Four Insights From FINRA's 2026 Industry Snapshot

By Jonathan Sokobin, Executive Vice President, Chief Economist 

Change is constant in the securities industry. Markets move increasingly faster, with new products, new technologies and new market participants constantly evolving the landscape. Intense competition and shifting investor preferences are the norm, forcing markets and market professionals to continually adapt. 

Each year, FINRA shares a snapshot of data that captures the key trends and dynamics in the industry. The goal: to provide the public with a deeper understanding of this critical sector of the economy.

This year’s report reflects an industry in transition on several fronts. As the profession grows, concentration among firms continues. Dual broker-dealer and investment advisor registration has become the predominant model for financial professionals. Meanwhile, stock market activity continues to climb, with a growing share of trading occurring off-exchange and outside of traditional sessions. And listed options trading has reached unprecedented levels. 

These developments, as the industry continues to post strong results, present opportunities and challenges. To support informed conversation among investors, member firms and market participants, we are highlighting four significant trends from the 2026 Industry Snapshot. 

1. A Growing Profession Experiencing Ongoing Concentration 

The ranks of registered representatives climbed for the fourth year in a row to 639,723 in 2025, a 5% increase since 2021. The profession expanded in every state, and growth is now an established trend, with 40,000-45,000 people entering the industry annually following a period of contraction starting in 2015.

At the same time, industry concentration continues, likely driven by competitive pressures, efficiencies in scale through technology investments, regulatory costs and succession planning. The number of FINRA member firms fell roughly 6% to 3,184 in 2025. Small firms accounted for most of the decline, dropping to 2,832 from 3,048. Meanwhile, mid-size firms grew to 197 from 185, and large firms held relatively steady at 155. 

Behind the overall contraction in member firms there is significant industry turnover: while 163 firms exited FINRA membership, 98 new firms joined, all entering at the small-firm level. Firms also continue to grow larger, as measured by the number of affiliated registered representatives. Since 2021, firms are nearly 12% larger, with 203 affiliated registered reps on average. 

As the industry’s structure evolves, it continues to post strong results. Total revenue reached $776.8 billion in 2025, nearly doubling from $398.5 billion in 2021. The growth is across all firm categories, reflecting market conditions and operational efficiencies.

2. Dual Registration Becomes the Norm

Dually-registered representatives now dominate the industry, suggesting that customers value having access to brokerage and investment advisory services through a single arrangement. As of year-end 2025, more than half of FINRA-registered representatives—331,802 individuals—maintained dual registration as both registered representatives and investment adviser representatives. Meanwhile, 94,562 professionals held investment adviser-only registrations, while 307,921 held broker-dealer only registrations. 

The net flows in registrations reveal a trend towards dual registration. In 2025, 11,294 broker-dealer-only registered representatives added investment adviser registration to become dual-registered by year’s end. By contrast, 1,800 dual-registered representatives dropped to broker-dealer-only status in 2025, and 3,545 transitioned to investment adviser-only registration.  

3. Equity Trading Continues to Grow, Including After Hours

2025 was yet another record-breaking year for U.S. stock trading, as strong retail investor participation, market volatility and other factors continued to drive volumes higher. Trading activity continued to migrate off exchanges. Extended-hours trading activity varies across non-exchange hours but represents a growing percentage of total volume. Overnight trading volume remains limited, although it trended upward in late 2025. 

The average daily trading dollar volume in exchange-listed (National Market System or NMS) stocks reached $828 billion per day last year, up more than a third from 2022. The average number of daily trades rose by close to 60% to nearly 112 billion over the same period. Much of this trading is now occurring off-exchange. When measured by transactions and dollar volume, most stock trading still occurs on exchanges. Yet when measured by number of shares traded, over-the-counter volume eclipsed on-exchange volume for the first time. 

Meanwhile, extended-hours trading continues to grow, representing about a fifth of total trading activity last year. Most of this trading occurs during closing auction trades and post-close trading, while pre-open trading (8-9:30 a.m. ET) and early morning trading (4-8 a.m. ET) each hovered around 1% of total dollar volumes. Overnight and non-business day trading still represent a small fraction of overall volume. 

4. Listed Options Trading Reaches Record Levels

Listed options transaction volume has grown significantly, with average daily transaction volume climbing to 8.4 million in 2025—a 50% increase since 2023. Meanwhile, average daily dollar volume reached $37.7 billion in 2025, up from $21.6 billion in 2023. Individual customer accounts represent a small proportion of the overall options dollar volume traded but a significant share of the transactions. Notably, zero days to expiration options—contracts that expire on the same trading day—accounted for roughly 30% of all options transactions in each month of 2025. 

As these trends underscore, the people, firms and structure of our industry continue to change. You may access the full 2026 Industry Snapshot here. We hope that its findings offer helpful insights to investors, member firms and other interested parties that inform continued dialogue and engagement. 

Mihael Aloni, Linda Grote, Mark Kaplan, Jianzhu Li, David Llanos, Nicholas Reese, and Harvey Westbrook contributed to this analysis.