Choosing an Advisor: Types, Fees, and How to Check

Someone's card says financial advisor. In some provinces that word promises you nothing on its own, because those provinces set no exam behind it, no licence, and nobody to supervise the person who printed it. Selling you an investment is regulated everywhere, though. Anyone who puts you into a mutual fund, a stock or a bond has to be registered with a provincial or territorial securities regulator, and you can look that registration up before you move any money. That leaves you two questions you can answer before you ever sit down with them. What are they registered to sell you? And who pays them?

Key takeaways

• In some provinces anyone can print financial advisor on a card. In others they've got rules to meet first. The title on its own won't tell you which one you're looking at.
• Whoever sells you a mutual fund, a stock or a bond has to be registered with a provincial or territorial securities regulator, wherever you live. That's the check you can run everywhere.
• If you're in Ontario, anyone using the Financial Planner or Financial Advisor title needs an approved credential. That doesn't mean the regulator is watching how you get treated. If you ever need to complain about conduct, you take it to the body that granted their credential.
• How they're paid changes what they're likely to put in front of you. A salary doesn't take that pull away from the person advising you. It points it at their employer's products instead of at a commission, so ask which one you're in before you sign anything.

Can anyone call themselves a financial advisor in Canada?

In some provinces, yes. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada says that in certain provinces anyone may call themselves a financial advisor or planner, and that in other provinces you get regulations requiring them to meet certain requirements before they use those titles.¹ So you can be handed two identical business cards by two people held to completely different standards, and neither of them is breaking a rule. Which of the two you're sitting across from depends on where you live, and nothing printed on it will tell you.

The selling is regulated everywhere. By law, anyone selling you mutual funds, stocks or bonds has to complete training and register with a provincial or territorial securities regulator.¹ So even where the title tells you nothing, you can still find out whether the person across the table from you is registered to sell you the thing they're recommending.

Ontario put rules on the titles

If you're in Ontario, you can see what those rules look like once a province writes them down. Anyone who wants to use a Financial Planner or Financial Advisor title on you, or a title close enough to be confused with one, has to hold a credential approved by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario.² Before they can say those words to you, they've had to meet set education and examination standards, and an approved credentialing body supervises them while they work with you. That body can take the titles away.²

The near-misses count too, and the test is whether the words Financial Planner or Financial Advisor turn up in the title you're handed at all. Senior Financial Planner, Qualified Financial Planner and Financial Wealth Advisor are the regulator's own examples, so if you meet a variation on those words, you can expect the same approved credential behind it.²

One limit is wider than any of that, and it is easy to miss. The rules reach those two titles and nothing else. Somebody in Ontario can advise you without using either word, and then they need no approved credential at all.² You can be advised by a person standing outside the title rules entirely, and they haven't broken a rule to get there.

That leaves the credentials search doing a narrow job for you. It lists the people holding a credential for one of the two titles,⁴ and it tells you nothing about what the person in front of you is allowed to sell you. The registration answers that one for you.¹

The regulator also sets out what it will not do for you. It cannot oversee the conduct of the person using the title on you, and where that person holds an approved credential, it cannot investigate your complaint about how they behaved.² So a credential tells you the person cleared a bar. It doesn't tell you the regulator is watching how you get treated.

You do still have a complaints route, and it runs through the credentialing body rather than the regulator. Whoever you're dealing with, if they hold an approved credential, they're subject to that body's complaints and discipline process.² If you want to complain about dishonesty, harassment or unprofessional conduct, you're sent to the Check Credentials Tool to find which body granted their credential, and you take your complaint there.³ The regulator wants a different one from you, which is somebody using the title with no approved credential at all.³

Paying for the advice

You pay in different ways depending on what you're getting. There's an hourly fee if they help you build a plan, a commission or a trading fee if they buy something on your behalf, and a percentage based on the value of the assets they manage for you.¹ One person can be paid by more than one of these, and you can ask which one you're in before you sign anything.

Most advisors aim to give good advice, and two different pressures act on them.¹ If yours is paid by commission, they have an incentive to encourage you to invest where they'll earn more. If yours is on salary, they may have an incentive to promote the products and services their employer offers.¹ So a salary doesn't remove the incentive. It points the incentive somewhere else, and you can ask about that as easily as you'd ask about a commission.

Where you meet an advisor

Each kind of firm employs people who sell a different range of things, so you narrow the list of possible answers by choosing the door you walk through.¹

None of that is a criticism of anybody. The person at your branch is working from what your bank carries, and you'll get more out of the conversation knowing that before you decide their advice was narrow.

The parts that depend on you

Your province. It sets whether the title you're reading carries a standard. If you're outside Ontario and you want to know what your own province requires, your provincial or territorial securities regulator is the body that answers it, and that same regulator is the one a registration is checked against.¹

Whether you want a plan or a product. A financial planner is a type of financial advisor who helps you build a plan for your long-term goals, and an advisor isn't necessarily a planner.¹ In Ontario the split is drawn sharply. If you're hiring a planner, you're asking for breadth across estate, tax, retirement and investment planning, finance management and insurance. If you're hiring an advisor, you're asking for technical knowledge of at least one common investment product.² That's Ontario's line rather than the country's, and it's still a good way to work out which one you're shopping for.

Whether your money is already in a plan at work. If your retirement savings sit in a group plan, you didn't pick the person who administers it, and your most useful conversation is often with them rather than with somebody new.

How you'd rather pay. Paying by the hour for a plan and doing the buying yourself is a different arrangement from handing over your accounts, and you can say which one you want at the first meeting.

None of these checks tell you whether the person is any good at the job. You can find out that they're allowed to sell it, and that they cleared a bar to use the title. Past that you're relying on the questions you ask, and on how much they want to know about you before they recommend anything.

