Leaving an Independent Broker-Dealer: What Moves With You, and What Your Clients Have to Sign

The short answer: When you leave an independent broker-dealer, your clients can follow you, but each one has to agree to. FINRA does not allow a registered person to move accounts by negative consent, so every client signs new paperwork at the new firm. Brokerage accounts then move through ACATS in a few business days. Advisory accounts depend on whose RIA they sit on. Direct-held mutual funds and annuities need a change of broker-dealer of record. And what client information you can take with you depends on whether both firms have signed the Broker Protocol.

What moves, and what each piece needs

The advisory row is where most of the work sits. An investment adviser cannot assign an advisory contract without the client's consent, under Section 205(a)(2) of the Advisers Act, and an advisor leaving a broker-dealer's corporate RIA is leaving that adviser. So each advisory client enters a new agreement with the new firm. Advisors who own their RIA avoid this: the agreements are with their own firm, and changing broker-dealer or custodian changes the account paperwork underneath them. That difference is one reason many IBD advisors weigh their own RIA before a move. What an independent broker-dealer is sets out the corporate RIA model.

Not everything can follow. FINRA warns investors that some products, such as certain mutual funds and annuities, might not be transferable. For directly held funds and variable annuities, FINRA staff described the change of broker-dealer of record in 2004 as mainly affecting who receives the fees and commissions the issuer pays, meaning the ongoing trails.

Consent: the rule that shapes every move

FINRA Regulatory Notice 26-03, published February 6, 2026, reminds firms that registered persons may not use negative consent to transfer or assign customer accounts. The position is long-standing: in 2004 NASD staff wrote that they had never found a reason compelling enough to override the requirement for affirmative consent when a representative changes firms.

Firms can use negative consent in bulk situations: an introducing firm changing clearing firms, a firm leaving a line of business, a merger or acquisition, or a change of broker-dealer of record on directly held accounts. The same notice says a firm should give customers at least 30 days' notice before such a transfer, absent exigent circumstances. That is why an acquisition of your broker-dealer can move your clients without their signatures, while your own move cannot. When your broker-dealer gets acquired covers the other side.

Two more rules apply on the way out and on the way in. FINRA Rule 2140 bars the old firm and its people from interfering with a customer's request to transfer an account. And FINRA Rule 2273 requires the new firm to give former customers FINRA's educational communication about moving with an advisor, at the first individualized contact or within three business days of an oral one, for three months after the advisor joins.

How long the transfer takes

Once the client signs, the transfer runs through ACATS. Under FINRA Rule 11870, the old carrying firm validates the transfer instruction within one business day and completes the transfer within three business days after validation. The SEC's investor guidance puts the whole process at about three to five business days from the time the new firm enters the transfer, and warns that transfers outside ACATS can take up to 30 days.

The practical bottleneck is the paperwork, not the pipe: the speed of a move is set by how fast clients sign, which is why advisors plan the first weeks around the largest and most complex households.

What client information you can take

The Broker Protocol decides this. If both the firm you are leaving and the firm you are joining have signed it, you may take each client's name, address, phone number, email address and account title, and nothing more. J.S. Held maintains the only official list of signatories and updates it weekly, so check it for both firms before you resign rather than relying on memory. If either firm is not a signatory, the Protocol does not apply, and your contract and state law govern what you can take and whom you can contact. The Protocol for Broker Recruiting, explained walks through the conditions.

Your contract and registrations

Independent contractor agreements are contracts, and their terms matter as much as the rules. Kitces noted in 2023 that as independent broker-dealers and RIAs have grown, non-solicit agreements have increasingly come to the forefront in those channels. Read yours for notice periods, non-solicit terms and anything that applies to clients you brought with you. A firm that seeks a temporary restraining order in court must pursue the underlying claim in FINRA arbitration, where a hearing on permanent relief begins within 15 days of the court's order under Rule 13804. Can my firm sue me for leaving covers the litigation side.

On registrations, the old firm files your Form U5 within 30 days of termination and gives you a copy. Registering with the new firm within 30 days of termination allows streamlined relicensing of state registrations, and two years out of registration generally means retaking exams. Form U4 vs Form U5 explains how the two filings hand you from one firm to the next.

Transfer fees

The old custodian or clearing firm charges an exit fee on each account that leaves. Two published examples:

Schedules published by introducing broker-dealers that clear through Pershing show similar charges, often with a separate fee to close an IRA. The SEC suggests clients ask the new firm to waive or reimburse them, and FINRA points out that a new firm's waiver does not cancel the old firm's charges, so reimbursement is the usual answer.

How common these moves are

• 39,171 advisors changed firms in 2025, up 10.5% from 2024, according to ISS Market Intelligence data reported by WealthManagement.com. The independent broker-dealer channel had a net gain of 990 advisors, second to the retail RIA channel.
• Cerulli counts independent broker-dealers at nearly one-fifth of advisor headcount and 16% of industry assets.
• In 2024, Cerulli found 32% of IBD advisors had considered opening an RIA in the past 12 months, and 36% of those might keep their affiliation with their broker-dealer's RIA platform.
• Moves between independent firms still cost assets: Cerulli data reported by InvestmentNews in 2025 put the loss at 11% on an intra-independent move, with technology among the main reasons advisors changed from one broker-dealer to another.

Advisors weighing a move from one independent broker-dealer to another, or to their own RIA, can have the options priced side by side confidentially by requesting an introduction.