Guides › Switching Financial Advisors
Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: you open the account at the receiving firm and sign the transfer form there; the new firm pulls the account through ACATS. Commonwealth Financial Network publishes a $75 Full Account Transfer Fee as its own separate, custodian-agnostic line: but Commonwealth custodies client accounts through both NFS and Pershing, and each custodian layers its own additional termination fee on top: $125 at NFS, or $100 at Pershing. The annual IRA maintenance fee is $45 at Pershing ($35 at NFS). Which combination applies to you depends on where your specific account is custodied. This page states only what the firm itself publishes.
The published numbers
Every figure below comes from Commonwealth Financial Network’s own Schedule of Miscellaneous Account and Service Fees (document OPS-3901-32176, dated 09/23), fetched directly from Commonwealth’s own hosted document assets.
| What it charges | Amount | How it is charged |
|---|---|---|
| Full Account Transfer Fee | $75 | Per account, custodian-agnostic |
| NFS Termination Fee | $125 | Per account, NFS-custodied accounts |
| Pershing Termination Fee | $100 | Per account, Pershing-custodied accounts |
| Pershing IRA Annual Maintenance Fee | $45 | Per year |
Two custodians, two different termination numbers, on top of the same $75 base fee. Commonwealth’s schedule lists “Full Account Transfer Fee | $75 | Per account” as one line, and separately, custodian-specific termination fees: “NFS Termination Fee $125 Per account” and “Pershing Termination Fee $100 Per account.” The document does not label either termination fee as IRA-specific versus general, so which one you owe, and whether it stacks with the $75 base fee, depends on which custodian holds your specific account: worth confirming with your advisor before you assume a total.
The schedule’s only waiver language is a general footnote: “Some of these fees may be waived under certain conditions.”
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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. Budget $75 for the exit charge and leave the cash to cover it in the account rather than sweeping the balance to zero first. Whether the 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. To put the exit charge next to the fee you would stop paying, the switching advisors cost calculator returns the break-even in months.