Financial ADVSR data · SEC data as of October 1, 2026
The Largest RIAs
The 100 biggest independent wealth management firms by regulatory assets under management, from every SEC-registered adviser’s Form ADV.
Fisher Investments leads with $387B, followed by Vanguard Advisers, Inc. and Edelman Financial Engines. All 100 firms here manage more than $1 billion; the 100th reports $10B.
Top 100 by assets
Download CSVMost clients
Individual and high-net-worth clients reported in Form ADV Item 5.D. By state: RIAs by State.
Questions
What is the largest RIA in the US?
Fisher Investments, with $387B in regulatory assets under management, is the largest independent wealth management RIA on the SEC’s registered-adviser list as of October 1, 2026, followed by Vanguard Advisers, Inc. ($345B) and Edelman Financial Engines ($326B), according to Financial ADVSR’s ranking.
How big do you have to be to rank among the largest RIAs?
The 10th-largest independent wealth manager, Mariner, reports $125B; the 100th, Choate Investment Advisors, reports $10B.
Which RIA has the most clients?
Vanguard Advisers, Inc. reports 791,495 individual and high-net-worth clients, the most of any independent wealth manager, followed by Edelman Financial Engines with 477,170.
Why aren’t Morgan Stanley, Merrill or LPL on this list?
Their advisory businesses are registered as RIAs and are larger than any firm here, but they are also broker-dealers. This ranking covers independent wealth managers: wealth-focused RIAs that offer financial planning, aren’t broker-dealers themselves and don’t hold most of their assets in wrap programs they sponsor or manage.
Cite this
Financial ADVSR, “The Largest RIAs,” updated October 1, 2026, https://www.financialadvsr.com/data/largest-rias
How we built this
The SEC publishes a list of every registered investment adviser, drawn from each firm’s Form ADV. We used the list current through October 1, 2026, kept the 16,943 advisers the SEC shows as approved, and placed each in the state of its main office; 14,641 are based in the United States. Regulatory assets under management come from Item 5.F, client counts from Item 5.D.
Wealth-focused RIAs manage at least half of their assets for individuals and high-net-worth clients, the same test as our RIA Custody Tracker; there are 8,130 in the US. Rankings and each state’s largest-firms list show independent wealth managers only: wealth-focused firms that offer financial planning, are not themselves broker-dealers, and hold less than half their assets in wrap programs they sponsor or manage. That leaves out wirehouse and broker-dealer advisory arms and managed-account platforms, which still count in each state’s totals.
What it doesn’t show
- State-registered advisers, most of which manage less than $100 million, register with their state regulator and aren’t in SEC data.
- A firm counts only in its main office state, though many have offices in several.
- Figures are as of each adviser’s latest annual Form ADV update, usually its December 31 fiscal year-end, so they lag recent deals.
- Firms that file under more than one registration (an RIA and a separate institutional arm, for example) appear as separate advisers.
The data is free to use with credit to Financial ADVSR. Questions or corrections: contact the editors.