How to Leave Lincoln Financial Advisors: the $150 Transfer Fee, $125 for Retirement Accounts

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. Lincoln Financial Advisors Corporation was acquired by Osaic Holdings in May 2024 and renamed Osaic FA, Inc.; that entity has since been terminated too, and the advisory business now sits under Osaic Advisory Services, LLC. The figures below come from the last fee schedule Osaic FA published, dated October 1, 2024. Ending the advisory program itself costs nothing extra: prepaid fees are refunded pro-rata. Osaic FA’s own published fee schedule states the real cost of moving the account: a $150.00 “Outgoing Account Transfer Fee” for a non-retirement account (this figure already includes Osaic’s own markup on the underlying clearing-firm charge, so it is the actual number you would be billed), or $125.00 “Account Termination” for an IRA or other retirement account.

The published numbers

From Osaic FA, Inc.’s Premier Series Wealth Management Program brochure (Form ADV Part 2A, Appendix 1): “Upon termination of your participation in a Premier program for which program fees are charged in advance…, you will be entitled to a pro-rata refund of any prepaid, unearned monthly or quarterly program fees…” The brochure lists “ACAT Exit Fees” among brokerage charges “set forth in the affiliated Firm’s schedules” without stating the dollar amount there. That schedule is Osaic FA’s own Fee and Commission Schedule, effective October 1, 2024 and the last one published under that entity: “Outgoing Account Transfer Fee (Non-Retirement Account) $150.00,” footnoted “Includes an additional amount (‘markup’) added by Osaic FA on fees imposed by NFS,” and separately, under Retirement Account Fees: “Account Termination $125.00.”

One registration fact this schedule does not tell you. Osaic FA, Inc. (CRD 3978) has itself been terminated. FINRA BrokerCheck lists it with firm status Terminated as of March 30, 2025 and no approved FINRA, SEC, SRO or state registrations, and the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure shows its investment-adviser registration terminated effective January 28, 2025; both checked on September 19, 2026. Osaic’s advisory business for these accounts now runs through Osaic Advisory Services, LLC (CRD 171070), which is SEC-registered today. The brokerage schedule Osaic publishes now is its 2026 Client Brokerage Fee Schedule for NFS Accounts, effective February 1, 2026, and it prices the same outgoing non-retirement transfer at $150.00 and account termination at $125.00, so the October 2024 figures above are still the numbers in force. Check your statement or ask your Osaic representative which Osaic firm holds your account before relying on a schedule filed under a terminated entity.

The 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 Lincoln Financial Advisors charges before you decide whether to leave? See the dollar breakdown from Lincoln Financial Advisors’s own fee disclosure.

Sources

• Osaic FA, Inc., “Premier Series Wealth Management Program” (Form ADV Part 2A, Appendix 1, October 1, 2024): https://files.adviserinfo.sec.gov/IAPD/Content/Common/crd_iapd_Brochure.aspx?BRCHR_VRSN_ID=926535
• SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, Osaic FA, Inc. firm summary (CRD 3978, registration terminated effective January 28, 2025): https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/3978
• Osaic FA, Inc., “Fee and Commission Schedule” (effective October 1, 2024): https://www.lincolnfinancial.com/public/microsite/pdf/Osaic-FA-Fee-and-Commission-Schedule-10-1-24.pdf

Methodology. This page was built September 18, 2026, drawing on Lincoln Financial Advisors’s own Form ADV/wrap-fee brochure/fee schedule 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.

Six more exits, from single-advisor RIAs to a robo/institutional-clearing setup: Plante Moran Financial Advisors, Signature Estate & Investment Advisors, Summit Trail Advisors, Choreo, Concurrent Investment Advisors, and Snowden Lane Partners.

Leaving a different firm? See the exit guides for all 189 firms, with the four steps every exit shares.