IBD or RIA in 2026: Where Departing Advisors Actually Went

The short answer: the IBD-versus-RIA debate is usually argued from priors. The measured answer, from our own registered-rep movement data and Cerulli's channel research, is more interesting: the independent broker-dealer wins more departing advisors than the commentary suggests, a majority of Edward Jones leavers among them, while the RIA channel wins the long arc, the asset-share projections, and, decisively, the valuation multiple. The two channels are less rivals than sequential stops on the same road, and which one fits depends on facts about your book you can actually look up.

What the movement data measured

Our H1 2026 State of Advisor Movement counted 15,540 unique producing advisors on the move in the half, from FINTRX registered-rep data prepared for the report. The destination analysis is the part that settles arguments.

Among producing advisors who departed the wirehouses and re-registered, roughly six in ten stayed inside the employee model at another wire, regional, or bank. Of the rest, 16% went cross-firm to an independent broker-dealer and 13.9% to an independent RIA. Independence, in some form, takes roughly three in ten wirehouse leavers, and the oft-quoted direct-to-RIA statistic alone understates it by half.

The Edward Jones number is the striking one: 54% of departing Jones advisors chose an independent broker-dealer, led by LPL, Raymond James Financial Services, and Ameriprise. For advisors leaving a captive branch model, the IBD is not a compromise destination. It is the majority destination, and our Edward Jones departures tracker shows the same pattern move by move.

On the inflow side, LPL led all firms with 1,100 producing-advisor joins in the half, net plus 482, and Raymond James Financial Services ran the cleanest net ratio among major destinations at plus 249. The full twelve-firm ledger is in the key findings.

The channel picture, without the eulogy

A certain style of commentary has been writing the IBD channel's obituary for a decade. Cerulli's data declines to cooperate. The channel holds nearly one-fifth of all U.S. advisor headcount, roughly 56,000 advisors, and 16% of industry assets. In the most recent year measured, IBD advisor-managed assets grew 21.5%, faster that year than both the RIA channel and captive broker-dealers. Consolidation is real, the firm count fell from 124 to 79 in a decade and the top 25 IBDs now control more than 80% of channel assets, but consolidation has concentrated the channel, not shrunk it.

The long arc still bends independent. Cerulli projects independent and hybrid RIAs controlling 31.2% of intermediary assets by 2027, and the independent RIA channel growing roughly 4% a year to 56,103 advisors by 2028, the fastest trajectory of any channel, while wirehouse headcount share falls toward 14%. Total industry headcount, meanwhile, is flat and aging: roughly 37% of advisors plan to retire within ten years. Every channel is fighting over the same people, which is precisely why recruiting deals price the way they do.

Both destinations are winning at scale. LPL recruited $104 billion in assets in 2025 and reported 32,100 advisors at the end of Q1 2026; it reports Q2 on July 30. Raymond James, on its July earnings call, reported recruiting advisors with $23 billion in prior-firm assets in the quarter and more than $56 billion fiscal-year-to-date. And the Commonwealth shakeout, which we covered in the acquisition playbook, sent most of its 654 leavers to other broker-dealers while minting 16 brand-new RIAs.

The economics, and the number that ends the debate

The operating economics differ less than the marketing suggests. An IBD advisor's true net, after the platform's 5-to-15-percent retention and passthrough fees, commonly lands in the 70s as a share of what clients pay. A well-run RIA owner, after real operating costs, typically keeps 60 to 70 percent of revenue before owner compensation, and solo owners commonly take home more; Fidelity's benchmarking is the sobering counterweight, with average advisory-firm expenses reaching 82% of revenue in 2023 as margins compressed at smaller firms. Costs moved from invisible to visible; they did not vanish. We ran the production-level crossover math in the IBD ceiling.

The number that actually separates the channels is enterprise value. A practice sold under a broker-dealer umbrella trades on revenue: the commonly documented range runs roughly one-and-a-half to three times trailing recurring revenue. A standalone RIA trades on earnings: the median RIA transaction hit a record 11.6x EBITDA in 2025 across 276 deals per deal-series data reported by WealthManagement.com, even as buyers surveyed in the trade press called a ceiling on the market. The structures differ enough that the comparison is directional, a revenue multiple on a book is not an EBITDA multiple on a firm, but the direction is the point. One structure sells a client list. The other sells a business. Cerulli's surveys keep finding enterprise value among the top motivations for advisors considering independence, and this gap is why; it is the same rent-or-own referendum our State of Advisor Movement report prices across every channel.

How to actually choose

Choose the IBD when your book carries meaningful brokerage and trail revenue, you want compliance and technology bundled rather than owned, or your production sits below the level where standalone fixed costs amortize. The 54% of Jones leavers choosing IBDs are choosing rationally: maximum continuity, familiar regulation, a transition package, and a payout that roughly doubles their captive grid.

Choose the RIA when your book is predominantly advisory, your production clears the crossover, and you are building something you intend to sell or hand down. The outcome data favors the leap for those who fit it: 80% of advisors who went independent report AUM growth afterward, with a median increase of 42%, and the channel is a one-way door in the best sense, with 95% of independent advisors saying they would stay.

And remember the sequence option. These are not permanent castes. A large share of today's RIA founders passed through an IBD on the way, and hybrid structures exist precisely for practices mid-transition. The wrong frame is picking a tribe. The right frame is matching this decade's chassis to this decade's book, which is a set of measurable facts: your advisory share, your trail revenue, your portability, your production, and your exit horizon.

We run that analysis for advisors weighing both paths, with the movement data above as the base rate rather than the sales pitch. Request an introduction; every conversation is held in strict confidence, and the advisor never pays.