SEC Form ADV, a public record
Every registered investment adviser files a public record. Read it before the first meeting.
Form ADV is the disclosure every SEC-registered adviser must file and keep current: how much money it manages, how it charges, what services it sells, whether it holds client assets, and whether it has disciplinary events to report. The filing is public and machine-readable, and almost nobody reads it. This site puts it in plain form, firm by firm, and explains the other document you are owed before you pay anyone: Form CRS. One thing no public record contains is investment performance, so no page here ranks advisers by results.
Look up a firm
Search the SEC-registered investment adviser firms in the current Form ADV data by name.
Firms on file
23,470
investment adviser firms in the current data, 16,935 of them SEC-registered with a reported asset figure, the rest exempt reporting advisers.
Largest by reported assets
reports $11T in regulatory assets under management. That is a size measure the firm reports itself, not a quality score.
Disciplinary disclosures
9.7%
of firms (2,269) answered yes to at least one disciplinary or legal question on Form ADV Item 11. Each firm page here shows that flag and links to the underlying events.
The document you are owed
Form CRS
Since 2020, every SEC-registered adviser and broker serving retail investors must hand you a short relationship summary: services, fees, conflicts, standard of conduct, and disciplinary history, written in everyday words, before you commit. You can demand it before paying anything.
What Form CRS must tell youThe distinction that decides your fees
Fiduciary adviser or broker
Investment advisers owe you a fiduciary duty under the Advisers Act. Brokers follow a different standard, Regulation Best Interest, and many people are both at once. Which one your person is, at the moment they recommend something, changes what they owe you.
How to tell which one you haveArithmetic, not advice
How advisers charge
Percentage of assets, hourly, flat fee, subscription, performance, commissions: each firm discloses its methods on Form ADV, and each firm page here renders them as plain sentences. Plus the worked arithmetic of what a 1 percent asset fee compounds to over 30 years.
The fee models, definedTen minutes, two databases
Check your advisor
A step-by-step walkthrough: the firm here, the individual on the SEC's IAPD and FINRA's BrokerCheck, what an Item 11 disclosure looks like, and what a customer-dispute entry does and does not prove.
Run the checkBrowse the largest firms in your state
Each state page lists the 50 largest SEC-registered firms headquartered there by reported assets, with each firm's fee methods and disciplinary-disclosure flag. Start with Minnesota, California, New York, or Texas.
Data: SEC Form ADV monthly release, July 2026 data, loaded July 2026. Methodology