How to Become a Financial Advisor After a Career Change (2026)

How to become a financial advisor, in short: you typically need a bachelor’s degree, a registered firm to work for, and securities licenses that match what you’ll sell or advise on. The exams are the cheap part. FINRA, the industry’s self-regulator, lists $100 for the SIE, $395 for the Series 7, and $177 for the Series 66, which is $672 in exam fees for the route that Bank of America’s trainee program lists. What the exam pages don’t say is what comes after. In June 2023, InvestmentNews reported a Cerulli Associates finding that “the failure rate among rookie advisors was more than 72%,” without defining “rookie” or “failure.”

That number, however it’s defined, matters more to a career changer than any exam table, because you’re the one giving up a salary to find out which side of it you land on. This guide covers the two routes in, what each exam is and what it costs, how long it takes before you’re self-sustaining, what advisors earn (the median hides a very wide range), and what is and isn’t known about starting at 30, 40, or 50. It covers the U.S. If you’re still comparing careers, our overview of second career ideas sets this one beside ten others. This is career information, not investment advice.

Key Takeaways

• Most routes need a bachelor’s degree (BLS calls it typical), a sponsoring or registering firm, and licenses that depend on the products you’ll sell. The employer-sponsored route is the SIE, Series 7, and Series 66 ($672 in fees); the investment-adviser-only route is the Series 65 ($187).
• The exams cost hundreds of dollars and take months. Training takes longer: one large firm’s program page describes about 13 months including three of licensing, then an advisor stage it lists at one to four years.
• Cerulli reported a rookie-advisor failure rate above 72% (via InvestmentNews, 2023), though the article doesn’t define the terms. It also found only 15% of rookies had financial advising as a first career.
• BLS puts the May 2025 median at $105,070, but the lowest 10% earned under $50,190 and the highest 10% over $357,020. Commissions and production bonuses are in those figures, so how pay is built is likely one factor; BLS doesn’t break the spread down.
• You can pass the SIE on your own for $100, with no firm sponsoring you, and the result is valid for four years. It’s a cheap, reversible first step.

How to Become a Financial Advisor: Requirements and Steps

BLS says personal financial advisors “typically need a bachelor’s degree to enter the occupation,” with no related work experience required, and that on-the-job training “usually lasts for more than a year” (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook). Licensing is where it gets specific: advisors who buy or sell securities or insurance, or give specific investment advice, “may need a combination of licenses that varies with the products they sell.”

Titles are slippery. “Financial advisor,” “financial planner,” and “wealth manager” often describe overlapping work, so look at the licenses a job requires and how it pays, not the label.

Can you do it without a degree?

The exams don’t require one: FINRA says the SIE is open to anyone 18 or older, and its Series 65 page lists no prerequisites. But BLS lists a bachelor’s as typical for the job, and the CFP designation (covered below) requires one. We didn’t find a national figure for how many working advisors lack a degree. The realistic read: it’s possible to pass the exams without a degree, but a degree shapes who will hire and sponsor you, so ask each employer whether it accepts professional experience in its place.

Which Route Fits You: Employer-Sponsored or Independent

There are two real starting points. A firm hires you and sponsors your licenses, or you pursue the investment-adviser-only route and build toward fee-based work. They aren’t ranked. They trade cash up front against patience and sales, and the heavily production-based end of that spectrum is the one our real estate agent guide describes.

A rough decision rule: if you need a paycheck during training and don’t mind prospecting, look at employer programs. If you can fund a slow start and already have people who’d hire you, the Series 65 route is cheaper in exam fees if you pay them yourself, but check your state securities regulator for what registering as an adviser representative requires where you live. If you’re not sure, take the SIE first, because it doesn’t commit you to either.

The Licenses and What They Cost

The three FINRA exams most career changers meet cost $100 (SIE), $395 (Series 7), and $177 (Series 66), which is $672 in fees, and the SIE is the one exam FINRA says explicitly needs no firm association.

The Series 7 qualifies a person for the solicitation, purchase, and sale of all securities products, per FINRA, with a limit on municipal securities. The Series 66 is a NASAA exam, administered by FINRA, that qualifies you as both a broker-dealer representative and an investment adviser representative. The Series 65 is NASAA’s investment-adviser exam. State rules vary on which you need, so confirm with your state securities regulator and your employer.

