Updated August 7, 2026. Quick answer: the median financial-advice firm that publishes an account minimum sets it at $750,000. Against the Federal Reserve’s household data, between 88.0% and 93.7% of US households hold less than that — 115.6 to 123.1 million households. The range is the answer. Anyone quoting a single number for this has chosen one asset definition and not told you.
What this measures: the distance between what advice firms publicly require and what American households actually hold.
As of: minimums retrieved 2026; household data is the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances 2022 wave, in 2022 dollars. The survey is triennial and 2022 is the most recent completed wave.
The findings
Two asset definitions are reported for every threshold, and the honest answer lies between them. Neither column is “the” number — see what this study does not establish.
| Stated minimum | Retirement accounts only | Any financial asset | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| % below | households | % below | households | |
| $100,000 | 74.3% | 97.6m | 62.9% | 82.6m |
| $250,000 | 84.4% | 110.8m | 75.7% | 99.4m |
| $500,000 | 90.6% | 119.0m | 83.4% | 109.5m |
| $750,000 | 93.7% | 123.1m | 88.0% | 115.6m |
| $1,000,000 | 95.3% | 125.2m | 90.8% | 119.2m |
Retirement accounts = the SCF category (IRAs, Keogh, 401(k), 403(b), thrift savings). Any financial asset = the SCF total including transaction accounts. Households: 131.31 million, SCF 2022 weighted.
The households the question is actually about
Account minimums bite hardest on people approaching or in retirement, so the same crossing restricted to households headed by someone 55 or older (61.2 million households):
- Below $500,000: 75.1% to 85.2%
- Below $750,000, the median stated minimum: 81.7% to 89.8%
- Below $1,000,000: 85.2% to 92.3%
Being older does not close the gap. It narrows it by a handful of points and leaves the great majority of near-retirement households below the median published minimum.
Method
The minimums. From this site’s advisor minimums benchmark: 176 firms carry adjudicated account requirements across 748 program entries. 28 of those 176 publish a firm-wide minimum, and the median of those 28 is $750,000, ranging from $10,000 to $20,000,000. Half sit at $1,000,000 or above.
The households. Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, 2022 Summary Extract public microdata — 22,975 records across five implicates, weighted, representing 131.31 million households. Two variables were used: RETQLIQ (quasi-liquid retirement accounts) and FIN (total financial assets).
The pipeline was validated before it was used. Reading the microdata reproduces the Federal Reserve’s own published figures: a retirement-account holding rate of 54.34% against a published 54.3%, a conditional median of $87,000 against a published $86,900, and a conditional mean of $334,097 against a published $334,000. Nothing new was computed until the old numbers came back right.
Every figure was derived twice, independently. One pass summed weighted household masks; a second, separately written pass built a weighted cumulative distribution and read each threshold off the curve. All ten threshold-by-definition cells matched, as did the 55-and-over figures.
What this study does not establish
🔴 This is a comparison of two published things, not a matched dataset. No household in the Federal Reserve’s survey was ever quoted a fee by any of these firms. The study measures a distance between a distribution and a threshold, and nothing about any individual relationship.
The minimums population is 28 firms, not “RIAs.” It is the set that publishes a firm-wide figure. 148 of the 176 firms publish no firm-wide minimum at all, and this study cannot say whether they serve smaller households. They are a named unknown, not an assumed exclusion.
The asset definitions do not match what a minimum means. An account minimum is stated against investable assets under management. The SCF’s retirement-accounts category excludes taxable brokerage, so it overstates the gap; its total-financial-assets category includes checking and savings balances that no firm would manage, so it understates it. That mismatch cannot be resolved with this data, which is precisely why the result is published as a range instead of a number.
The household data is four years old at publication, and 2022 dollars are not 2026 dollars. The Federal Reserve also cautions that estimates in these tables “have not been reviewed for robustness” and “may be sensitive to outliers.”
Nothing here is a judgement about any firm. Setting a minimum is an ordinary business decision. This study characterises published thresholds in aggregate; it does not evaluate any named firm, its advice, its pricing or its conduct, and no such reading is supported.
The data
There is no download button on this page, and we would rather say so than let you look for one. This site currently has no file-publishing route, so the dataset cannot be posted as a CSV. The complete result set is the table above — every figure in this study is in it, and it is free to reproduce under the licence below.
Cite this study
“Between 88.0% and 93.7% of US households hold less than $750,000 — the median account minimum among advice firms that publish one (Clear Money Guide, The Advice Gap, 2026, from Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances 2022 data).”
Suggested citation: “The Advice Gap,” Clear Money Guide, 2026, clearmoneyguide.com/advice-gap/. Free to reuse with attribution under CC BY 4.0. No advertising appears on this page and we earn nothing from it.
Related research
The advisor minimums benchmark is the source of the minimums used here. The average 401(k) balance audits a related figure and explains why recordkeeper averages are not national ones. The 80% retirement income rule audits the other rule of thumb this data touches.
If you are below these minimums, the options are real and they are covered separately: what to do when you are under every minimum.