Financial ADVSR data · Form ADV filings, October 2025 to September 2026
RIA Custodians
Who holds wealth-focused RIAs’ client assets: how many firms use each custodian, how much it holds, and its biggest RIA clients.
Charles Schwab is named by 5,774 wealth-focused RIAs, about 67% of those reporting a custodian. Fidelity follows with 1,999. 1,890 firms use more than one.
RIAs using each custodian
Every custodian
Download CSV| Custodian | RIAs | Share | Assets held | Median firm | Only custodian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charles Schwab | 5,774 | 67% | $4.37T | $306M | 72% |
| Fidelity | 1,999 | 23% | $3.26T | $469M | 49% |
| BNY Pershing | 493 | 6% | $1.11T | $559M | 53% |
| LPL Financial | 354 | 4% | $336B | $330M | 72% |
| Raymond James | 287 | 3% | $166B | $372M | 74% |
| Interactive Brokers | 242 | 3% | $31B | $122M | 40% |
| Altruist | 177 | 2% | $17B | $151M | 38% |
| SEI | 167 | 2% | $55B | $269M | 40% |
| Wells Fargo | 119 | 1% | $74B | $533M | 55% |
| J.P. Morgan | 109 | 1% | $57B | $627M | 13% |
| Morgan Stanley | 102 | 1% | $79B | $295M | 16% |
| RBC | 97 | 1% | $90B | $378M | 55% |
| Goldman Sachs | 92 | 1% | $32B | $468M | 29% |
| Axos | 84 | 1% | $23B | $248M | 36% |
| UBS | 70 | 1% | $53B | $599M | 31% |
| Merrill / Bank of America | 65 | 1% | $48B | $414M | 5% |
| BNY | 55 | 1% | $214B | $1.3B | 22% |
| Northern Trust | 43 | 1% | $67B | $1.4B | 9% |
| Apex Fintech | 41 | 0% | $18B | $116M | 66% |
| Vanguard | 38 | 0% | $54B | $191M | 13% |
| U.S. Bank | 35 | 0% | $11B | $429M | 29% |
| TradePMR / Robinhood | 30 | 0% | $9.6B | $267M | 50% |
| Citi | 27 | 0% | $10B | $483M | 4% |
Wealth-focused SEC-registered RIAs naming each custodian group. “Only custodian” is the share that name no other group. Custodians named by fewer than 25 firms are left out. Entity-level counts: RIA Custody Tracker.
Questions
What is the most popular custodian for RIAs?
Charles Schwab. 5,774 of the 8,572 wealth-focused SEC-registered RIAs that report custodians on Form ADV name Charles Schwab, about 67%, followed by Fidelity (1,999) and BNY Pershing (493), according to Financial ADVSR’s review of filings from October 2025 to September 2026.
How many RIAs use more than one custodian?
1,890 of the 8,301 wealth-focused RIAs whose custodians we could identify name two or more custodian groups, about 23%. The most common pairing is Charles Schwab with Fidelity.
Which custodian holds the most RIA assets?
Charles Schwab, with $4.37T in separately managed account assets reported by the wealth-focused RIAs that use it, followed by Fidelity at $3.26T.
Cite this
Financial ADVSR, “RIA Custodians,” updated October 1, 2026, https://www.financialadvsr.com/data/custodians
How we built this
Every SEC-registered adviser lists, in Schedule D, Section 5.K(3) of Form ADV, each custodian that holds 10% or more of its separately managed account assets, with the amount held. We took each adviser’s latest filing from October 2025 to September 2026 and kept the 9,157 wealth-focused firms, which manage at least half of their assets for individuals and high-net-worth clients; 8,572 of them report custodians. Custodian legal entities are grouped by parent, so Schwab’s entities count as one custodian and Fidelity’s RIA custody and clearing businesses as another. A custodian’s own affiliated advisers aren’t counted toward it. The firm counts match our RIA Custody Tracker.
Largest-firm tables show independent wealth managers only, the same test as the Largest RIAs: firms that offer financial planning, aren’t broker-dealers themselves and hold less than half their assets in wrap programs they sponsor or manage. Firm size and headquarters come from the SEC’s registered-adviser list.
What it doesn’t show
- Custodians holding less than 10% of a firm’s separately managed account assets aren’t listed, so smaller relationships are missed.
- Assets held cover separately managed accounts only, not pooled funds, and are as of each firm’s fiscal year-end.
- Broker-dealer clearing firms appear alongside RIA custodians because advisers list them the same way; Fidelity and Pershing pages show the split.
- State-registered advisers, most with under $100 million, aren’t in SEC data.
The data is free to use with credit to Financial ADVSR. Questions or corrections: contact the editors.