Guides › Switching Financial Advisors
Updated September 25, 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. Northern Trust Securities, Inc. (“NTSI”) is itself the broker-dealer/custodian for its brokerage accounts, so there is no third-party custodian to check. NTSI’s own published Schedule of Fees: Traditional Brokerage Services lists $75.00 for an “Outgoing Account Transfer,” and a separate $125.00 “Termination Fee” for closing a retirement account.
The published numbers
From Northern Trust Securities, Inc.’s own Schedule of Fees: Traditional Brokerage Services, fetched directly from northerntrust.com: “Outgoing Account Transfer… $75.” Under Retirement Accounts, the same schedule lists: “Annual Custodial Maintenance Fee… $35” and “Termination Fee… $125.” NTSI’s own December 2024 NTSI Disclosure Document independently corroborates the arrangement, stating that “annual custodial fees and, for retirement accounts, account maintenance fees and termination fees are included in a fee schedule provided to you when you open a brokerage account.” NTSI’s own Wrap Fee Program Brochure (the managed-account side) states no dollar exit fee of its own, only that “any unearned fees will be promptly refunded” on termination.
| What | Figure |
|---|---|
| Outgoing account transfer (brokerage account) | $75.00 (NTSI’s own Schedule of Fees: Traditional Brokerage Services) |
| Retirement account termination | $125.00 (same schedule) |
| Retirement account annual custodial maintenance | $35.00 per year (same schedule) |
| Managed (advisory) account exit charge | $0.00 extra: unearned fees promptly refunded on termination (Wrap Fee Program Brochure); no separate dollar transfer fee stated |
| 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 Northern Trust charges before you decide whether to leave? See the dollar breakdown from Northern Trust’s own fee disclosure.
Sources
- Northern Trust Securities, Inc., Schedule of Fees: Traditional Brokerage Services: https://www.northerntrust.com/content/dam/northerntrust/pws/nt/documents/wealth-management/schedule-of-fees-traditional-brokerage-services.pdf
- SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, Northern Trust Securities, Inc. firm summary (CRD 7927): https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/7927
- SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, Northern Trust Securities, Inc. Form CRS: https://reports.adviserinfo.sec.gov/crs/crs_7927.pdf
- Northern Trust Securities, Inc., NTSI Disclosure Document (December 2024): https://www.northerntrust.com/content/dam/northerntrust/pws/nt/documents/wealth-management/ntsi-disclosure-document.pdf
Methodology. This page was built September 25, 2026, drawing on Northern Trust’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.
Leaving a different firm? See the exit guides for all 189 firms, with the four steps every exit shares.