That table holds the most useful fact in this guide for someone still employed: the SIE needs no sponsor, costs $100, and a passing result is valid for four years, according to FINRA. Passing it doesn’t get you a job. It does tell you, for the price of a nice dinner, whether you can handle this kind of material before you resign anything. We didn’t find a neutral pass rate for any of these exams, and we’re not quoting figures from test-prep sellers, so plan for the possibility of a retake.

How Long Does It Take to Become a Financial Advisor?

Licensing takes months, and training takes longer. BLS describes on-the-job training that “usually lasts for more than a year,” and the one large-firm page we could read in detail gives a similar shape.

That’s one firm’s recruiting page, so treat it as an example of the shape, not an industry average. The page also advertises “base salary and unlimited earning potential” without stating an amount, and it doesn’t say who pays for exams or study time. We found no national figure for trainee pay or for how long it takes a new advisor to cover their own costs. Ask each firm directly, and ask for it in writing.

How Hard Is It to Become a Financial Advisor? The Number Most Guides Leave Out

The exams have published formats and fees. The harder question is what happens to rookies overall. InvestmentNews, reporting a Cerulli Associates study, wrote in June 2023 that “the failure rate among rookie advisors was more than 72%,” and that headcount “grew by just 2,579 advisors in 2022,” with new entrants “hardly offsetting retirements and trainee failures.”

Read that figure carefully. The article doesn’t define “rookie” or “failure,” and we couldn’t read Cerulli’s underlying report. “Trainee failures” could include people who never get licensed, so don’t read 72% as a statement about the years after licensing, or as a probability for you. Read it as a warning to plan for a harder path than the exam tables suggest. It also arrives alongside BLS’s own picture of a small, churning field: about 299,400 jobs in 2025, 1% projected growth from 2025 to 2035, and about 17,100 openings a year, most of which “result from replacing workers who transfer to other occupations or leave the labor force.” (Some career pages still quote a 10% growth projection from the 2024 to 2034 cycle. BLS’s current page says 1%.)

The same reporting says who the rookies are. “Just 15% of rookies report financial advisor as their first career,” and only 43% “have previously worked in financial services.” So most rookies had another career first. And 64% were recruited through referrals, which is an argument for talking to working advisors early.

What to do with the failure figure:

1. Ask any firm for its trainee retention rate and how clients get assigned in the first year. A firm that won’t answer is telling you something.
2. Plan runway generously. Use the formula in the age section below.

What Financial Advisors Earn, and What the Median Hides

BLS’s May 2025 median for personal financial advisors is $105,070, about $50.51 an hour. The lowest 10% earned under $50,190 and the highest 10% over $357,020.

Source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Personal Financial Advisors.

The spread is the story. For comparison, registered nurses (BLS) have a median of $97,550 and a 10th-to-90th range of about $68,940 to $137,470, a much tighter band. Advisor pay is built differently. BLS says advisors at financial services firms are “often paid a salary plus bonuses,” while those at planning firms or self-employed “either charge a flat fee or earn commissions for the financial products that they sell,” and the wage data include “commissions, incentive pay, and production bonuses.” BLS doesn’t say what drives the spread, but with commissions, incentive pay, and production bonuses in the figures, how pay is built is likely one factor, alongside experience and the size of a client book. About 65% of advisor jobs are in securities and related investment firms, with credit intermediation at 16% and insurance carriers at 3%.

What BLS doesn’t tell you: what a first-year trainee earns, how big a book you’d need to be at the median, or whether a given figure is revenue or take-home. Treat $105,070 as the middle of the whole field, not an offer. If you want a licensed career with a narrower range, see our guide on how to become a nurse.

