Form ADV statistics describe the size and structure of the investment adviser industry through filings collected by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The latest figures in this research cover 2024 adviser and regulatory-assets totals, while the detailed tables cover advisers, assets, clients, employees, activities, and disciplinary events reported for 2023. The figures below retain the original measurement periods and source labels; the underlying research is existing research and was not independently verified here.
Contents
- Industry size and assets
- Adviser structure and organization
- Clients and account scale
- Separately managed accounts and derivatives
- Private funds, employees, and business activities
- Disciplinary events and compliance indicators
Industry size and assets
The SEC Investment Adviser Statistics page reported 21,669 investment advisers in 2024, an increase of 1.4% from the prior year. It also reported $146 trillion in regulatory assets under management (RAUM) in 2024, up 12.8% year over year. These are the broadest current totals in the supplied research and should be read separately from the detailed 2023 tables.
The SEC 2024 Investment Adviser Statistics report, dated May 15, 2024, said that more than 15,000 registered investment advisers reported approximately $128 trillion in regulatory assets under management as of the end of December 2023. Its detailed tables recorded total RIA RAUM of $127.8 trillion in 2023. SEC-registered adviser RAUM was $121.7 trillion, while RIA RAUM tied to U.S. principal offices was $116.2 trillion.
The same report recorded $116.2 trillion of U.S.-based RIA RAUM, $5.6 trillion of U.K.-based RIA RAUM, $2.1 trillion of Japan-based RIA RAUM, and $1.2 trillion of Canada-based RIA RAUM in 2023. These geography figures describe where reported adviser activity was based, not a forecast of future asset flows.
| Measure | Reported figure | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Investment advisers | 21,669 | 2024 | SEC Investment Adviser Statistics page |
| Total RIA RAUM | $127.8 trillion | 2023 | SEC 2024 Investment Adviser Statistics report, Table 2.1 |
| SEC-registered adviser RAUM | $121.7 trillion | 2023 | SEC 2024 Investment Adviser Statistics report, Table 2.2 |
| RIA RAUM tied to U.S. principal offices | $116.2 trillion | 2023 | SEC 2024 Investment Adviser Statistics report, Table 7.1 |
Adviser structure and organization
Table 1.1 of the SEC 2024 Investment Adviser Statistics report showed 15,441 SEC-registered investment advisers in 2023. It also showed 5,762 SEC-exempt reporting advisers and 21,203 total advisers. The categories are filing and regulatory classifications, so they should not be treated as interchangeable counts of identical businesses.
Within the report’s RIA size classification, Table 1.2 showed 14,973 non-small-entity RIAs and 468 small-entity RIAs in 2023, for 15,441 total RIAs. This split provides a view of the reporting population by entity-size designation, while the total matches the SEC-registered adviser count in Table 1.1.
The most common reported legal form was the limited liability company. Table 1.3 counted 9,614 RIAs organized as LLCs in 2023. Corporations accounted for 1,840, partnerships for 74, and other forms for 3,913. The legal-form figures describe how RIAs were organized in the filing data; they do not measure assets or performance by structure.
Clients and account scale
The 2023 client tables show a wide range of client types. Table 3.1 recorded 1.808 billion investment company clients, 34.997 million pooled investment vehicle clients, and 0.596 million business development company (BDC) clients. Because these categories are reported client counts, readers should preserve the report’s units and definitions when comparing them.
For individual and pension clients, Table 3.2 recorded 46.511 million non-high-net-worth individual clients, 7.962 million high-net-worth individual clients, and 0.647 million pension-plan clients in 2023. Table 3.3 recorded 8.623 million non-HNW separately managed account (SMA) clients, 9.308 million HNW SMA clients, and 1.323 million insurance-company SMA clients.
RIA RAUM was distributed across account-count bands in Table 3.4. Advisers with fewer than 10 accounts represented $6.0 trillion of RIA RAUM. The 10-to-under-100 account band represented $22.5 trillion, the 100-to-under-1,000 band $32.5 trillion, the 1,000-to-under-10,000 band $49.0 trillion, and the 10,000-or-more band $20.0 trillion. These are reported band totals rather than estimates of average assets per account.
