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. Equitable Advisors prices an outgoing account transfer at $150: a fee its own schedule explicitly says excludes retirement accounts: and charges the same $150 again under a separate “IRA/QRP and 403(b)(7) Termination” line for retirement accounts specifically. Unusually on this list, the annual IRA maintenance fee is $0: the schedule states it plainly, per year and per account. This page states only what the firm itself publishes.
The published numbers
Every figure below comes from Equitable’s own Miscellaneous Account and Service Fees Schedule: Model Wealth Portfolios (document FS17-EQH, Revised 0325, March 2025), fetched directly from Equitable’s disclosure portal.
| What it charges | Amount | How it is charged |
|---|---|---|
| Outgoing Account Transfer (excludes retirement accounts) | $150 | Per account |
| IRA/QRP and 403(b)(7) Termination | $150 | Per account |
| Annual IRA Maintenance | $0 | Per year, per account |
The $150 general transfer fee explicitly does not apply to a retirement account: a different $150 line does. The schedule describes the Outgoing Account Transfer fee as “for processing full account transfer of all assets and positions to another financial institution (excludes retirement accounts)” and, separately, prices “IRA/QRP and 403(b)(7) Termination” at the same $150 for the retirement side. The $0 annual IRA maintenance figure is the lowest recurring IRA cost of any firm on this list, though the schedule’s only waiver language for the transfer/termination fees themselves is a generic footnote: “Some of these fees may be waived under certain conditions… see account agreements for more information.”
No partial-transfer-out fee is itemized; the schedule scopes the $150 fee to a full transfer of all assets and positions.
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Source: WiserAdvisor’s service descriptionClosing the account vs transferring it: the $150 transfer-out fee
Closing an account and transferring it are different events. A transfer in kind moves your holdings to the new firm as they are. Closing by selling everything and withdrawing the cash is a liquidation. A liquidation is a taxable event; a transfer in kind is not, see IRS Publication 550 and Publication 590-B.
How do I close an Equitable Advisors account?
To leave without selling, open the account at the receiving firm and start the transfer there. To close by liquidating, sell the holdings and withdraw the cash. The charge for moving the account is covered in the next answer.
What is the Equitable Advisors transfer out fee?
The Equitable Miscellaneous Account and Service Fees Schedule (document FS17-EQH) lists “Outgoing Account Transfer (excludes retirement accounts)” at $150, charged per account.
What is the Equitable Advisors ACAT fee?
ACATS is the system the receiving firm uses to pull an account. The amount published for sending an account out is $150, from the Equitable Miscellaneous Account and Service Fees Schedule (document FS17-EQH).
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 $150 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.
Equitable Advisors is another insurance-affiliated advisor channel; for an independent broker-dealer network alternative and its regulatory record, see the Cetera Advisor Networks review.
Want to know what Equitable Advisors charges before you decide whether to leave? See the dollar breakdown from Equitable Advisors’s own fee disclosure.
Before you decide to leave Equitable Advisors, check whether it owes you a fiduciary duty in the first place.
Digital-first and robo-hybrid advisory services have their own exit fees too: SoFi Invest.
Weighing whether to move ahead? Read the full Equitable Advisors 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.