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 the Edward Jones leavers who re-registered 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 that same group, 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 who re-registered, and the oft-quoted direct-to-RIA statistic alone understates it by half.

The Edward Jones number is the striking one: 54% of the Jones leavers who re-registered chose an independent broker-dealer, led by LPL, Raymond James Financial Services, and Ameriprise. For the Jones advisors who re-registered, the independent broker-dealer was 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%. How many advisors launch a firm of their own is counted from the SEC's filings in how many advisors start their own RIA. 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, and why the Q2 2026 earnings season read like a recruiting scoreboard: LPL alone closed the quarter with $24.9 billion of recruited assets.

Both destinations are winning at scale. LPL recruited $104 billion in assets in 2025 and, in its July 30 second-quarter report, put advisor count at a record 32,475, a net gain of 331 for the quarter, on $24.9 billion of recruited assets in the period and $89 billion across the trailing twelve months. CEO Rich Steinmeier said the recruiting pipeline "reached a new record," and management called the competitive environment "spirited," with elevated transition assistance persisting. 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. The Commonwealth shakeout is covered in the acquisition playbook.

The economics, and the number that ends the debate

The operating economics differ less than the marketing suggests. An IBD platform keeps 5 to 15 percent in retention and passthrough fees, and in the deals we work on, an independent broker-dealer's headline payout can reach 95% and above, and nets in the 80s after the broker-dealer's own charges, before the practice pays for its office and staff, and where a practice lands depends on the broker-dealer, the business mix, the advisory size and the book. A well-run RIA owner keeps what real operating costs leave behind; 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 a multiple of revenue. A standalone RIA trades on earnings: the median RIA transaction hit a record 11.6x EBITDA in 2025, on Advisor Growth Strategies data from 60 transactions reported by WealthManagement.com, even as buyers surveyed by DeVoe called a possible ceiling on the market. The structures differ enough that the comparison is directional, 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 re-registered Jones leavers choosing IBDs are choosing rationally: maximum continuity, familiar regulation, a transition package, and a payout well above 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 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. IBD vs RIA: what changes for a financial advisor sets the two models side by side.

Every number here depends on the advisor and the book. The specific answer comes from a confidential conversation: the best deal we can win for your practice through our relationships and our record of past deals, and how culture, technology, support and service compare at the firms that fit. Winthrop & Co. is never paid by the advisor. Request an introduction.

Where the two channels sit in a career, rather than in a given year, is the subject of the order most advisors get wrong.