How to Become an RIA in New York: Exams, Forms, and Fees

To become an RIA in New York, you register your firm with the New York Attorney General’s Investor Protection Bureau under General Business Law Section 359-eee by passing a qualifying exam, preparing Form ADV, satisfying the net-worth or surety-bond requirement, and submitting your filing through the Investment Adviser Registration Depository (IARD). Plan on several months from the day you start studying to the day your registration is effective.

Confirm You Register With New York, Not the SEC

The first question is whether your firm belongs at the state level or the federal level. The dividing line is assets under management. Advisers managing less than $100 million generally register with the state, while those at $110 million or above must register with the SEC. Firms between $100 million and $110 million can choose either.¹

New York has history worth knowing. Under Dodd-Frank, mid-sized advisers (those with $25 million to $100 million) were pushed to state registration, but New York firms in that bracket were initially required to register with the SEC because the state lacked an examination program.² That has changed. New York now has comprehensive registration regulations under 13 NYCRR Part 11, so confirm your current filing obligation with the Attorney General’s Investor Protection Bureau before you start preparing documents.

When You Don’t Have to Register

Not everyone giving investment advice in New York needs a registration statement. The law excludes anyone who advised fewer than six New York residents during the preceding twelve months, not counting institutional clients.³ Reach the sixth New York client and you must be registered.⁴ Operating without registration once you cross that line is unlawful under Section 359-eee, and the Attorney General can deny, suspend, condition, or revoke registrations in the public interest. The Martin Act’s enforcement provisions under GBL Section 359-g also authorize criminal prosecution, including misdemeanor charges, for violations of related court orders.⁵

Pass the Qualifying Exam

Every individual who will act as an Investment Adviser Representative must demonstrate competency through a qualifying exam before giving advice. The direct route is the Series 65, which covers securities regulations, investment strategies, and ethics. The alternative is passing both the Series 7 and the Series 66, since the Series 66 is treated as equivalent to the combined Series 63 and Series 65.⁶

Certain professional designations can waive the exam. The qualifying credentials are the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst), CFP (Certified Financial Planner), ChFC (Chartered Financial Consultant), CIC (Chartered Investment Counselor), PFS (Personal Financial Specialist), and CAIA (Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst). The waiver sits with the state administrator’s discretion, so holding one of these is not an automatic bypass. Confirm with the Investor Protection Bureau that the waiver applies to you before you skip the exam.⁷

Prepare Form ADV and Your Advisory Agreement

Form ADV is the central registration and disclosure document, with parts that each do different work.

Part 1A collects firm-level information: ownership structure, business practices, affiliations, and disciplinary history. It includes Schedule A (direct owners and executive officers), Schedule B (indirect owners), and Disclosure Reporting Pages for any disciplinary events.⁸

Part 2A is the firm brochure that goes to every client. It describes your services, fees, strategies, and conflicts of interest in narrative form. This is the document your clients actually read, so it needs to be accurate and clear.

Part 2B is a supplement covering the individuals who provide advice, with education, work history, and outside business activities. Each representative who works directly with clients needs their own Part 2B.

Alongside Form ADV, you need an Investment Advisory Agreement that spells out the scope of your authority, fee arrangements, and termination provisions. This is the contract that governs each client relationship and is worth having reviewed by an attorney familiar with New York securities practice.

Meet the Net Worth or Bond Requirement

New York applies financial safeguards based on how much control you have over client assets. The standard thresholds are a minimum net worth of $10,000 if you have discretionary authority to make investment decisions, and $35,000 if you take custody of client funds or securities. Firms that neither exercise discretion nor hold custody face no minimum net worth requirement.

If you fall short of the applicable minimum, a surety bond covering the shortfall typically satisfies the requirement, and premiums at these amounts are modest. Errors and omissions insurance is a separate matter. It is not always legally required, but it protects your firm from professional-negligence claims and is standard for a working RIA. Small firms generally pay somewhere between $500 and $2,600 per year, with higher rates for firms handling alternative investments or carrying prior regulatory disclosures.

File Through IARD and Pay the Fees

All registration filings go through the Investment Adviser Registration Depository, an electronic system run by FINRA that handles both state and federal adviser filings.⁹ You create an account, fund a Flex Funding Account, and the system draws fees from there.

The New York firm filing fee is $200, plus $200 for each Investment Adviser Representative registered in the state.¹⁰³ IARD adds its own system processing charges. For 2026, the IARD system fee for state-registered advisory firms is waived, and the per-representative fee is $15.¹¹

Upload your completed Form ADV and schedules into IARD, sign electronically, and submit. For new applications, the Attorney General’s office also requires that you email your firm’s financial statements separately to IPBIA@AG.NY.GOV.⁴

Respond Fast to Any Deficiency Notice

After submission, the Investor Protection Bureau reviews your application for inconsistencies between the brochure and your planned operations, incomplete disclosures, and any red flags in your disciplinary history. If something is missing or wrong, you get a deficiency notice, and this is where applications stall.

