Where Are Financial Advisors Actually Moving?

Download the Elite Wealth Management Insight Report

2026 Year-to-Date Edition | Data Through Q3 2026

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Advisor movement is often reported as a single number. But an advisor choosing a new firm, an enterprise changing platforms, and a firm re-registering advisors after an acquisition tell very different stories.

Elite Consulting Partners’ latest Insight Report uses proprietary advisor movement data to separate those events and trace where advisors went across U.S. wealth management. It shows which channels gained or lost advisors, which firms recruited them, and how those patterns changed from a year earlier.

2026 Elite Wealth Management Insight Report

 What the data shows

  • Individual and team moves rose 2.2%. From January through August 2026, individual and team moves increased year over year, while total advisor decisions fell 2.1% as fewer large enterprise groups changed platforms.

  • The independent ecosystem gained a net 2,131 advisors. Across the first three quarters of 2026, independent broker-dealer and hybrid platforms, independent RIAs, and aggregators collectively gained advisors, while the employee ecosystem lost a net 833.

  • 57% of advisors who left a wirehouse for another firm stayed in a W-2 model. The most common move across the industry was from one independent broker-dealer to another.

  • 48% of 2025 registration changes involved no advisor decision. Corporate re-registrations, acquisitions, and program conversions accounted for nearly half of the year’s recorded changes.

What you’ll discover

  • Where advisors are going. See which firms and channels gained or lost advisors and where their recruits came from.

  • How wirehouse recruiting and departures have shifted. See which firms departing advisors chose and how often they moved into independent models.

  • Where growth is happening across the RIA channel. Compare advisor flows for stand-alone RIAs and aggregators, including the role of acquisitions.

  • What happens after a firm is acquired. See where advisors went when they chose to join a firm other than the acquiring platform.

  • What to weigh in your own decision. Use the report’s framework to evaluate a potential move, including how platform fit, practice ownership, and succession priorities factor in.