Table 3.10 recorded 433 RIAs in the over-$1 billion RAUM-per-account ratio bin in 2023. The figure identifies the number of RIAs in that reporting category and does not indicate that every adviser in the category had the same client mix.
Separately managed accounts and derivatives
Table 4.1 reported the largest SMA asset categories by security type in 2023. SMA equity-securities RAUM was $14.135 trillion. SMA RAUM in registered investment company and BDC securities was $10.896 trillion. Investment-grade corporate bonds accounted for $5.337 trillion, U.S. government and agency bonds for $3.172 trillion, and cash and cash equivalents for $2.321 trillion.
The derivatives figures apply to RIAs with at least $500 million in SMA RAUM and report gross notional exposure (GNE) bands. Table 4.5 showed that 17.0% of those RIAs reported equity-derivative GNE under 10% in 2023, while 43.8% reported equity-derivative GNE from 10% to under 25%.
The same table reported that 1.1% of those RIAs had credit-derivative GNE under 10%. It also recorded 13.2% for an equity-derivative GNE under-10% measure. Since the supplied figures contain two separate reported percentages associated with the under-10% equity-derivative category, both are retained without attempting to reconcile them beyond the table labels.
Private funds, employees, and business activities
Private-fund oversight indicators provide another view of Form ADV reporting. Table 5.11 showed that 76.0% of private funds advised by RIAs and exempt reporting advisers reported one auditor in 2023. Another 23.4% reported no auditors. These percentages describe reported auditor status among the private funds covered by the table.
The workforce tables recorded 1,005.9 thousand non-clerical employees reported by RIAs in 2023 and 531.4 thousand employees in advisory functions. The categories are workforce measures in the report and should not be interpreted as a count of unique people across every adviser relationship.
Form ADV data also covered activities beyond core advisory work. Table 8.3 recorded 2,266 RIAs engaged in futures commission merchant, commodity pool operator, or commodity trading adviser activity in 2023. It recorded 1,243 RIAs acting as insurance brokers or agents. Table 9.1 reported $88.9 trillion of RIA participation or interest in client transactions for FCM, CPO, or CTA activity.
Wrap-fee activity was reported by 1,864 RIAs in Table 10.1. Of those reporting categories, 1,114 RIAs acted as both sponsor and portfolio manager in wrap-fee programs in 2023. The figures identify participation in the program categories, not fee levels or investment results.
Disciplinary events and compliance indicators
The SEC 2024 Investment Adviser Statistics report recorded several disciplinary-event measures for 2023. Table 11.1 showed 1,808 RIAs with at least one regulatory disciplinary event, 241 RIAs with at least one civil disciplinary event, and 180 RIAs with at least one criminal disciplinary event. It also showed 2,180 total RIAs and exempt reporting advisers with at least one disciplinary event.
Table 11.2 reported that 12.4% of RIAs had at least one disciplinary event in 2023. The corresponding figure for exempt reporting advisers was 4.5%, and the figure for all advisers was 10.3%.
| Disciplinary measure | Reported figure | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| RIAs with at least one regulatory event | 1,808 | 2023 | SEC 2024 Investment Adviser Statistics report, Table 11.1 |
| RIAs with at least one civil event | 241 | 2023 | SEC 2024 Investment Adviser Statistics report, Table 11.1 |
| RIAs with at least one criminal event | 180 | 2023 | SEC 2024 Investment Adviser Statistics report, Table 11.1 |
| RIAs with at least one disciplinary event | 12.4% | 2023 | SEC 2024 Investment Adviser Statistics report, Table 11.2 |
| Exempt reporting advisers with at least one event | 4.5% | 2023 | SEC 2024 Investment Adviser Statistics report, Table 11.2 |
Taken together, these Form ADV statistics show a large adviser population, more than $127 trillion in 2023 RIA RAUM, extensive institutional and individual client reporting, and a broad range of business activities. The 2024 totals are newer but less detailed, while the 2023 tables provide the more granular view of adviser structure, assets, clients, staffing, activities, and reported disciplinary events.