Financial advisor salary and jobs in New York City

Advisor wages in the metro, which spans New York and New Jersey, sit above the US figure at every percentile BLS publishes, and they vary widely. One in four metro advisors earned less than $112,000¹ and one in four more than $302,290¹.

The metro median is 62%^1,3 above the US median. San Francisco has the next highest metro median, at $160,610¹. Because top earners pull the mean up, the median is the better guide to the middle of the range. None of these figures is adjusted for local prices or tells you what a given employer pays.

The BLS figures above come from Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), the current government survey of employers. Other New York City figures differ because they measure something else or use older data.

• Job posting averages. They report the base pay advertised in listings, often collected over several years, not a survey of people in the job.
• Self-reported pay. It often adds bonuses and other pay into one "total pay" figure, with no check on job title or area.
• Older BLS tables. Some, from as far back as the May 2019 survey, still circulate with a different advisor count. Until the May 2025 estimates, BLS showed many top wages only as a footnote marker (set at $239,200⁵ a year in the May 2025 files), so those tables show a blank or capped top end.
• The wrong area or baseline. Some pages label the New York state figure as the city, or measure the gap against their own national average instead of the BLS one.

The mean, the figure some sites call the average, was $217,170¹, higher than the median because the highest earners pull it up. These are survey figures for all employers that leave out self-employed advisors, not a forecast of what any one person will earn.

BLS counted 23,980¹ advisors in the metro and 21,550⁴ in all of New York state. That is not an error. The metro takes in 12⁶ New Jersey counties (Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex and Union⁶) and only 10⁶ New York counties (Bronx, Kings, Nassau, New York, Putnam, Queens, Richmond, Rockland, Suffolk and Westchester⁶, which include Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island).

Upstate New York and the Hudson Valley north of Putnam and Rockland sit outside it. Securities sales agents show the same pattern, with 59,450¹ in the metro against 55,630⁴ statewide.

BLS counted 23,980¹ advisors on payrolls in the metro, the most² of any US metro area. The area is 10⁶ New York and 12⁶ New Jersey counties, so every metro figure here covers Newark, Long Island and Westchester along with the five boroughs. The survey publishes no figure for Manhattan alone.

BLS lists the area under both states and publishes it only as a whole (May 2025 area definitions), so a figure labeled for Long Island or northern New Jersey alone did not come from the May 2025 survey.

BLS counts advisors separately from two related job groups, securities sales agents and insurance sales agents, and the metro's mix of the three is unusual.

Securities sales agents are where the metro stands apart. It has the most² of these jobs of any US metro, 59,450¹ against 24,080¹ in Chicago, the next largest, and about 2.5¹ for every advisor, against 1.8³ nationally. BLS defines the group as people who buy and sell securities or commodities in investment and trading firms or provide financial services to businesses and individuals, so it is wider than retail brokerage and its pay figures are not advisor pay. Insurance agents run the other way, a smaller share of local jobs than in the US.

These figures describe the local job market, not which starting role suits you. The insurance agent to advisor guide and the Series 7 sponsorship guide explain how each role connects to advising, and the career map shows the roles side by side.

Yes. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis put prices in the metro 12.6%⁷ above the US average in 2024, against 7.9%⁸ for New York state as a whole (Regional Price Parities). That describes what things cost here, not what any job pays, and the BLS wages on this page are not adjusted for it.

The steps depend on the role you want, not your county, and the New York state guide lists them in order with each fee. Giving advice for a fee usually starts with the Series 65, the state exam for advisers, which needs no firm sponsor (an employer that enrolls you for the exam), so you can pass it while still in your current job. New York, like most states, counts a pass only if you are registered within 2⁹ years of passing, so time it with your job search.

Selling securities adds the SIE (Securities Industry Essentials) entry exam and the Series 7, and the Series 7 needs a sponsoring brokerage firm. The second career guide covers what changes when you come from another field, and a support role such as paraplanner is another way into the work. What the two-state metro adds is which state registers you.

For exam prep, Advisor Train covers the Series 65 and the other state and FINRA exams (FINRA is the industry regulator for brokerage firms), and which licenses do financial advisors need? explains each one.

Do you need to register in both New York and New Jersey?

Only if your work reaches both states. Which state registers you depends on your role, where you work and where your clients are.

Because the job market crosses the Hudson, the state that registers you depends on where you work and whom you serve, not where you live. A New Jersey resident who advises clients from a Manhattan office registers with New York, and the two states set different agent fees and continuing education rules.

If you are registered in both states, you meet both sets of rules. Two of the places they differ are fees and continuing education.

So New Jersey's yearly continuing education applies to a representative registered there even though New York has none. Both states also require a state law exam for agents. New York's rule names the Series 63 or Series 66¹⁵, and New Jersey's names the Series 63, but NASAA says the Series 66 taken with a valid SIE and Series 7 counts as if you had passed both the Series 63 and 65.

Both states accept the Series 65, or the SIE, Series 7 and Series 66, for advice work. Passing an exam does not register you anywhere. Your firm usually files the application on Form U4, and the state adds its own steps (NASAA exam FAQ).

Every nearby metro has a lower advisor median than New York City, but two smaller ones have a higher share of advisor jobs. Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury runs at 3.60¹ times the US share and Trenton-Princeton at 2.59¹, against 1.47¹ for New York City.

The last column is the BLS relative standard error of each employment count. The higher it is, the rougher the count. Registration in the Connecticut and Pennsylvania metros follows the same test, so the state where you work and where your clients are decides it. Other metro pages are listed on all metro areas as they publish.

• Self-employed advisors are left out. OEWS counts wage and salary workers only. Nationally, the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook counts 299,400¹⁶ advisor jobs in 2025 including the self-employed, against 266,800³ in OEWS, so the metro likely has more advisors than the count above shows.
• These are estimates. In the metro the securities agent count has a relative standard error of 3.9%¹ and the insurance agent count 6%¹. The error for each advisor count is in the nearby metros table.
• No year to year comparisons. BLS warns against comparing survey years to track pay changes, so this page does not say whether pay rose or fell.