A registered investment adviser is a firm registered with the SEC or a state securities regulator to provide investment advice for compensation, and it owes a fiduciary duty to its clients.
Registering is a disclosure obligation, not an endorsement. It requires filing a Form ADV, keeping it current, and accepting examination. It says nothing about whether the adviser is any good, and regulators are explicit that it must never be presented as if it did.
Which regulator depends principally on the size of the firm. Larger firms register with the Securities and Exchange Commission; smaller ones register with the states in which they operate. The thresholds move, so the current rule is worth checking rather than remembering.
An RIA owes a duty of care and a duty of loyalty. In practice that means acting in the client's best interest, and disclosing conflicts of interest fully and fairly rather than managing around them quietly.
That standard is the reason Form ADV exists in the shape it does.
Ownership. In an RIA the firm's enterprise value belongs to the people who built it. That is the structural difference from working inside a wirehouse, and it is the reason most breakaways cite first.
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