The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s annual industry snapshot provides a clear picture of continued consolidation among broker/dealers, with an uptick in large firms as measured by employee count, even as mid-sized and smaller firms declined.
According to FINRA, the number of registered representatives at firms with more than 500 of their peers rose by two percentage points to 54,984. Comparatively, registered representatives at mid-sized firms with 151 to 499 representatives fell by about one percentage point to 52,564, and those at small firms with 1 to 150 representatives fell by 0.2 percentage points to 60,329.
The large FINRA-registered firms have been gobbling up market share for five years running, even as the number of representatives has continued to increase, according to the Washington D.C.-based regulator.
“The profession continues to grow, with registered representatives reaching 639,723 in 2025, a 5% increase since 2021, marking four consecutive years of growth with 40,000-45,000 people entering the industry annually,” FINRA wrote in the report. “At the same time, the number of FINRA member firms declined due to ongoing concentration.”
When tallying firm count, FINRA shows a steady decline from 3,394 registered firms in 2021 to 3,184 at the end of 2025.
A handful of blockbuster acquisitions among broker/dealers and hybrid registered investment advisors has helped drive that consolidation in recent years.
The most recent was LPL Financial’s acquisition of Commonwealth Financial Network last year, which at the time was comprised of $285 billion in client assets and 3,000 financial advisors. Those Commonwealth advisors who have jumped since the acquisition have often gone to other large broker/dealers such as Raymond James, Kestra Financial, Arkadios Capital and Cambridge Investment Research.
In 2024, LPL was also among the large acquirers in the space, with a deal for Atria Wealth, and the year before that, independent broker/dealer Cetera acquired Avantax and Securian Financial Services.
FINRA’s report also showed the steady trend of advisors moving from single broker/dealer registration to being dually registered as investment advisors as well. According to the regulator, more than half of FINRA-registered representatives, or 331,802 advisors, are now dually registered, an increase from last year, and the third year in a row that dual registration is outpacing single broker/dealer representatives.
“Dual registration is now the predominant model for financial professionals,” FINRA wrote.
FINRA also tracks investment advisor representative growth in the report, despite those advisors being overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission and state regulators. There too, the numbers show a steady uptick, with IARs rising from about 50,000 in 2016 to 94,562 at the end of 2025.
FINRA’s report also tracks trading among registered advisors.
On this front, it found that U.S. stock trading hit a record in 2025. The average daily dollar volume of exchange-listed stocks was up more than a third from 2022 to $828 billion.
Listed options trades also grew in 2025, with average daily transactions reaching 8.4 million, up 50% from 5.6 million in 2023, according to the report.
