Guides › Vetting a Financial Advisor
Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: the lookup is trivial — brokercheck.finra.org for brokers and brokerage firms, adviserinfo.sec.gov (IAPD) for investment adviser firms and their representatives, both free, no account needed. The skill is reading what comes back. A disclosure count is not a score: the reporting thresholds decide what appears at all, the status decides whether anything was ever proven, and the type decides whether it bears on how your money would be handled. Here is how to tell those apart.
What has to be reported, and what does not
FINRA’s own summary: all individuals registered to sell securities or provide investment advice must disclose customer complaints and arbitrations, regulatory actions, employment terminations, bankruptcy filings, and criminal or civil judicial proceedings. Two thresholds shape the record more than anything else. A criminal matter is reportable only once a law enforcement agency has filed formal charges — an investigation that never charged does not appear. A customer dispute is reportable only where the allegations involve activity violating industry rules and the activity resulted in damages of at least $5,000. So a blank record is genuinely informative, but it is not proof that nobody ever complained.
Status first, then type
Before you read a word of the narrative, find the status. FINRA distinguishes pending, on appeal and final, and defines a pending event as one that “involves allegations that have not been proven or formally adjudicated.” FINRA also warns on every report that the contents may include matters that are “contested, unresolved or unproven” and may end up resolved in the professional’s favour or “concluded through a negotiated settlement with no admission or finding of wrongdoing.” Treat an unproven allegation as a question to ask, not as a fact you have found.
Then read for type. Regulatory actions are the strongest signal, because a regulator reached a finding rather than a customer making a claim — read what rule was at issue. Employment separation after allegations is the entry most people skim past and it deserves the opposite treatment: it means a firm parted with the person amid accusations of violating investment-related rules, fraud or wrongful taking of property, or failure to supervise. Customer disputes need pattern reading — one settled complaint across a thirty-year career is a different object from six of the same allegation in four years. Criminal and civil judicial matters: read whether they are investment-related. Financial entries — bankruptcies, judgments and liens — are the most commonly over-read and under-read at once: a single old lien tells you little, while several unsatisfied judgments in someone who will be advising you about money is at minimum a conversation.
Is this adviser even registered?
If neither database returns the person, stop. That is not a technicality — it is the single highest-value result the search can produce. Then check the details you can verify independently: the name and CRD number match the person in front of you, the firm they claim to work for is the firm listed, the registration is current rather than lapsed, and they are registered in your state. FINRA notes that firms and brokers are generally required to update CRD within 30 days and that changes surface in BrokerCheck the next business day, so a very recent move may lag by a few weeks — but a person who has never appeared at all is a different matter entirely. Firms have records too: search the firm, not only the individual.
What the record cannot show you
Price and conflicts are not in BrokerCheck — they are in Form ADV Part 2A, which is a different document with its own reading method: the seven lines to check. Item 9 of that brochure carries disciplinary information, with events presumed material for ten years, so read it alongside the database rather than instead of it. Then: the twelve red flags and the check that confirms each, how to verify fiduciary status in writing, and the whole sequence in order — the twenty-minute vetting workflow. If the record is what made up your mind about your current adviser, the exit is paperwork.
A clean record is a starting point, not a recommendation.
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