Credentials Later: The CFP and When It Matters

You don’t need a credential to start, and the CFP is optional later. It’s also slower than any exam above, because its clock is measured in years of experience. The CFP Board’s certification process has four parts:

• Education: coursework through a CFP Board Registered Program, plus a bachelor’s degree or higher in any discipline (the degree can be finished within five years of passing the exam).
• Exam: 170 multiple-choice questions in two 3-hour sessions on one day.
• Experience: 6,000 hours of professional experience related to the financial planning process, or 4,000 hours of apprenticeship experience that meets additional requirements.
• Ethics: an ethics declaration, a background check, and a commitment to act as a fiduciary, putting the client’s best interests first.

The practical point for a career changer is the hours. At roughly 2,000 hours a year of full-time work (our assumption), 4,000 to 6,000 hours is two to three years, so the CFP is something you earn while employed, not before you start. We’re not recommending a prep provider; which programs count as registered is the CFP Board’s call, so start from its site rather than an ad.

Is It Too Late to Become a Financial Advisor at 30, 40, or 50?

Age isn’t a licensing barrier. The SIE sets only a minimum age (18), and neither BLS nor the FINRA pages we read set a maximum. The constraint at 40 or 50 is runway: the first years can be lower-income and sales-heavy, and the reported rookie failure rate, whatever its exact definition, is a reason to plan for a slow start. The same data cuts the other way: only 15% of rookies had financial advising as a first career, so a prior career is common among rookies.

We couldn’t find a national figure for the age people enter the field, and we’d distrust any page that quotes one without a source. What exists is conversation. A thread in r/FinancialCareers asked whether becoming a financial advisor at 41 is too late and drew about 60 comments, and a newer r/FinancialCareers thread asks about financial planning at 40. In an r/CFP thread from a 29-year-old considering a switch, the preview text shows a comment describing one possible ladder: “1st year you will focus on getting your licenses. Year 2 you will try for a promotion to Investment Consultant dealing with clients under $250k.” A Bogleheads forum thread, “Contemplating career change to CFP”, asks a similar question about the CFP route. We’re citing titles and the preview text search results show, not summarizing whole threads, and individual posters describe individual firms. Read the replies for what people say about the first two years, not just the encouraging ones.

Here’s an order of operations that keeps the downside small:

1. Pass the SIE first. It needs no sponsor and stays valid for four years.
2. Check the firm and the people. FINRA BrokerCheck and the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure site let you look up firms and individual advisors, so look up a firm before you interview.
3. Ask how the job pays, in writing: salary plus bonus, commission, or fee-based, and for how long a salary lasts. Also ask which licenses it requires; BLS says they vary with the products an advisor sells.
4. Price your runway. Months until you expect to cover your own costs, times monthly expenses, minus any trainee pay, plus exam and course costs. The firm’s own numbers fill in the middle term, and no national figure can.
5. Don’t resign until a sponsor is confirmed. The Series 7 needs one.

Our guides to career change at 30, career change at 40, and career change at 50 cover how age, savings, and risk interact.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to become a financial advisor?

Licensing takes months, and BLS says training “usually lasts for more than a year.” One large firm’s program page lists about 13 months including three months of licensing, then an advisor stage of one to four years.

Can you become a financial advisor without a degree?

The exams don’t require one, but BLS says advisors “typically need a bachelor’s degree” and the CFP requires one. Ask each employer whether it accepts professional experience in place of a degree.

How hard is it to become a financial advisor?

Cerulli’s reported rookie failure rate is above 72% (via InvestmentNews), though the source doesn’t define it. Most rookies, 64%, were recruited through referrals, so talking to working advisors early is worth it.

Is being a financial advisor a good career?

It depends on your tolerance for variable pay. BLS’s median is $105,070, but the range runs from under $50,190 to over $357,020, and growth is projected at 1% from 2025 to 2035. Test the work with the SIE before you decide.

Do you need to be good at sales?

It depends on how the job pays: BLS describes salary plus bonuses at firms, and flat fees or commissions at planning firms and for the self-employed. Ask any employer what share of your pay depends on production.

Is Financial Advising Your Next Career?

The exams are the easy part to price. The harder questions come before you resign: which route fits your savings, how the job pays, and whether you can fund a slow start. Take the SIE first. If you want a licensed career with a narrower pay range, compare nursing, or see our full second-career comparison, which sets financial advising against ten other paths on cost, timeline, and pay.