Where Commonwealth advisors went.
The data shows the patterns.
The decision is personal.™
Departures peaked in October 2025, two months after the deal closed, then eased through the summer before picking up again in September. Six in ten of today's 2,853 IARs have 15 or more years in the industry.
The exit peaked two months after the close.
Movement built through the summer of 2025 and peaked at 148 in October, two months after the August 1 close. It eased through the summer of 2026, then picked up again in September. Registration changes lag advisor decisions, so each month shows when moves were carried out, not when they were decided.
Departures by month since the announcement
Commonwealth advisors who registered with another firm, by the month their Commonwealth registration ended. Hover or focus a column for its count.
Filings keep posting to the SEC feed for weeks after a move, so recent months are floors, not final counts.
Six firms took more than half of the departures.
Raymond James received 197 advisors, Kestra 130, Cetera 86, Cambridge 56, Merit Financial Advisors 45 and Osaic 35. Together they account for 53% of departures and 22% of arrivals. The rest is spread across 155 other destination firms and 85 other source firms.
Competitive exchanges since March 31, 2025
Advisors who joined Commonwealth from each firm, on the left, and advisors who left Commonwealth for it, on the right. Bars share one scale.
Table view
| Firm | Joined from | Left for | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raymond James | 4 | 197 | −193 |
| Kestra | 2 | 130 | −128 |
| Cetera | 13 | 86 | −73 |
| Cambridge | 3 | 56 | −53 |
| Merit Financial Advisors | 0 | 45 | −45 |
| Osaic | 25 | 35 | −10 |
| All other firms | 166 | 481 | −315 |
LPL, the parent since the August 1, 2025 close, received 20 Commonwealth advisors and sent 15. Moves between the two count as firm-to-firm until the platform conversion.
Every destination
The 1,030 advisors went to 161 firms. Every firm that received four or more is listed, with its channel and its share of departures. Click a column heading to sort.
125 firms received three advisors or fewer, 177 advisors in all. Raymond James and Kestra together took 327; the four leading firms took 469, or 46% of departures.
Where their registrations landed, by business model
Destination channel, where the receiving firm is classified.
The long tail matters. 339 advisors went to firms outside our channel classification, mostly boutique or newly formed RIAs. The largest were Merit Financial Advisors (45), Summit Wealth Group (29) and Kintra Wealth (19).
Today's roster is an experienced one.
2,853 investment adviser representatives are registered at Commonwealth. Six in ten have 15 or more years in the industry, and one in three holds a professional designation. Industry experience is the proxy here; IAPD does not report advisor age.
The advisor force today
IARs registered at Commonwealth Financial Network (CRD 8032) in the October 5, 2026 filings.
| Average industry experience | 19.5 years |
| 15+ year veterans | 1,746 (61%) |
| Under 5 years in the industry | 432 (15%) |
| Advisors holding designations | 928 (33%) |
| CFP · ChFC · CFA (as reported to IAPD) | 814 · 167 · 30 |
Experience mix
Years in the industry, for the 2,853 advisors registered today.
Industry experience is the proxy here. IAPD does not report advisor age.
The advisors who left were more experienced than the advisors who joined.
Since the announcement, 612 of the 1,030 departing advisors had 15 or more years in the industry, against 91 of the 213 arrivals. The median departing advisor had 19 years in the industry and 5.9 years at Commonwealth.
Tenure at Commonwealth when they left
Time registered with Commonwealth before the move, for the 1,030 departures.
Established practices were moving. Nearly three in four (73%) had been registered at Commonwealth for three years or more. The median was 5.9 years.
The movement was national, and it arrived in waves.
California, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas lead the departures by registered state. Same-month moves to one firm show the waves, and the largest came in the months around the close.
Departures by registered state
Departures since March 31, 2025, by the advisor's registered state. The twelve largest are shown.
Massachusetts is also home to Commonwealth's Waltham headquarters. A registered address can differ from where an advisor actually works.
