How many RIAs are registered with the SEC or a US state, and how big are they?
A count of registered investment adviser firms by regulatory assets under management, with the files, dates and rules behind every number.
The short answer
As of October 2026, Ellery counts about 33,300 registered investment adviser (RIA) firms registered with the SEC or a US state. Of these, 16,943 are registered with the SEC and 16,323 are registered only with a state. No firm is counted twice.
Firms report their own assets on Form ADV. Only about 5,400 of the 33,300 firms (16.2%) report $1 billion or more in regulatory assets under management, yet they hold 97.7% of the roughly $178.2 trillion reported, a total that counts some assets more than once.
The count also includes 2,644 state-registered firms that report no regulatory assets. They say they do not manage client assets on a continuous basis. We count them, but they sit outside the size bands in the table below.
"RIA" in this article means a firm, never a person. It means every registered investment adviser firm, not only wealth managers. The count includes institutional asset managers and private fund advisers, which is why the largest firms hold most of the money. The files and dates behind these numbers are in the method section below.
- 33,266 firmsSEC-registered firms plus state-registered firms that are not in the SEC file.
- 5,388 firmsReport $1 billion or more in regulatory assets, 16.2% of all firms.
- 97.7%The share of reported regulatory assets held by those firms.
How many RIAs are there?
Ellery counts 33,266 RIA firms: 16,943 with an approved SEC registration and 16,323 registered only with a state. The SEC's form spells it "adviser" and many people write "advisor"; the count is the same. No firm is counted twice. 218 firms appear in both files, approved with the SEC and listed as state-registered in the feed. We count each of those once, as SEC-registered. Two more appear in both files, but the SEC file gives them the status "120-Day Approval" rather than "Approved". We left them out.
How many RIAs manage more than $1 billion?
5,388 firms report $1 billion or more, which is 16.2% of the 33,266 and 97.7% of reported assets, as of the two files above. Every one of them is SEC-registered; no state-only firm reports that much.
How are RIAs spread across size bands?
The count is bottom-heavy and the assets are top-heavy. About 76.5% of firms (25,440) report under $500 million, report zero, or have no regulatory assets to report. Meanwhile 739 firms, 2.2% of the total, hold 85.2% of the assets.
| Assets under management (RAUM) | Firms | RAUM, US dollars | Share of firms | Share of RAUM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| State-registered, no continuous management (no figure in the state feed) | 2,644 | none reported | 7.9% | none |
| Zero | 1,921 | $0 | 5.8% | 0.0% |
| Under $25 million | 7,163 | $65.5 billion | 21.5% | less than 0.1% |
| $25 million to under $100 million | 5,804 | $319.4 billion | 17.4% | 0.2% |
| $100 million to under $500 million | 7,908 | $1.9 trillion | 23.8% | 1.1% |
| $500 million to under $1 billion | 2,438 | $1.7 trillion | 7.3% | 1.0% |
| $1 billion to under $5 billion | 3,285 | $7.3 trillion | 9.9% | 4.1% |
| $5 billion to under $25 billion | 1,364 | $15.1 trillion | 4.1% | 8.5% |
| $25 billion and over | 739 | $151.8 trillion | 2.2% | 85.2% |
| Total | 33,266 | $178.2 trillion | 100% | 100% |
Bands include their lower bound and leave out the upper one. Shares may not add to 100% because of rounding. The two lowest rows are not small firms we measured. The first row is the 2,644 state-registered firms that answered No to Form ADV Item 5.F(1), the question on continuous and regular management of client assets. By the form's own definition, a firm that answers No has no regulatory assets. The Zero row is 1,921 firms that reported $0: 292 of them answered No to the same question, and the other 1,629 answered Yes but still reported $0. For how Ellery sources and dates its data, see Where Ellery's data comes from, and how current it is.
How concentrated are RIA assets?
The ten largest SEC-registered firms by reported assets hold $48.5 trillion, 27.2% of the combined total. The largest hundred hold $103.2 trillion, 57.9%.
The count covers every kind of registered investment adviser firm, including institutional asset managers and private fund advisers, so the top band should not be read as wealth-management assets. The $178.2 trillion is not wealth-management or household money.
How did we count? Sources and method
A "registered investment adviser firm" here is a firm with an approved SEC registration, or a state-only registration in the IAPD state feed. Exempt reporting advisers are left out.
- SEC Form ADV file:
ia100226.zip, the SEC's October 2026 registered-adviser file, retrieved October 23, 2026, 17,210 firms. www.sec.gov: ia100226.zip - IAPD state feed:
IA_FIRM_STATE_Feed_10_23_2026.xml.gz, feed date October 23, 2026, retrieved October 23, 2026. reports.adviserinfo.sec.gov: IA_FIRM_STATE_Feed_10_23_2026.xml.gz
The counting rules:
- SEC-registered means a firm whose status in the SEC file is Approved: 16,943.
- State-registered means a firm listed in the state feed as State-registered and not already in the SEC file: 16,323.
- Overlap. 218 firms are in both files, approved with the SEC and state-registered in the feed. We count each once, as SEC-registered.
- "120-Day Approval" status. 267 more firms carry the SEC status "120-Day Approval" rather than "Approved". We left them out. Two of the 267 also appear in the state feed as state-registered. We left those two out as well, so they are in neither group.
- State exempt reporting advisers (5,425 in the feed) are not registered advisers and the feed carries no assets for any of them. We left them out (one of them is also approved with the SEC and is counted there).
- Assets are regulatory assets under management (RAUM), the figure a firm reports in Item 5.F of Form ADV, in US dollars, as reported in its latest Form ADV filing. For state-registered firms the figure comes from the state feed.
The two files are three weeks apart, and each firm's figure is as of its own latest filing, so this is not a single-day figure. The dates above say which files this count uses.
What does this count leave out?
- The assets are self-reported. The SEC's own file says: "Neither the SEC nor the state securities authorities have approved the information filed on Form ADV, and we can not guarantee its accuracy."
- Some assets are counted more than once. Sub-advised and model-portfolio assets, and assets an adviser manages for another adviser's funds, can appear in more than one firm's figure. So $178.2 trillion is regulatory assets as reported, not unique investor dollars or "assets in the market".
- These are firms, not people. The count says nothing about how many advisers or advisors work at them.
- Some firms have no size. 2,644 state-registered firms report no regulatory assets because they do not manage client assets on a continuous basis (Form ADV Item 5.F(1)). They are counted, but sit outside the size bands. A further 1,921 firms report zero; of those, 292 say they do not manage assets on a continuous basis and 1,629 say they do but report $0.
- Some firms are based outside the US. Some SEC-registered advisers are based outside the US, and their worldwide reported assets are included.
- This is Ellery's count, not the count. Other sources may count dual registrants or individuals, or use different dates, so their numbers will differ.