Largest Dually Registered Firms (RIA and Broker-Dealer) (2026)

280 firms are registered with the SEC as both an investment adviser and a broker-dealer, 1.6% of SEC-registered advisers, and they report 35% of the individual clients of all SEC-registered advisers but 6.7% of their regulatory assets, according to SEC data. Morgan Stanley is the largest by regulatory assets, with $1.96 trillion, followed by Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith with $1.78 trillion and Edward Jones with $1.01 trillion, according to Form ADV.

A dual registrant runs advisory accounts and brokerage accounts under one legal entity. Regulatory assets on Form ADV count the advisory accounts only, so the figures here leave out the brokerage side of each firm. This ranking uses the SEC's Form ADV data for September 1, 2026 and the SEC's list of active broker-dealers for October 1, 2026.

The 50 largest dually registered firms

Ranked by regulatory assets under management (Item 5.F.(2)(c)). Where the firm's legal name differs from the name it does business under, the legal name follows in brackets; it is the legal name that appears on the SEC's broker-dealer list. "Individual clients" adds individuals and high net worth individuals in Item 5.D, counted the way each firm counts them.

Rank	Firm	Headquarters	Regulatory assets	Individual clients	Wrap fee program	Broker-dealer file number	Source
1	Morgan Stanley (Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC)	Purchase, NY	$1.96 trillion	2,644,338	Yes	8-68191	SEC
2	Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated	New York, NY	$1.78 trillion	1,791,731	Yes	8-7221	SEC
3	Edward Jones (Edward D. Jones & Co., L.P.)	St. Louis, MO	$1.01 trillion	4,030,222	Yes	8-759	SEC
4	UBS Financial Services Inc.	Weehawken, NJ	$916 billion	1,098,059	Yes	8-16267	SEC
5	LPL Financial LLC	Fort Mill, SC	$819 billion	1,962,908	Yes	8-17668	SEC
6	Wells Fargo Advisors (Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC)	St. Louis, MO	$671 billion	1,298,616	Yes	8-37180	SEC
7	Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC	Minneapolis, MN	$660 billion	1,373,063	Yes	8-16791	SEC
8	Raymond James & Associates, Inc.	St. Petersburg, FL	$501 billion	513,125	Yes	8-10999	SEC
9	J.P. Morgan Securities LLC	New York, NY	$430 billion	1,234,172	Yes	8-35008	SEC
10	Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated	Milwaukee, WI	$394 billion	236,131	Yes	8-497	SEC
11	RBC Capital Markets, LLC	New York, NY	$310 billion	275,938	Yes	8-45411	SEC
12	Wells Fargo Advisors (Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, LLC)	St. Louis, MO	$252 billion	455,837	Yes	8-28721	SEC
13	Osaic Wealth, Inc.	Scottsdale, AZ	$235 billion	569,367	Yes	8-40218	SEC
14	Commonwealth Financial Network (Commonwealth Equity Services, LLC)	Waltham, MA	$213 billion	355,973	Yes	8-24040	SEC
15	Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated	St Louis, MO	$198 billion	230,676	Yes	8-1447	SEC
16	Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC	New York, NY	$134 billion	29,104	Yes	8-129	SEC
17	MML Investors Services, LLC	Springfield, MA	$116 billion	448,837	Yes	8-27250	SEC
18	Janney Montgomery Scott LLC	Philadelphia, PA	$110 billion	239,764	Yes	8-462	SEC
19	Rockefeller Capital Management (Rockefeller Financial LLC)	New York, NY	$99.6 billion	47,801	Yes	8-70054	SEC
20	Russell Investments (Russell Investments Implementation Services, LLC)	Seattle, WA	$81.1 billion	0	No	8-220	SEC
21	William Blair & Company LLC	Chicago, IL	$64.3 billion	35,296	Yes	8-2698	SEC
22	Citigroup Global Markets Inc.	New York, NY	$56.0 billion	58,096	Yes	8-8177	SEC
23	Equitable Advisors, LLC	New York, NY	$47.3 billion	74,960	No	8-17883	SEC
24	D.A. Davidson & Co.	Great Falls, MT	$41.8 billion	68,135	Yes	8-2399	SEC
25	Advice and Planning Services (Tiaa-Cref Individual & Institutional Services, LLC)	New York, NY	$37.9 billion	72,469	Yes	8-44454	SEC
26	Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.	New York, NY	$36.7 billion	37,047	Yes	8-4077	SEC
27	PNC Wealth Management	Pittsburgh, PA	$30.3 billion	160,885	Yes	8-66195	SEC
28	&Partners	Nashville, TN	$30.3 billion	53,863	No	8-3774	SEC
29	VALIC Financial Advisors, Inc.	Houston, TX	$29.2 billion	292,989	Yes	8-50018	SEC
30	LPL Enterprise, LLC	Fort Mill, SC	$24.9 billion	102,071	Yes	8-26037	SEC
31	Davenport & Company LLC	Richmond, VA	$24.7 billion	16,855	Yes	8-17103	SEC
32	Belle Haven Investments, L.P.	Rye Brook, NY	$24.5 billion	26,635	Yes	8-44222	SEC
33	Lincoln Investment (Lincoln Investment Planning, LLC)	Fort Washington, PA	$22.0 billion	138,132	Yes	8-14354	SEC
34	Thrivent Investment Management Inc.	Minneapolis, MN	$20.8 billion	124,646	Yes	8-36525	SEC
35	Park Avenue Securities LLC	New York, NY	$19.6 billion	80,267	Yes	8-51324	SEC
36	Benjamin F. Edwards & Company, Incorporated	St. Louis, MO	$18.9 billion	32,532	Yes	8-68023	SEC
37	Stephens	Little Rock, AR	$18.0 billion	21,168	Yes	8-1927	SEC
38	Principal Securities, Inc.	Des Moines, IA	$17.0 billion	51,650	Yes	8-13975	SEC
39	Primerica Advisors (PFS Investments Inc.)	Duluth, GA	$15.5 billion	67,586	Yes	8-26486	SEC
40	Cliftonlarsonallen Wealth Advisors, LLC	Minneapolis, MN	$14.4 billion	6,550	No	8-48239	SEC
41	Prospera Financial Services, Inc.	Dallas, TX	$14.4 billion	17,878	Yes	8-28164	SEC
42	Independent Financial Group, LLC	San Diego, CA	$12.9 billion	25,896	Yes	8-22870	SEC
43	Citizens Securities, Inc.	Johnston, RI	$12.9 billion	60,162	Yes	8-48744	SEC
44	United Planners' Financial Services of America A Limited Partner	Scottsdale, AZ	$12.8 billion	30,039	No	8-38485	SEC
45	Gilder Gagnon Howe & Co. LLC	New York, NY	$12.1 billion	5,404	Yes	8-30196	SEC
46	Fifth Third Securities, Inc.	Cincinnati, OH	$10.9 billion	46,299	Yes	8-2428	SEC
47	Schwartz & Co. (Gregory J. Schwartz & Co., Inc.)	Bloomfield Hills, MI	$10.5 billion	1,402	No	8-20955	SEC
48	Planmember Securities Corporation	Carpinteria, CA	$10.1 billion	69,441	Yes	8-25065	SEC
49	Hantz Financial Services, Inc.	Southfield, MI	$10.0 billion	23,624	No	8-51291	SEC
50	Centaurus Financial, Inc.	Anaheim, CA	$9.7 billion	45,194	Yes	8-45185	SEC