Starting from where you are

Maya, 24, first real job, a few thousand saved. She doesn't need a planner yet. The person she'll meet works at her own branch, and she wants one thing settled before she agrees to anything, which is what they're registered to sell. If your savings are still small and the only person you've met works where you bank, that question settles most of it for you.

Nadia and Theo, with a group plan at work that neither of them picked. Their retirement savings sit inside it, and neither has ever asked it a thing. A call to whoever administers that plan costs them nothing, and it comes before hiring anybody new. If your own savings sit in a plan at work, that's your first call too, and you haven't picked that person either. "The Same Page," the night the two of them stop doing the arithmetic separately.

Joanne, 61, with a retirement date she can finally put a year on. The help she needs is the wide kind, so the planner and advisor distinction does real work for her. In Ontario the credentials tool tells her which of the two credentials the person in front of her holds.² If you're near retiring yourself and somebody has started talking to you about taking your money out, that's the distinction you want settled before you go any further. "The Question That Keeps Her Up," Joanne and the part of retirement nobody taught her.

How do I check an advisor's registration?

Start with the registration. Anyone selling you mutual funds, stocks or bonds has to be registered with a provincial or territorial securities regulator. The federal consumer agency links to the National Registration Search from its page on choosing an advisor, so you can run your own check before you ever sit down with anybody.¹

Then look for discipline. You get four places listed for complaints or disciplinary action. They're the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization, the Canadian Securities Administrators, the Better Business Bureau, and the Autorité des marchés financiers if you're in Quebec.¹ Three of those are regulators and one is a business-review organization, so check what each of them covers before you weigh what it tells you.

If you're in Ontario, run the credentials check as well. It answers a different question from registration, and the two together tell you more than either does alone.⁴

Then ask them the questions. What's your education and experience? Are you registered with a securities regulator, and are you licensed to sell anything else? Have you ever been disciplined by a regulator, and are you under investigation now?¹ Ontario adds two more you can use. What are you licensed to sell, and are you bound by a code of conduct?² Then there's how they're paid, how often you'll meet, and references from previous clients.¹

If that feels like a lot to say out loud to somebody being pleasant to you, the federal guidance is on your side. It suggests taking notes, comparing what everyone told you, taking your time, and not deciding right away.¹

Where we come out

If you only need one thing done, a plan written or a single account opened, an hourly arrangement keeps what you're buying visible and ends when the work does. Once you've got a real amount of money in motion, a retirement date coming, a business, a property, the number of things you need help with widens, and so does the case for somebody whose knowledge reaches past one product.² Either way, the registration is the check that applies in every province.¹

Paying by the hour and paying a percentage both have people who prefer them. If you'd rather see exactly what you bought, the hourly arrangement shows you that. If you'd rather have somebody who stays involved, the percentage buys that instead, and the cost of it is the price of the arrangement.

You don't have to settle any of this in one meeting. Before the first one, though, you can already find out who's registered to sell you what, and who's paying them.

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Common questions

Can I check whether my financial advisor is registered?+

Yes, and that's the check that works wherever you live. Anybody selling you investments has to register with a provincial or territorial securities regulator first, so there's always a registration for you to go and look for. You'll find the National Registration Search linked from the federal consumer agency's page on choosing an advisor.

Does a financial planner have to be licensed in Canada?+

It depends where you are, and licensing and title are two different things. Ontario's the clearest case for you. A credential approved by your provincial regulator is compulsory there before anybody uses the Financial Planner or Financial Advisor title on you. Selling you an investment is the separate question, and that one's always got to be registered.

Is the financial advisor at my bank a real advisor?+

They have to be registered to sell you the investments your bank carries, and you can check that the same way you'd check anyone else. What a branch can't do is offer you something it doesn't stock, so ask early what's on their list. That's a limit of the job rather than a judgement on the person doing it.

Who do I complain to about a financial advisor in Ontario?+

It depends what happened to you. If your complaint is about conduct and the person holds an approved credential, it goes to the credentialing body, and the Check Credentials Tool is how you'll work out which one. If instead you find somebody using the title with no approved credential, that's the complaint your provincial regulator wants.

What if my advisor is in Quebec?+

If your advisor is in Quebec, you've got a provincial regulator of your own, the Autorité des marchés financiers, and the federal consumer agency lists it among the places you can check for complaints or disciplinary action. Registration doesn't change for you either, because whoever sells you an investment has to be registered with their own provincial or territorial regulator.

Sources

1. FCACChoosing a financial advisor. Who qualifies as a financial advisor, checking registration through the National Registration Search, the four places listed for disciplinary checks, how you pay, the incentive note, where advisors are found, and the questions to ask. Accessed 2026-09-07.
2. FSRAWhat to know before working with a Financial Planner or Financial Advisor. Ontario's credential requirement, the Planner and Advisor distinction, similar titles, what FSRA cannot do, and its statement that advisors are not required to use either title in order to give advice. Expand "Common questions", and within it "The financial services professional I'm working with doesn't seem to have an approved credential": those answers are collapsed on load, and a plain fetch of this page does not contain them. Accessed 2026-09-07.
3. FSRASubmit a complaint to FSRA. Where a conduct complaint about a credentialed title user goes, and what FSRA takes directly. Accessed 2026-09-07.
4. FSRACheck Credentials Tool. Ontario's public search of approved Financial Planner and Financial Advisor credentials, and its note that absence from the list is not a judgement on qualifications. Accessed 2026-09-07.

Educational, not financial advice. Figures verified against primary sources on the date shown.

See it in a story: "Protect the Plan," where Maya works out which fears are worth paying somebody else to carry. For what happens to your money once it's invested, see how investment income is taxed, or browse the investing hub.