Updated August 18, 2026. Quick answer: the fee schedule in a filed Form ADV brochure can be up to a year out of date, and the firm is still complying with the rule. A change to the fee schedule is expressly not a reason to amend the brochure between annual updates. The document is a snapshot of an annual filing cycle, not a live price list — which is why the only reliable version of the question “what do you charge?” is asked of the firm, in writing, today. This is not misconduct and not a red flag: it is the cycle the form sets out.
The one-line answer: no — a fee change alone does not require an interim amendment. The form says so in terms. So a filed schedule can lag the quoted fee by as much as the annual cycle allows.
The rule, in the form’s own words
“You are not required to update your brochure between annual amendments solely because the amount of client assets you manage has changed or because your fee schedule has changed.” (Form ADV, Instructions for Part 2A, instruction 4).
Two things are being permitted there, and the second is the one that matters for anybody pricing a service from a filing: assets under management may have moved, and the fee schedule may have changed, without either fact forcing the brochure to be updated in the meantime.
The nuance that keeps that honest
The permission is narrower than a one-sentence summary makes it sound, and the narrowing is in the very next sentence of the same instruction:
“if you are updating your brochure for a separate reason in between annual amendments, and the amount of client assets you manage listed in response to Item 4.E or your fee schedule listed in response to Item 5.A has become materially inaccurate, you should update that item(s) as part of the interim amendment.” (Form ADV, Instructions for Part 2A, instruction 4, second sentence).
So the position is not “a filed fee schedule may drift indefinitely”. It is: a fee change on its own does not start an amendment, but if an amendment is happening anyway and the filed schedule has become materially inaccurate, the form says the firm should fix it as part of that amendment. Note the word. It is a should, attached to an amendment that is already under way — not a standalone duty, and not a deadline.
What the annual cycle actually looks like
Three separate mechanisms decide when a document reaches you, and they are easy to conflate.
| Moment | What is required | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Before you sign | “Deliver to a client or prospective client your current brochure before or at the time you enter into an investment advisory contract with that client.” | 17 CFR 275.204-3(b)(1) |
| Each year | “Deliver to each client, annually within 120 days after the end of your fiscal year and without charge, if there are material changes in your brochure since your last annual updating amendment:” — a current brochure, or a summary of material changes with an offer of one | 17 CFR 275.204-3(b)(2) |
| In between | “You do not have to deliver an interim amendment to clients unless the amendment includes information in response to Item 9 of Part 2A (disciplinary information).” | Instructions for Part 2A, instruction 2 |
Read together: you are owed the brochure before or at the time you enter the contract — as a prospective client, not only once you are a client. After that, the annual obligation runs to 120 days after the firm’s fiscal year end, and it is conditional on there having been material changes. And between annual updates, the only amendment that must actually be delivered to you is a disciplinary one. A fee change is not that.
Why this is not a red flag
It is worth being explicit, because the temptation to read a stale schedule as evasion is strong and it is wrong. The form expressly permits it. A firm whose filed fee schedule is eleven months old and whose current fee differs is doing exactly what the instruction contemplates. There is no inference to draw about that firm from that fact alone.
What you can reasonably conclude is much narrower, and it is about the document rather than the firm: a filed fee schedule is evidence of what was filed. It is not a quote, it is not an offer, and it does not bind anyone. Treat it as the opening position it is.
A current fee, in writing, is a question for a person.
Filings tell you what was filed. If you would rather ask several advisers directly, the matching service below introduces you to people who pay to meet you — ask each of them for a current fee schedule in writing.
Before you start, what actually happens. The form is run by Kapitalwise, our advisor-matching partner. Kapitalwise sends your details to advisers who pay for the introduction, so expect calls and texts. Clear Money Guide is paid when you submit the form, whether or not you ever hire anyone. This is free to you and there is no obligation to hire anyone.
The Kapitalwise form opens here — you stay on this page.
What happens when you press the button
It asks about nine questions — age, investable assets, location — then your name, email and phone number, and verifies the phone by text. Nothing loads and nothing reaches Kapitalwise until you press the button.
What this means for any study built on filings — including ours
We publish an analysis of what advice costs, built by reading the fee disclosures that 176 SEC-registered advisers file in their own Form ADV Part 2A brochures — State of Advisor Fees 2026. This rule is that study’s sharpest limitation, and we would rather state it here than have it discovered.
The method behind those figures is the part that does not depend on this: “every sampled firm’s current retail Form ADV Part 2A was read independently by TWO blind extractors, and their disagreements adjudicated against the brochure page by page. Every retained value carries a page number and a verbatim locator.” (Advisor Fee Benchmark 2026, deposit README). That is a statement about how carefully the filings were read, which is a different question from how current the filings are.
What to ask instead
One request settles it: “Is the fee schedule in your current filed brochure the schedule that would apply to my account, and if not, please send me the one that would.” It is a fair question, it has a short answer, and a firm that will not put its current schedule in writing has told you something the filing could not.
Two related things are worth asking in the same breath, because neither is in the fee item. The advisory fee is never the all-in number by construction — the form separately requires the firm to describe the rest: “Describe any other types of fees or expenses clients may pay in connection with your advisory services, such as custodian fees or mutual fund expenses. Disclose that clients will incur brokerage and other transaction costs, and direct clients to the section(s) of your brochure that discuss brokerage.” (Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5.C). And if fees are paid in advance, Item 5.D governs what the brochure has to explain about getting the money back: “If your clients either may or must pay your fees in advance, disclose this fact. Explain how a client may obtain a refund of a pre – paid fee if the advisory contract is terminated before the end of the billing period. Explain how you will determine the amount of the refund.” (Form ADV Part 2A, Item 5.D).
From here: what a fee schedule should contain, the lines to check in the brochure itself, the questions worth asking, and — if the programme is a wrap programme — the brochure where the fee is in Item 4. The Part 2B supplement covers the person rather than the price.