Download this table (CSV), free. The full dataset, every dual registrant with its client counts, broker-dealer file number and CIK, and the advisers set aside with the reason, is one email away.

Fewer firms, more clients

• According to SEC data, the 280 dual registrants report 21.4 million individual clients, 35% of all those reported by SEC-registered advisers, and $11.92 trillion of regulatory assets, 6.7% of the $177.83 trillion total.
• The largest 10 hold 77% of the dual registrants' regulatory assets, according to Form ADV. The median dual registrant reports $894 million, according to SEC data.
• 43 of the 50 in the table take part in a wrap fee program (Item 5.I.(1)), according to SEC data.

25 of them report no regulatory assets and are listed in the full dataset rather than ranked, according to SEC data.

The client counts are each firm's own, and they count advisory clients only: a client with only a brokerage account at the firm is not in them. Broker-dealer balance sheets are ranked separately in the largest broker-dealers by total assets.

What this means for technology buyers

A dual registrant supervises two businesses under two sets of rules, often with the same representatives and the same clients: advisory accounts under the Advisers Act, brokerage accounts under broker-dealer rules. That makes surveillance, compensation and the client record the systems where the two meet. These guides compare the options side by side:

• Compliance monitoring and pre-trade clearance: surveillance across advisory and brokerage activity.
• Sales performance management: compensation for representatives paid on both sides.
• Clearing and settlement systems: the brokerage back office.
• CRM for financial services: one client record across account types.

