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Updated August 20, 2026. Quick answer: you open the account at the receiving firm and sign the transfer form there; the new firm pulls the accounts through ACATS. Morgan Stanley’s current schedule prices a full account transfer at $125 per account, with $95 as a footnoted carve-out for two specific account channels rather than the standard price. A partial transfer is not charged at all. If you are moving an IRA, budget the annual account fee as well — the schedule makes it due on the day you transfer. This page states only what Morgan Stanley itself publishes.
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The published numbers
Every figure below was read out of the Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Schedule of Miscellaneous Account and Service Fees dated JULY 2026 (CRC 5484116 07/2026), retrieved from morganstanley.com on August 20, 2026. The document says of itself: “Fees may vary by account type or other factors, and are subject to change. Some fees may be waived at certain asset levels or for various programs and accounts, such as, but not limited to, the Reserved fee waiver program,2 and Morgan Stanley CashPlus Brokerage Accounts.”
| What you are doing | What the schedule charges |
|---|---|
| Full account transfer out, including ACATS | $125 per account |
| The same transfer on an MSVA or Self-Directed account | $95 per account |
| A partial transfer | Not charged |
| IRA termination | $125 per account |
| IRA termination on an MSVA or Self-Directed account | $95 per account |
| Business Retirement VIP Basic, VIP Plus or RPM termination | $50 per account |
| Coverdell (CESA) termination | $125 per account |
| Overnight check issued on an ACAT | $25 per check |
Which number applies to you depends on the account, and the $95 figure that circulates is the narrower one. The schedule’s headline row is named “Account Transfer Fee (including ACATS)” and priced “$125 Per Account Transfer”. Footnote 13 then carves out the exception: “The Account Transfer fee for MSVA and Self-Directed Accounts is $95 per account transfer. Outgoing Transfer charges (including outgoing ACATS and non-ACATS) are not charged on partial transfers (only full transfers may be assessed the fee).” The same split runs through the termination rows — footnote 9 reads “The IRA and CESA Termination fee for MSVA and Self-Directed Accounts is $95 per account termination.” The schedule does not expand “MSVA” in the pages read here; what it does do is write the $95 as an exception to the standard row rather than as the standard, so a client working with a Morgan Stanley financial advisor in the ordinary way should plan on $125.
The partial transfer really is free, and that is unusual. The second sentence of footnote 13 is explicit that outgoing transfer charges are not assessed on partial transfers and that only full transfers may be charged. If you want to move most of the portfolio and keep one account open where it is, the schedule prices that at nothing — a genuine difference from firms that charge the full fee on a partial move. How the firms compare on that.
What does not stack, and what does. The termination fee and the transfer fee do not stack: footnote 11 states “In the event that both the account termination fee and the account transfer fee apply, only the account transfer fee will be assessed.” The annual account fee is a different matter. Footnote 5 governs it, and reads: “The Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) and Coverdell Education Savings Accounts (CESA) annual account fee will be charged for any calendar year or portion of any calendar year during which you have an IRA/CESA with us. Annual account fees are due and payable on the following dates: (a) when you open your IRA/CESA; (b) for subsequent years, annual account fees will be due on or after the 10th business day of the quarter-ending month, on or after your account’s anniversary month (if your account remains open on that date); and (c) the day you terminate or transfer your IRA/CESA.” Note the last clause — the fee is due on the day you terminate or transfer, and is charged for any portion of a calendar year, so leaving in February does not buy back the rest of the year and the charge lands on the way out alongside the transfer fee. On a standard IRA that is the $125 annual account fee, or $200 on an Individual Active Assets Account, arriving in the same month as the $125 transfer.
One exception worth checking against your own situation. The IRA termination row carries footnote 10, which reads in full: “Except as a result of death, disability or after attainment of age 75.” A termination that happens for one of those reasons sits outside that row. A separate quarterly charge is also worth knowing about before you decide anything: the schedule lists a “Low-Balance Household Fee (Waived for MSVA households)” of “$50 Per Quarter”.
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Source: WiserAdvisor’s service descriptionWhat may not move as it is
ACATS moves what the receiving firm is willing and able to hold. Everything else has to be sold or delivered out separately, and in a taxable account a forced sale is a realised gain in the year you switch. The question to ask the receiving firm is literal — “Can you hold every position on this statement?” — and it is worth asking about proprietary and alternative positions by name. The categories that commonly do not transfer. For 529 accounts the schedule declines to give a figure at all — it says only that some plans impose a termination fee and points to the plan’s own program description, without publishing a figure.
Closing the account vs transferring it: the $125 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 Morgan Stanley 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 Morgan Stanley transfer out fee?
The Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Schedule of Miscellaneous Account and Service Fees (CRC 5484116) lists “Full account transfer out, including ACATS” at $125.
What is the Morgan Stanley ACAT fee?
ACATS is the system the receiving firm uses to pull an account. The amount published for sending an account out is $125, from the Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Schedule of Miscellaneous Account and Service Fees (CRC 5484116).
The sequence
1. Pull a current statement for every account, showing the exact registration, the account numbers and the complete holdings list. The receiving firm works from that, not from memory. 2. Ask the receiving firm what it cannot hold. The question is literally “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 the instruction or take exception to it, and three business days after validation to complete the transfer. 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 Morgan Stanley 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. Confirm whether your account is the standard $125 row or the footnoted $95 carve-out before you budget, and remember the annual fee rides out with you. Whether the exit charge 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, and what switching costs across firms.
To see what the exit charge means against the fee you would stop paying, the switching advisors cost calculator returns the one-time cost of leaving and the months the new arrangement takes to repay it.
Want to know what Morgan Stanley charges before you decide whether to leave? See the dollar breakdown from Morgan Stanley’s own fee disclosure.
If you are comparing exit steps at more than one firm, How to Leave Charles Schwab: the $50 Transfer Fee and the Order to Do It In walks through the same transfer-out process at a different brokerage.
If you are comparing exit steps at more than one firm, How to Leave Fidelity: the $0 Transfer Fee and the Order to Do It In walks through the same transfer-out process at a different brokerage.
If you are comparing exit steps at more than one firm, How to Leave Osaic: the $150 Transfer Fee Left Over From Lincoln Financial walks through the same transfer-out process at a different brokerage.
If you are comparing exit steps at more than one firm, How to Leave Stifel: the $100 Transfer Fee and a Separate $100 IRA Charge walks through the same transfer-out process at a different brokerage.
If you are comparing exit steps at more than one firm, How to Leave Thrivent: the $50 Delivery Fee, and a Separate $125 to Close an IRA walks through the same transfer-out process at a different brokerage.
If you are comparing exit steps at more than one firm, How to Leave Truist: the $125 Transfer Fee and a $500,000 Waiver walks through the same transfer-out process at a different brokerage.
If you are comparing exit steps at more than one firm, How to Leave U.S. Bank: the $95 Fee, the Same Whether You Trade It Yourself walks through the same transfer-out process at a different brokerage.
Before you decide to leave Morgan Stanley, check whether it owes you a fiduciary duty in the first place.
Weighing whether to move ahead? Read the full Morgan Stanley review, including its fiduciary status and what it costs to leave.
Comparing an employee-model wirehouse against an independent RIA or hybrid broker-dealer? Three more exits, each with a published or custodian-set transfer figure: Carson Wealth, Lincoln Financial Advisors, and Vanguard Personal Advisor.
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.