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. Cerity Partners LLC has no termination fee of any kind in its own Form ADV. Cerity Partners lets clients direct their own custodian, most commonly Charles Schwab or Fidelity, with no 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. Fidelity publishes no comparable figure, an honest gap rather than assumed to be $0.
The published numbers
Cerity Partners LLC’s Form ADV Part 2A (March 31, 2026), Items 5 and 12, discloses no termination fee, no account-closure fee, and no outgoing-transfer fee charged by the firm itself; the only dollar figures near custodians are participation payments Cerity Partners itself pays TO Schwab (for non-Schwab-custody accounts) and referral fees paid to Fidelity’s Strategic Advisers program, neither client-facing. Item 12 states: “Cerity Partners allows clients to direct the use of a particular broker-dealer and/or custodian to execute some or all transactions for their accounts.” 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 appears anywhere in the Cerity Partners brochure.
| What | Figure |
|---|---|
| Cerity Partners’ own exit charge | $0.00: no termination fee of any kind disclosed (Form ADV) |
| Full transfer-out at Schwab | $50.00 per account (Schwab’s own July 2026 pricing guide for independent-advisor clients) |
| Fidelity | 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 Cerity Partners charges before you decide whether to leave? See the dollar breakdown from Cerity Partners’s own fee disclosure.
Sources
- Cerity Partners LLC, Form ADV Part 2A (March 31, 2026): https://ceritypartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/CP-ADV-Part-2A-2025.pdf
- SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, Cerity Partners LLC firm summary (CRD 151559): https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/151559
- SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, Cerity Partners LLC Form CRS: https://reports.adviserinfo.sec.gov/crs/crs_151559.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 Cerity Partners’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 Cerity Partners review, including its fiduciary status and what it costs to leave.
Leaving a different firm? See the exit guides for all 189 firms, with the four steps every exit shares.