BrokerCheck is a free public research tool operated by FINRA, the self-regulatory organization for the brokerage industry, that publishes the registration and disciplinary records of broker-dealer firms and their registered representatives. Drawing on the industry's Central Registration Depository (CRD), a BrokerCheck report shows whether a person or firm is licensed to sell securities, which qualification exams they have passed, where they have worked, and any reportable disclosure events — including customer disputes, regulatory sanctions, terminations for cause, and certain criminal and financial events.
BrokerCheck
BrokerCheck is FINRA's free public database at brokercheck.finra.org where anyone can look up a broker or brokerage firm — licenses, exams passed, employment history, and disclosure events like customer complaints and regulatory actions.
Reviewed by
Steven Fox, CFP®, EA
Updated
Quick Summary
- BrokerCheck (brokercheck.finra.org) is FINRA's free background-check tool for brokers (registered representatives) and broker-dealer firms.
- A broker's report shows current registrations, exams passed, years of employment history, and disclosure events.
- Disclosure events include customer disputes, regulatory actions, terminations, and certain criminal or financial matters such as bankruptcies.
- BrokerCheck covers the brokerage side of the industry; investment advisers appear in the SEC's IAPD database, and the two systems link to each other.
- Checking BrokerCheck takes about two minutes and should happen before any money moves — not after something goes wrong.
Definition
Advanced Explanation
BrokerCheck's raw material is the CRD system — the registration database that state regulators and FINRA have shared for decades. When a broker registers, changes firms, or becomes the subject of a reportable event, the filing lands in CRD, and BrokerCheck publishes the public subset. That lineage explains both its power and its quirks: the data is official and hard to scrub, but it's also self-reported by firms under regulatory obligation, and disputes over what should appear (brokers can petition to expunge certain customer-dispute records through arbitration) are a long-running controversy. Reading a report well means going past the count of disclosures into the detail pages: an unproven complaint that was denied and closed reads very differently from a regulatory action with findings and a fine.
The other thing to understand is the boundary. BrokerCheck covers people and firms in the broker-dealer world. Investment adviser firms and their representatives live in the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (IAPD) database instead — and because so many professionals are dually registered, the two systems cross-reference: search a name in either and you'll be pointed to whatever records exist in both. If a person selling securities appears in neither system, stop — that's the profile of an unregistered seller, which is where the worst investor outcomes concentrate.
Used in a Sentence
“A two-minute BrokerCheck search showed the "senior retirement specialist" had been fired by two firms and barred from the industry the year before — facts that never made it into his seminar slides.”
How It Works
Go to brokercheck.finra.org, type a name or firm, and open the report. For an individual you'll see a summary — current registration status, employing firm, exams, and a disclosure count — with detail pages behind each item and a downloadable full report. For a firm you'll see its registration, ownership, and the firm-level disciplinary history.
A hypothetical example of what the details change: suppose "Gloria," 66, is deciding whether to move her $400,000 rollover to a broker her neighbor recommends. His BrokerCheck report shows two disclosures. Opening them, she finds one is a 2009 customer dispute, denied and closed with no action — arguably noise. The other is a recent regulatory suspension for unsuitable recommendations to retirees, with a fine and findings — signal, and directly relevant to her situation. The headline "2 disclosures" told her almost nothing; ten minutes in the detail pages told her everything she needed.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Free, fast, and official — registration data and disciplinary records straight from the regulatory system, not marketing copy.
- Employment history alone is revealing: frequent firm-hopping or terminations show up plainly.
- Cross-links with the SEC's adviser database, so one search surfaces a dually registered professional's full regulatory footprint.
Cons
- Only covers the brokerage world — insurance-only agents, coaches, and other advice-adjacent sellers won't appear at all.
- Disclosure records require interpretation, and some customer-dispute records get expunged through arbitration, so the file may understate history.
- A clean report is a floor, not a recommendation — it verifies licensing, not skill, ethics, or fit.
People Also Asked
Answers to the most frequently asked questions.
What shows up in a BrokerCheck report?
Registration status and the licenses and exams the broker holds, roughly a decade or more of employment history, and disclosure events — customer disputes, regulatory actions, terminations, and certain criminal or financial events like bankruptcies. Each disclosure has a detail page showing what was alleged, when, and how it resolved, which is where the real information lives.
Should I use BrokerCheck or the SEC's adviser database?
Use whichever matches the professional's role — BrokerCheck for brokers and brokerage firms, the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (adviserinfo.sec.gov) for investment advisers — but in practice it barely matters where you start, because the two systems link to each other and many professionals appear in both. What matters is that you run the search at all before money moves.
Does a disclosure on BrokerCheck mean the broker is dishonest?
Not by itself. Disclosures range from customer complaints that were investigated and denied, to personal bankruptcies, to regulatory actions with findings of misconduct. Open the detail: what happened, how recent, how it resolved, and whether there's a pattern across multiple events. Multiple recent, resolved-against-the-broker events — especially involving clients like you — are the profile to avoid.
Why isn't my financial advisor on BrokerCheck?
Most likely because they work on the advisory side rather than the brokerage side — check the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure database instead. If they appear in neither, they may be an insurance-only agent, a coach, or unregistered — in which case they cannot lawfully be paid for personalized investment advice, and you should ask exactly what they're licensed to do before proceeding.
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