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. Janney is one of the few firms on this list that publishes a real price break for partial moves: a full account transfer is $125, but an outgoing partial account transfer is only $15, a distinction most peer schedules do not draw. Janney does not publish a separate IRA closure fee or a distinct annual IRA custodial fee: the closest thing on its schedule is a $200 household service fee that is unrelated to a single account leaving. This page states only what the firm itself publishes.
The published numbers
Every figure below comes from Janney’s own Schedule of Account Service Charges, effective June 1, 2025, fetched directly from janney.com.
| What it charges | Amount | How it is charged |
|---|---|---|
| Outgoing Full Account Transfer | $125.00 | Per full transfer |
| Outgoing Partial Account Transfer | $15.00 | Per partial transfer |
| Household Service Fee | $200.00 | Per year, per household; waivable, see below |
If you only need to move part of the account, the schedule prices that separately and far lower. The document lists “Outgoing Full Account Transfer $125.00” directly above “Outgoing Partial Account Transfer $15.00” under the same ACCOUNT TRANSFERS heading. No IRA-specific termination line appears anywhere in the schedule; the only IRA-named charge is a $100 IRA Foreign Account Fee that applies solely to foreign-domiciled IRAs serviced by Janney’s Client Service Center, not to closing an ordinary domestic IRA.
The $200 Household Service Fee is waived if the household is fully enrolled in Janney’s eDelivery service, holds over 80% of its value in a fee-based advisory program, carries $250,000 or more in family-relationship assets, or was opened entirely within the current calendar year: none of which changes the $125/$15 transfer charge itself.
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Source: WiserAdvisor’s service descriptionClosing the account vs transferring it: the $125.00 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 a Janney Montgomery Scott 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 Janney Montgomery Scott transfer out fee?
The Janney Schedule of Account Service Charges lists “Outgoing Full Account Transfer” at $125.00, charged per full transfer.
What is the Janney Montgomery Scott ACAT fee?
ACATS is the system the receiving firm uses to pull an account. The amount published for sending an account out is $125.00, from the Janney Schedule of Account Service Charges.
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 $125 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.
Want to know what Janney Montgomery Scott charges before you decide whether to leave? See the dollar breakdown from Janney Montgomery Scott’s own fee disclosure.
Before you decide to leave Janney Montgomery Scott, check whether it owes you a fiduciary duty in the first place.
Weighing whether to move ahead? Read the full Janney Montgomery Scott 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.