Guides › Switching Financial Advisors
Updated September 23, 2026. Quick answer: you open an account at the receiving firm and sign the transfer form there; the new firm pulls the account through ACATS. Aspiriant, LLC itself charges nothing extra to end the engagement: any prepaid, unearned fee is promptly refunded, prorated to the termination date. Aspiriant does not custody your assets itself; its own Form ADV names Charles Schwab & Co., Fidelity Brokerage Services / National Financial Services, and Pershing LLC as its recommended custodians, with no single default. If you are custodied at Schwab, budget $50.00 per account for a full outgoing transfer, per Schwab’s own July 2026 pricing guide for independent-advisor clients. Fidelity and Pershing publish no comparable figure, so both are honest gaps rather than assumed to be $0.
The published numbers
From Aspiriant, LLC’s Form ADV Part 2A (August 21, 2026): “If you terminate your Engagement Agreement during a calendar quarter, you will be charged a prorated fee, which is due and payable on the day the Engagement Agreement terminates. If you have prepaid fees, any prepaid, unearned fees will be promptly refunded upon termination.” The same brochure names the custodians: “We recommend that our clients use one of the following custodian/broker-dealers… Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.… Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC and/or National Financial Services LLC… or Pershing LLC…” From the Charles Schwab Pricing Guide for Clients of Independent Investment Advisors (July 2026), Account Activity Fees: “Full transfer (out) of assets: $50 per account.” No dollar figure for Fidelity or Pershing appears anywhere in either archived Aspiriant document.
| What | Figure |
|---|---|
| Aspiriant’s own exit charge | $0.00 extra: prepaid unearned fees promptly refunded, prorated (Form ADV) |
| Full transfer-out at Schwab | $50.00 per account (Schwab’s own July 2026 pricing guide for independent-advisor clients) |
| Fidelity / Pershing | Fidelity’s own published fee schedules carry no comparable, clearly attributable outgoing-transfer line item for accounts custodied there; left as an honest gap rather than assumed to be $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 Aspiriant charges before you decide whether to leave? See the dollar breakdown from Aspiriant’s own fee disclosure.
Sources
- Aspiriant, LLC, Form ADV Part 2A (August 21, 2026): https://aspiriant.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Form-ADV-Part-2A-only-updated.pdf
- SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, Aspiriant, LLC firm summary (CRD 146720): https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/146720
- SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, Aspiriant, LLC Form CRS: https://reports.adviserinfo.sec.gov/crs/crs_146720.pdf
- Charles Schwab, “Pricing Guide for Clients of Independent Investment Advisors” (July 2026): https://disclosures.schwab.com/SchwabDashboard/61256/REG23060SI.pdf
Methodology. This page was built September 23, 2026, drawing on Aspiriant’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.
Weighing whether to move ahead? Read the full Aspiriant review, including its fiduciary status and what it costs to leave.
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.