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. Kestra Advisory Services, LLC (“Kestra AS”) itself charges nothing extra to end an agreement: either side can terminate at any time, with a 5-day penalty-free window after signing, and any prepaid fee is pro-rated from the termination date and refunded. Kestra does not custody assets itself; its own Form ADV names National Financial Services, LLC (NFS) as the default clearing custodian through its affiliated broker-dealer, and also offers Charles Schwab and Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services on its AdvisorChoice platform. If you are custodied at Schwab, budget $50.00 per account for a full outgoing transfer, per Schwab’s own July 2026 pricing guide. We found a $100 NFS “ACAT Fee/TOA Delivery Fee” figure, but only on another, unrelated broker-dealer’s own published NFS fee schedule (not on any Kestra- or NFS-owned document), and a second NFS-clearing broker’s schedule does not list that line item at all, so it is not attributed to Kestra here. Fidelity and NFS-at-Kestra are both honest gaps rather than assumed to be $0.
The published numbers
From Kestra Advisory Services, LLC’s Wrap Fee Program Brochure (Form ADV Part 2A, Appendix 1) (August 20, 2026): “Typically, both you and our company have the option under our standard agreements to terminate the agreement at any time. In addition, you have the right to terminate the contract without penalty within five (5) business days after entering into the contract. If you pay a fee in advance, fees will be pro-rated from the termination date and refunded to you.” The same brochure describes the default custody arrangement: “We place most transactions in advisor managed accounts through our affiliated broker-dealer, Kestra IS, and its unaffiliated clearing broker-dealer and custodian, National Financial Services, LLC (NFS), but also use other broker-dealers and custodians,” and separately names the AdvisorChoice platform’s options: “available through NFS and other custodians such as Charles Schwab & Co. (Schwab) and Fidelity IWS.” From the Charles Schwab Pricing Guide for Clients of Independent Investment Advisors (July 2026): “Full transfer (out) of assets: $50 per account.” No NFS-owned or Kestra-owned document read this session states a dollar figure for an NFS account transfer-out; a $100 “Client ACAT Fee/TOA Delivery Fee” appears only on a different, unaffiliated broker-dealer’s own NFS fee schedule (Kovack Financial), which is not evidence of what Kestra clients specifically would be charged, so it is not published here as Kestra’s figure.
| What | Figure |
|---|---|
| Kestra AS’s own exit charge | $0.00 extra: fees pro-rated from the termination date and refunded (Wrap Fee Program brochure) |
| Full transfer-out at Schwab | $50.00 per account (Schwab’s own July 2026 pricing guide for independent-advisor clients) |
| Fidelity / NFS | No published figure clearly attributable to Kestra found this session; honest gap, not $0 |
| 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 Kestra Financial charges before you decide whether to leave? See the dollar breakdown from Kestra Financial’s own fee disclosure.
Sources
- Kestra Advisory Services, LLC, “Wrap Fee Program Brochure” (Form ADV Part 2A, Appendix 1, August 20, 2026): https://files.adviserinfo.sec.gov/IAPD/Content/Common/crd_iapd_Brochure.aspx?BRCHR_VRSN_ID=1055475
- SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, Kestra Advisory Services, LLC firm summary (CRD 283330): https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/283330
- 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 Kestra Financial’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.
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.
Eight more exits, each with a firm-named custodian and a confirmed transfer figure: Beese Fulmer, Sensible Money, NovaPoint Capital, EverGreen Wealth Management, CIBC Private Wealth Management, Wintrust Wealth Management, Washington Trust Wealth Management, and Bryn Mawr Trust Advisors.
Leaving a different firm? See the exit guides for all 189 firms, with the four steps every exit shares.