How these lists are built

The SEC publishes a monthly data file for every investment advisor registered with it (the SEC's own spelling is adviser), drawn from each firm's Form ADV Part 1A. The pages use the registered-advisor file only; the separate file for exempt reporting advisers carries no Item 5 figures and is not used. The current build is ia09012026-registered.zip, data as of Sep 1, 2026, retrieved Sep 10, 2026, sha256 2302e3ea00819b40f9f595dca53925137e9a6efacbdbfb8d912e66780c92601e.

Source page: Information About Registered Investment Advisers and Exempt Reporting Advisers, sec.gov. The SEC states that information on sec.gov is public and may be copied or distributed without permission, with a citation requested.

• The file held 17,149 SEC-registered RIAs. 14,812 appear on these pages: registration status approved or in the 120-day approval window, with a main office in one of the fifty states or the District of Columbia.
• 1,393 firms are set aside because their main office is a private residence and Form ADV suppresses the address, so they cannot be placed in a state.
• 893 firms are set aside because their main office is outside the United States.
• 51 firms list a US territory rather than a state and are not shown.
• RIAs registered with a state rather than the SEC, generally those managing under $100 million, are not in the SEC file and are out of scope.

Every table is sorted by Form ADV Item 5.F(2)(c), regulatory assets under management, as the firm filed it. That field counts all assets under continuous and regular management, so the top of a state's list is often an asset manager rather than a wealth manager. The toggles narrow the list on the firm's own answers: whether individual and high-net-worth assets are half or more of the total (Item 5.D), whether any employee is a broker-dealer registered representative (Item 5.B(2)), whether the firm takes commissions (Item 5.E(5)) and whether it advises private funds (Item 7.B). The sort is the SEC's field and the toggles are the firm's own answers; nothing else is applied to any firm.

Regulatory assets under management Form ADV Item 5.F(2)(c)

If yes, what is the amount of your regulatory assets under management and total number of accounts? Total, discretionary plus non-discretionary.

Total accounts Form ADV Item 5.F(2)(f)

Total number of accounts, discretionary plus non-discretionary.

Employees Form ADV Item 5.A

Approximately how many employees do you have? Include full- and part-time employees but do not include any clerical workers.

Advisory employees Form ADV Item 5.B(1)

Approximately how many of the employees reported in 5.A. perform investment advisory functions (including research)?

Broker-dealer registered representatives Form ADV Item 5.B(2)

Approximately how many of the employees reported in 5.A. are registered representatives of a broker-dealer?

Individual and high-net-worth clients Form ADV Item 5.D(a), 5.D(b)

Number of clients and amount of regulatory assets under management for individuals (other than high net worth individuals) and for high net worth individuals.

Commissions Form ADV Item 5.E(5)

You are compensated for your investment advisory services by (check all that apply): (5) Commissions.

Private funds Form ADV Item 7.B

Are you an adviser to any private fund?

The file is refreshed monthly after the SEC posts it, checked against the prior month for row count and column names before it replaces anything, and every page shows the data date and the retrieval date. Each firm links to its record on the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure site by CRD number; no data is taken from that site or from FINRA BrokerCheck.

National totals in the current file: 14,812 firms, $160.46T regulatory AUM, 4,817 firms at $1 billion or more.