The registered investment advisor industry delivered record numbers across every major metric in 2025, with assets under management surging 22.3% to $176.8 trillion and the advisor headcount climbing for a 13th straight year.
Stats from the Investment Adviser Industry Snapshot 2026, show that the total number of SEC-registered advisors reached 16,544 at year end, a gain of 674 firms, or 4.2%, over 2024. Over the past 25 years the compound annual growth rate in registrations has held at 3.7%, broadly in line with GDP expansion, while asset growth has tracked equity market returns.
The scale of assets now on the books reflects a market environment that lifted roughly 80% of firms to higher AUM in 2025. Over a 25-year horizon, industry assets have grown at an average annual rate of 9.1%, declining only in 2002, 2008, and 2022; each a year defined by significant stock market losses.
Employment expanded at a robust 7.5% rate, pushing the total workforce past 1.1 million people for the first time.
Despite widespread discussion about the impact of artificial intelligence on staffing, the data offers little evidence of disruption at an aggregate level. The report notes, however, that AI is reportedly reshaping roles within firms and shifting hiring patterns, even if overall headcount has not contracted.
Client growth matched the broader momentum. The total number of clients rose 7.7% to 73.7 million, with asset management clients specifically climbing 8.3% to a record 64.8 million. That marks eight consecutive years of growth in that segment.
Over the past eight years, the number of individuals using an investment advisor for asset management has more than doubled to 61.0 million, an annualized rate of nearly 10%. The report attributes this trend in part to the fiduciary standard that advisors are required to uphold — an overarching duty to act in clients' best interests throughout the advisory relationship, rather than at the point of each transaction.
Non-high net worth individuals made up 83.9% of all individual clients by count, though high net worth clients accounted for 67.7% of the assets managed in that segment.
The industry's structure remains dominated by smaller operations. In 2025, 92.8% of SEC-registered advisors employed 100 or fewer people, and 67.4% managed less than $1 billion in assets.
The median firm had 8 employees and $446.9 million in AUM. Advisors focused primarily on individual clients were particularly lean, averaging just 8 employees and $424 million in assets. At the other end of the spectrum, the 260 largest firms — those with more than $100 billion in assets — controlled 72.3% of total industry assets.
Over 93% of the 1,478 firms that registered with the SEC in 2025 had less than $1 billion in assets under management, reinforcing the small-business character of the industry's growth engine. A total of 804 advisors terminated their registrations during the year, leaving a net addition of 674 firms.
Private funds were another area of notable expansion. Hedge funds had a particularly strong year, with assets in funds managed by SEC-registered advisors gaining 18.5% in 2025, making them the largest category of private funds by AUM.
"The investment adviser industry is incredibly dynamic, and the 2026 Snapshot provides insights on the trends," said Comply Chief Regulatory Services Officer Jamila Mayfield. "For example, growth in private funds continued this year, with especially strong gains in hedge fund assets."
Digital assets registered a notable if still modest shift. One hundred advisors reported direct investment in cryptocurrencies or digital assets in 2025 — three times the number from the prior year. The report flags this as a category to watch as regulatory clarity improves, while acknowledging that indirect exposure through ETFs and similar vehicles is not captured in Form ADV data.
Private markets also featured prominently in the forward-looking section. The current administration has been encouraging retail access to private investments, most notably through Department of Labor guidance on how fiduciaries can assess private market options for defined contribution plans. If that effort gains traction, the report suggests it could prompt a reallocation away from registered investment companies — which face limits on private market exposure — toward collective investment trusts.
On the regulatory front, the SEC in January 2026 proposed raising the asset threshold used to define a "small entity" advisor from $25 million to $1 billion.
If finalized, the change would bring more than 10,500 firms or roughly two-thirds of SEC-registered advisors, within scope of the definition, opening the door to lighter-touch oversight for those firms. The IAA has called for the balance sheet threshold to be eliminated or raised from $5 million to $10 million as part of any final rule.
The number of advisors with a presence on LinkedIn more than doubled over the eight years to 2025, with 63.2% of firms now active on the platform — the highest penetration of any social media channel. LinkedIn also recorded the strongest growth of any platform over the period, at 31.6 percentage points.
The brokerage sector continued to contract alongside the RIA industry's expansion. In 2024, the most recent year for which brokerage data was available, there were 3,249 brokerage firms compared with 15,870 investment advisors, a gap that has widened consistently over the past decade as investor demand for fiduciary advice has grown.
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