How to Leave Wells Fargo Advisors: the $125 Transfer Fee That Shows Up as a Termination Fee

Guides › Switching Financial Advisors

Updated September 3, 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. Wells Fargo Advisors prices an outgoing transfer at $125 per transfer, and the same schedule warns that the charge does not appear under that name: “Outgoing account transfer fees will display as “Termination Fee” on client statements.” So a single $125 can read on your statement as a termination you did not think you had asked for. If your account is advisory, termination is effective on receipt of your written notice with a pro-rata refund of the program fee, though the platform fee is not refunded. This page states only what Wells Fargo itself publishes.

The published numbers

Every figure below was read out of the Wells Fargo Advisors Schedule of Miscellaneous Account and Service Fees, form 575496 (Rev 43 – 03/26), retrieved from wellsfargoadvisors.com on September 3, 2026. The schedule dates itself: “Effective January 1, 2026, the listed fees do not include commissions, markups, commission equivalents, or advisory program fees.”

One charge, two names, and the schedule tells you so. The transfer row and the statement label are the same money: “Outgoing account transfer fees will display as “Termination Fee” on client statements.” If you moved an account and a line called a termination fee lands afterwards, that note is the first thing to check before you assume you have been billed twice.

What the schedule does not publish is whether the two IRA rows can both apply to one move, and we will not guess. The schedule carries “IRA Outgoing Account Transfer $125 Per transfer” and, on the next line, “IRA Termination Fee $125 Per termination”. It ties the second to a different event: “Termination fee applies to full distribution of Traditional, Roth, SEP, and SIMPLE IRAs; fee is waived for clients over age 70½, or if a client takes a total distribution of an ESA, or if accounts are terminated due to death or disability.” It then adds a sentence that matters for anyone transferring rather than cashing out: “These exemptions only apply to total distributions, and will not apply to account transfers.” What the document never states is a rule for whether both rows can be charged on a single outgoing transfer. Some schedules do publish exactly that kind of rule, and Morgan Stanley’s is one we quote in full on the Morgan Stanley page. This one does not, on any of its four pages, so we print the gap rather than an invented total. Ask your branch to confirm in writing which rows will hit your account before you sign, and keep the answer.

The annual fee is measured on a date, and it can be liquidated out of the account. The waivers are tested on a fixed day, not on the day you leave: the schedule’s first waiver test is “Households valued $500,000 or more on June 30, 2026:” and the household and net-new-asset tests run to the same date. It also reserves a step worth knowing about: “In the event that an annual fee results in a debit balance in the account, Wells Fargo Advisors may liquidate securities in the account to satisfy the debit, without prior notification to the client.” If a fee lands after the assets have gone, that is the mechanism to ask about.

If your account is advisory, the termination clause is separate from the fee schedule. The wrap fee brochure (571263 (Rev 76 – 09/25), Revised September 2025) states: “You or we may terminate an Advisory Program Account by notifying the other party in writing of the Advisory Program Account to be terminated and termination will become effective upon the receipt of the notice.” There is no notice period to serve, which is a genuine difference from firms that require 30 days. On the money: “If an Advisory Program Account is terminated, we will make a pro-rata refund to you of fees paid to us pursuant to the Agreement for the period after the date of effectiveness of such termination through the end of the then current fee period. The Platform Fee is charged in arrears and will not be refunded.” Two operational notes from the same section: “Due to the administrative processing time needed to terminate an advisory Account, termination requests cannot be considered market orders. It could take up to several business days under normal market conditions to process your request.” And if you hold advisory share classes, “you authorize us to convert, at our discretion, the Advisory Share Class to the mutual fund’s primary share class, typically A shares, without incurring a commission or load without your prior consent. You understand that the primary share class generally has higher operating expenses than the Advisory Share Class, which will negatively affect your performance.”