Largest departure waves
Departures to one firm in one month. Registration data cannot confirm who moved together.
Four of the ten largest waves went to Raymond James. The earliest, 28 advisors to Summit Wealth Group in May 2025, came before the deal closed.
Recent movement, August 6 through October 5, 2026.
The last 60 days of the record. Cetera, Kestra and Raymond James received the most departing advisors, arrivals came one at a time, and 50 advisors left in groups of three or more.
Cetera (17), Kestra (15) and Raymond James (12) received the most. The remaining 55 went to 16 other firms.
Each came from a different firm, and none arrived as part of a group. New entrants to the industry are not counted here.
The largest were two clusters of six in September: one in Florida that moved to Cetera and one in New York that moved to Merit Financial Advisors.
The market pattern is not the personal decision.
Whether you are reconsidering your platform or protecting the value of the practice you built, the next step should begin with alignment - not a recruiting headline or an upfront check.
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Protect practice value
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Not sure which path is yours?One confidential conversation can clarify the question before it commits you to an answer.
Start a confidential conversationSource and method.
Every figure on this page comes from public SEC registration records, read the same way the one-page Commonwealth Advisor Profile reads them. Use the numbers to find patterns and questions, not as an audited advisor or asset scorecard.
What the counts measure
Departures count Commonwealth IARs who registered with another firm, by departure date. Arrivals count advisors who joined from another firm, by arrival date. Advisors entering the industry are excluded, so the counts measure firm-to-firm flow rather than net headcount change, and advisors who have left the industry are absent from the source.
LPL has owned Commonwealth since August 1, 2025. Moves between the two count as firm-to-firm until the platform conversion, which had not appeared in the registration feed at the snapshot.
Destination brand variants are rolled up to their operating family. Firms outside our channel classification keep their registered name. Broker-only representatives are not included.
The record
| Source | SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (IAPD) registration data |
| Snapshot | October 5, 2026 |
| Window | March 31, 2025 through the snapshot |
| Coverage | IAR registrations at Commonwealth Financial Network (CRD 8032) |
| Lens | Firm-to-firm moves, not total attrition |
| Related | The daily-refreshed Firm Churn report uses a rolling twelve-month window and a roster-based rate, so its Commonwealth figures differ. |
How to read the numbers
The definitions behind each section.
- The advisor force
- Advisors registered at Commonwealth in the snapshot, including those who joined since the announcement.
- Experience
- Years since the first registration IAPD reports. It stands in for age, which IAPD does not report.
- Veterans
- Advisors with 15 or more years in the industry at the snapshot.
- Tenure
- Time between an advisor's Commonwealth registration beginning and ending, for the departure counted.
- Waves
- Every departure to one firm in one calendar month. A wave suggests coordinated movement; it does not confirm team membership.
- Groups
- Three or more advisors who left for one firm from one registered state within days of one another. A group marks nearby departure dates; it does not establish team membership or coordination.
- Partial months
- The snapshot month covers only the days before the snapshot, and filings post for weeks after a move, so recent months rise as records arrive.
- Revisions
- Editions before September 30, 2026 followed a fixed cohort registered on June 15, 2025. This edition counts from the announcement itself.
Commonwealth advisors leaving LPL
The three questions this page is asked most.
- Are Commonwealth advisors leaving LPL?
- Since LPL announced the acquisition, 1,030 Commonwealth advisors have registered with another firm and 213 have joined from one, a net loss of 817. Departures peaked at 148 in October 2025 and reached 67 in September 2026, the most in a month since November 2025.
- Where did they go?
- Raymond James received the most (197), followed by Kestra (130), Cetera (86), Cambridge (56), Merit Financial Advisors (45) and Osaic (35). Those six account for 53% of departures; the rest went to 155 other firms. LPL itself received 20.
- Is leaving the right answer?
- Not automatically. Movement is a signal, not a verdict. Staying can be the right answer. Get a second opinion before you sign.