Guides › Switching Financial Advisors
Updated September 18, 2026. Quick answer: you open an account at the receiving firm and sign the transfer form there; the new firm pulls the accounts through ACATS and you never have to call Mercer Advisors. Mercer Advisors itself doesn’t charge an exit fee: its Form ADV says fees are simply prorated to the termination date, with any prepaid balance refunded. What you pay to move the assets depends on your custodian, which Mercer does not control directly. Mercer recommends Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Raymond James, National Advisors Trust, or Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions to hold client accounts. Where the custodian is Schwab, budget $50.00 per account for a full outgoing transfer, per Schwab’s own July 2026 pricing guide for independent-advisor clients. We could not confirm a comparable published figure from Fidelity or Raymond James this session: both are honest gaps rather than assumed to be $0, and Raymond James’ own site has been unreachable to this research pipeline across two separate prior sessions.
The published numbers
From Mercer Global Advisors Inc.’s Form ADV Part 2A (March 30, 2026), Item 5: “Accounts initiated or terminated during a calendar month will be assessed as a prorated fee. Upon termination of any account, any prepaid, unearned fees will be refunded promptly; any earned, unpaid fees will be due and payable.” The same brochure names the custodians: “Mercer Advisors recommends clients use Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., National Advisors Trust (“NATC”- for trust related assets), Fidelity, Raymond James, and Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions as custodians for their assets.” From the Charles Schwab Pricing Guide for Clients of Independent Investment Advisors (July 2026): “Full transfer (out) of assets: $50 per account.” Fidelity’s own published fee schedule lists no comparable line item, and Raymond James’ own site was unreachable to every fetch attempt this session, the same standing access barrier already disclosed for two prior how-to-leave builds; neither figure is published here.
| What | Figure |
|---|---|
| Mercer Advisors’ own exit fee | $0.00: fees simply prorate to the termination date (Form ADV, Item 5) |
| Full transfer-out at Schwab | $50.00 per account (Schwab’s own July 2026 pricing guide for independent-advisor clients) |
| Partial transfer-out at Schwab | $0.00 per account |
| ACATS validation + completion window | 1 business day to validate, 3 business days to complete (FINRA Rule 11870) |
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Source: WiserAdvisor’s service descriptionThe sequence
1. Pull a current statement for every account, showing the exact registration, account numbers and complete holdings list. 2. Check the holdings for anything that will not move. Ask the receiving firm directly: “Can you hold every position on this statement?” Anything they cannot hold has to be sold, and in a taxable account that is a realised gain in the year you switch: the categories that commonly do not transfer. 3. Open the receiving account and sign the transfer form there. Under FINRA Rule 11870 the delivering firm then has one business day to validate and three business days after validation to complete. 4. Send a dated termination letter for the record: the generator writes it, and confirm in writing that billing has stopped.
Two things to get right
Cost basis. Under IRC §6045A the delivering broker must furnish a transfer statement carrying basis for covered securities within 15 days of the transfer. Keep your final statements anyway, and check the first statement at the new firm for positions showing a missing or zero basis. Retirement accounts move as a direct transfer, trustee to trustee, not as a distribution to you. Why that distinction matters. Whether a transfer fee is worth paying at all is a question of what you are moving to: our benchmark of published adviser fee schedules puts the weighted median annual cost near $2,000 to $2,500 on $250,000: the benchmark. The general mechanics: switching financial advisors.
Want to know what Mercer Advisors charges before you decide whether to leave? See the dollar breakdown from Mercer Advisors’s own fee disclosure.
Before you decide to leave Mercer Advisors, check whether it owes you a fiduciary duty in the first place.
Not sure Mercer Advisors is the right fit at all? See its minimum investment, straight from its own Form ADV Part 2A brochure.
Sources
- Mercer Global Advisors Inc., “Form ADV Part 2A” (March 30, 2026, via SEC IAPD): https://reports.adviserinfo.sec.gov/reports/ADV/147363/PDF/147363.pdf
- SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, Mercer Global Advisors firm summary (CRD 147363): https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/147363
- SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, Mercer Global Advisors Form CRS: https://reports.adviserinfo.sec.gov/crs/crs_147363.pdf
- Charles Schwab, “Pricing Guide for Clients of Independent Investment Advisors” (July 2026): https://disclosures.schwab.com/SchwabDashboard/61256/REG23060SI.pdf
- Fidelity, “Brokerage Commission and Fee Schedule”: https://www.fidelity.com/bin-public/060_www_fidelity_com/documents/Brokerage_Commissions_Fee_Schedule.pdf
Methodology. This page was built September 18, 2026, drawing on Mercer Advisors’s own Form ADV/wrap-fee brochure plus each named custodian’s own published fee schedule, with sources linked inline; any figure we could not independently confirm this session on a firm-owned or custodian-owned document is named as an honest gap above rather than presented as verified. Nothing here is personalized financial, tax, legal, or investment advice. See our Editorial Policy, Corrections, Affiliate Disclosure, and Disclaimer.
Weighing whether to move ahead? Read the full Mercer Advisors review, including its fiduciary status and what it costs to leave.
Four more exits, each with a firm-named custodian and a confirmed transfer figure: Abacus Wealth Partners, Waldron Private Wealth, Synovus Securities, and Frost Investment Services.
What does leaving cost elsewhere? Compare the published exit fee at 115 advisory firms and brokerages, each taken from that firm’s own schedule or its custodian’s.
Leaving a different firm? See the exit guides for all 189 firms, with the four steps every exit shares.