional manager that does not take individual clients at all. The client types on each firm page (individuals, high-net-worth individuals, pension plans, and so on) say whom the firm actually serves.
What assets under management meansQuestions people ask
How many financial advisory firms are there in Chicago, IL?
AdvisorCensus lists 1,071 investment advisory firms with a principal office in the Chicago metro area, from Form ADV filings as of October 2026: 635 SEC-registered, 299 state-registered, and 137 exempt reporting advisers. Firms may request removal, so the count can differ slightly from the number of firms that file Form ADV.
How many fee-only financial advisors are in Chicago, IL?
277 of the 1,071 firms meet AdvisorCensus's fee-only test: paid only by a percentage of assets, hourly charges, fixed fees, or subscription fees on Form ADV Item 5.E (no commissions, performance-based fees, or other compensation), with no sales-related compensation ties in the same filing: no employee registered with a broker-dealer or licensed as an insurance agent (Item 5.B), no brokerage, insurance, real estate, or other product sales business (Item 6.A), no related broker-dealer, insurance company, real estate broker, or futures commission merchant (Item 7.A), and no referral fees from others or other sales interest (Item 8). Form ADV has no fee-only box, so this is derived from the filing; it is not a fee-only certification, and a firm's own page lists its compensation arrangements as filed.
How many financial advisors in Chicago, IL offer financial planning?
465 of the 934 firms in Chicago, IL that answer Form ADV Item 5.G, which asks what advisory services a firm provides, report financial planning services, as of October 2026. Exempt reporting advisers do not answer Item 5.G. Each firm page lists every advisory service the firm reports.
Are the financial advisors in Chicago, IL fiduciaries?
Every firm on this page is an investment adviser that files Form ADV, and an investment adviser owes its clients a fiduciary duty under federal law, made up of a duty of care and a duty of loyalty: it must act in the client's best interest and not put its own interests ahead of the client's, and must eliminate its conflicts of interest or disclose them fully and fairly. Form ADV has no fiduciary box because the duty comes with being an investment adviser. The duty covers the firm's advice; a firm or its people may also sell securities through a broker-dealer or insurance as licensed agents, roles held to other standards. The 277 firms that meet AdvisorCensus's fee-only test report none of those sales ties.
How do I check whether a financial advisor has disciplinary disclosures?
Each firm page shows how many Form ADV Item 11 disciplinary questions the firm answered yes and links to the firm's record on the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure site (adviserinfo.sec.gov), where the detail of each disclosure is public. Individual advisers' records are on the same site and on FINRA BrokerCheck.
Does AdvisorCensus rate, verify, or recommend these firms?
No. The directory shows what each firm filed, in alphabetical order unless you choose another sort, and no firm's position depends on payment. Firms that claim their page can add a description and links, marked as provided by the firm; the filed facts are never changed by that content.
What does regulatory assets under management mean?
Regulatory assets under management (RAUM) is the figure a firm reports on Form ADV Item 5.F: the securities portfolios it provides continuous and regular supervisory or management services for, at market value, including assets managed without discretion. It measures scale, not performance or quality.
Related pages
Nearby metro areas in Illinois
- Champaign, IL (14)
- Peoria, IL (12)
- Springfield, IL (11)
- Rockford, IL (9)
- Bloomington, IL (8)
- Decatur, IL (2)
- Kankakee, IL (2)
Cities in the Chicago metro area
- Financial advisors in Naperville, IL (41)
- Financial advisors in Northbrook, IL (34)
- Financial advisors in Oak Brook, IL (24)
- Financial advisors in Evanston, IL (20)
- Financial advisors in Northfield, IL (16)
- Financial advisors in Downers Grove, IL (15)
- Financial advisors in Lake Forest, IL (15)
- Financial advisors in Wheaton, IL (15)
- Financial advisors in Schaumburg, IL (14)
- Financial advisors in Barrington, IL (12)
- Financial advisors in Hinsdale, IL (12)
- Financial advisors in Lisle, IL (11)
By how firms are paid and whom they serve
- Fee-only financial advisors in Chicago, IL (277)
- Flat-fee financial advisors in Chicago, IL (432)
- Hourly financial advisors in Chicago, IL (307)
- Financial advisors for attorneys in Chicago, IL (1)
- Financial advisors for business owners in Chicago, IL (3)
- Financial advisors for corporate executives in Chicago, IL (1)
- Financial advisors for financial independence and early retirement in Chicago, IL (1)
- Financial advisors for pre-retirees in Chicago, IL (1)
- Financial advisors for retirees in Chicago, IL (1)
- Financial advisors for women in Chicago, IL (1)
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.
How the fee-model pages are derived
Form ADV has no fee-only box, so AdvisorCensus derives it from the filing. A firm appears on the fee-only page when it is paid only by a percentage of assets, hourly charges, fixed fees, or subscription fees on Form ADV Item 5.E (no commissions, performance-based fees, or other compensation), with no sales-related compensation ties in the same filing: no employee registered with a broker-dealer or licensed as an insurance agent (Item 5.B), no brokerage, insurance, real estate, or other product sales business (Item 6.A), no related broker-dealer, insurance company, real estate broker, or futures commission merchant (Item 7.A), and no referral fees from others or other sales interest (Item 8). It appears on the flat-fee page when it checks fixed fees on Item 5.E, and on the hourly page when it checks hourly charges; the subscription box, which the form reserves for a newsletter or periodical, counts toward neither. A firm can appear on more than one page. These pages describe filed answers, not a fee-only attestation, and a firm's own page lists its compensation arrangements as filed.
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.
Metro area: Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN (core-based statistical area 16980).
Cite this page
AdvisorCensus. Financial advisors in Chicago, IL: 1,071 firms from Form ADV filings as of October 2026. https://advisorcensus.com/advisors/il/chicago