Planning the change before choosing the vendor? The Wealth Management Business Capabilities Model maps the work of a wealth firm, from client onboarding to reporting.

More from Finantrix Atlas

• Largest broker-dealers by total assets
• Independent broker-dealers
• SEC-registered RIAs with the most individual clients
• Largest registered investment advisers

How this list was built

Neither the SEC's adviser data nor its broker-dealer list has a field for a dual registrant, so the set is built from both, under a rule with two parts:

• The adviser says it is a broker-dealer. It checks Item 6.A.(1) of Form ADV Part 1A, "actively engaged in business as a broker-dealer (registered or unregistered)", in the SEC's monthly adviser file for September 1, 2026, published October 2, 2026. 389 advisers do.
• The same legal entity is a registered broker-dealer. Its legal name, as filed, matches a firm on the SEC's list of active broker-dealers for October 1, 2026, 3,271 firms, once case, punctuation and words such as LLC and Inc. are set aside. Where two listed firms share a name, the one in the adviser's state is taken, and a name that still matches two is set aside. In this edition 1 adviser was matched by state, and 0 were set aside as ambiguous.

280 advisers meet both parts. The other 109 that check the box match no listed broker-dealer; 26 of them are based outside the United States, and the box includes broker-dealer business that is not registered with the SEC; the rest do not appear on the broker-dealer list under their own legal name. 7 advisers share a name with a listed broker-dealer but do not check the box, and are set aside rather than added. Each broker-dealer is matched to one adviser at most. 68 advisers whose latest Form ADV filing is more than fifteen months older than the file are left out, because they have missed an annual amendment, according to SEC data.

Limits

• Advisory assets only. Regulatory assets count accounts the firm manages as an adviser. Brokerage accounts are not in the measure, so this is a ranking of advisory businesses inside broker-dealers, not of the firms' total client assets.
• One legal entity. A group that runs its advisory business in one company and its broker-dealer in another is not a dual registrant here, however closely the two work. Such firms are in the full dataset as set aside, where they check the box.
• Names are the join. The two SEC files share no identifier, so a firm that changes its name in one file before the other can be missed for a month. The broker-dealer file number and listed name of every match are in the dataset, so each can be checked.
• One file date. The adviser data is as of September 1, 2026, and client counts and regulatory assets are updated at each annual amendment, so they can be up to a year older than the file.

Cite this

Free to quote, cite and republish, including the chart, with credit to Finantrix Atlas and a link to this page.

280 firms are registered with the SEC as both an investment adviser and a broker-dealer, and they report 35% of the individual clients of SEC-registered advisers, according to a Finantrix Atlas analysis of SEC data for September 1, 2026.

Morgan Stanley is the largest dually registered firm, with $1.96 trillion in regulatory assets, according to Finantrix Atlas analysis of SEC Form ADV data.

Suggested citation: Finantrix Atlas, "Largest Dually Registered Firms (RIA and Broker-Dealer)," data as of September 1, 2026, from SEC Form ADV data and the SEC's list of active broker-dealers. https://www.finantrix.com/articles/dual-registrants

Embed the chart:

<a href="https://www.finantrix.com/articles/dual-registrants"><img src="https://www.finantrix.com/atlas/dual-registrants.png" alt="The largest firms registered with the SEC as both investment adviser and broker-dealer, from Finantrix Atlas"></a>
<p>Chart: <a href="https://www.finantrix.com/articles/dual-registrants">Finantrix Atlas</a>, from SEC data.</p>

Frequently asked questions

Q: What is a dual registrant? A: A firm registered with the SEC both as an investment adviser and as a broker-dealer, so one legal entity offers advisory accounts and brokerage accounts. According to SEC data for September 1, 2026, 280 firms are.

Q: What is the largest dually registered firm? A: Morgan Stanley, with $1.96 trillion in regulatory assets, according to SEC Form ADV data for September 1, 2026. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith is second, with $1.78 trillion, according to SEC data.

Q: How many individual clients do dual registrants serve? A: According to SEC Form ADV data, 21.4 million individual clients, 35% of those reported by all SEC-registered advisers. Each firm counts clients its own way.

Q: Do the assets include brokerage accounts? A: No. Regulatory assets on Form ADV count advisory accounts only. A dual registrant's brokerage accounts are reported elsewhere, and its own balance sheet is in its annual audited report to the SEC.