Individuals who are considering starting their own, independent RIA firm will need to have the Series 66 license for registered investment advisors. The Series 66 license is accepted by the state regulators provided the individual has a valid Series 7 license. A valid Series 7 license means that the license has been registered with a broker dealer firm within the last two years.
The Series 7 license is a broker dealer license and cannot be registered with the independent registered investment advisor firm. Rather, the state regulators will confirm that the Series 7 license is still valid at the time the individual is registering their Series 66 license with the independent registered investment advisor firm.
An individual can schedule to take the Series 66 license by either completing a Form U10 on the FINRA.org website; or, alternatively a Form U4 can be filed on the CRD system. Either way, a 120-day window will be opened for the individual to schedule to take this exam.
The Series 66 exam fee is $155 and consists of 100 multiple choice questions and 10 pretest questions. In order to pass the Series 66 exam, the individual must correctly answer at least 73 of the 100 scored questions. The individual is allowed 150 minutes to complete the exam.
For additional information about the Series 66 license for registered investment advisors, click here for the Series 66 Study Guide offered by the North American Securities Administrators Association (nasaa.org).
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