You have exactly 14 days to correct the deficiency and communicate the fix to the Department of Law. Miss that window and your application expires. If you keep advising after that, you are considered in violation of Section 359-eee.⁴ Watch your email and your IARD account closely after filing. The Bureau does not publish a guaranteed approval timeline; your status reads as pending until review is complete, and clean disclosures with prompt responses are what moves things along.

What Changes Once You’re Registered

Approval is the start of the ongoing work, not the end of it.

Annual Updating Amendment and Brochure Delivery

You must file an annual updating amendment to Form ADV within 90 days after your fiscal year end.¹² Separately, you must deliver an updated brochure (or a summary of material changes) to every existing client within 120 days of the fiscal year end.¹³ If something material changes between annual filings, such as new disciplinary information, disclose it to clients promptly rather than waiting.

Compliance Program and Recordkeeping

Your firm must adopt written compliance policies and procedures designed to prevent securities law violations, and review them at least once a year.¹⁴ Someone has to own that program, even if it is you in a one-person shop.

New York requires advisers to keep business records for at least five years from the date of the last transaction or publication, with the first two years in an easily accessible office location. If you exercise discretionary authority, maintain a list of all accounts where you have that power. If you take custody, additional records covering every purchase, sale, receipt, and delivery of securities are required.¹⁵

Privacy Notices and Code of Ethics

Federal Regulation S-P requires you to give clients a privacy notice describing how you collect, use, and share their nonpublic personal information. The initial notice goes out no later than when you establish the customer relationship, and an annual notice follows during the continuation of that relationship, with a limited exception if you only share information in permitted ways and your practices have not changed.¹⁶

You must also adopt a written code of ethics reflecting your fiduciary obligations, requiring compliance with federal securities laws, governing personal securities trading by your firm’s access persons, requiring prompt internal reporting of violations, and requiring pre-approval before any access person invests in an IPO or limited offering.¹⁷

Regulatory Examinations

Registered firms are subject to periodic examinations. State-registered advisers face their own examination schedule from the Attorney General’s office. The practical response is the same either way: keep your compliance program current and your records organized, because you will not get much warning.

Budgeting the Launch

Government filing fees are the cheapest part of this. A realistic picture:

New York firm filing fee: $200
IAR filing fee, per representative: $200
IARD system fee, per representative: $15
Series 65 exam fee: approximately $187
Entity formation: varies by structure, and in New York LLCs face publication requirements
Errors and omissions insurance: roughly $500 to $2,600 per year for a small firm
Surety bond, if needed: premiums typically run 1% to 2% of the bond amount

Many new firms hire a compliance consultant to draft Form ADV, build the compliance manual, and manage the filing. Initial setup consulting generally falls in the $10,000 to $25,000 range, with ongoing annual retainers of roughly $8,000 to $15,000. None of that is legally required, but first-time advisers often decide the complexity of the rules and the cost of getting them wrong make the help worth paying for.

1
SEC.gov. Form ADV Instructions for Part 1A – Appendix B
2
SEC.gov. Transition of Mid-Sized Investment Advisers from Federal to State Registration
3
New York State Senate. New York General Business Law 359-EEE – Registration Requirements for Investment Advisers
4
New York State Attorney General. Investment Advisers FAQ
5
New York State Senate. New York General Business Law 359-g – Violations and Penalties
6
NORTH AMERICAN SECURITIES ADMINISTRATORS ASSOCIATION. Exam FAQs
7
NORTH AMERICAN SECURITIES ADMINISTRATORS ASSOCIATION. Examination Requirements for Investment Adviser Representatives
8
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Form ADV – General Instructions
9
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. IARD – How To Register With the SEC as an Investment Adviser
10
New York State Attorney General. Investor Protection Filing Fee Guide
11
North American Securities Administrators Association. NASAA Announces 2026 Fee Schedule for Investment Adviser Registration Depository System
12
SEC.gov. Form ADV General Instructions
13
SEC.gov. Form ADV Part 2 – Uniform Requirements for the Investment Adviser Brochure and Brochure Supplements
14
eCFR. 17 CFR 275.206(4)-7 – Compliance Procedures and Practices
15
New York State Attorney General. 13 NYCRR Part 11 (Unofficial) – Text of Revised Regulations
16
eCFR. Subpart A – Regulation S-P Privacy of Consumer Financial Information and Safeguarding Personal Information
17
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Investment Adviser Codes of Ethics (Final Rule)