Australia's Financial Advisers by the Numbers

The short version: Australia's public financial registers list 73,822 professionals — 15,579 financial advisers, 47,359 credit representatives, 6,456 financial-services licensees and 4,428 mortgage brokers. New South Wales has the largest headcount, but Victoria is denser per capita, and the Sydney-versus-Melbourne race for advisers is a near dead heat. This page is our own count, built from the ASIC registers — updated when the register refreshes.

The workforce, by profession

Most people picture a "financial adviser" when they think of the industry, but advisers are a minority of the regulated financial workforce. Credit representatives — the people authorised to arrange loans and credit — are by far the largest group.

Source: ASIC Financial Advisers Register, Credit Representatives and AFS Licensees via data.gov.au. Snapshot April 2026.

Why there are so few advisers

The 15,579 advisers on today's register represent an industry roughly half the size it once was. Industry trackers put the peak near 28,000 advisers in 2019; the number has fallen by close to half since. Two forces drove the exodus: the fallout from the 2018 Hayne Royal Commission, which reset how advice is charged and supervised, and the FASEA education and exam standards, which pushed thousands of older advisers into early retirement rather than re-qualification.

That collapse is the backdrop to a stubborn problem: the cost of personal advice has climbed as the workforce shrank, leaving a widely-discussed "advice gap" for ordinary Australians. The per-capita numbers below put a geographic shape on that gap.

State distribution and per-capita density

Headcount follows population — NSW and Victoria together hold more than half the national total. But density tells a more interesting story. Measured per 100,000 residents, Victoria (322) edges out NSW (305), while the Northern Territory (73) has barely a fifth of Victoria's coverage — a genuine advice gap for remote Australians.

Population: ABS National, state and territory population (2024). Density = professionals ÷ population × 100,000.

Where advisers actually cluster

Zoom into financial advisers specifically and the concentration is stark. The two big CBDs dominate, and they are almost tied: Sydney (1,762) and Melbourne (1,740) are separated by a rounding error, together holding roughly 22.5% of every adviser in the country.

Financial advisers only. Ranked by registered suburb.

Licensee concentration

Under Australia's licensing model every adviser operates under an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) held by a licensee. The market is fragmented — about 3,358 distinct businesses appear across the registers — but a handful of dealer groups carry a large share of advisers. The 10 biggest licensees below account for 20.1% of all financial advisers.

Top 10 licensees by financial-adviser headcount.

Methodology

This is a first-party count, not a re-publication of someone else's statistics. We aggregate the raw public records that Australia's financial regulators publish through data.gov.au — the ASIC Financial Advisers Register, the Credit Representatives list and the AFS Licensees register — into a single 73,822-row dataset, then compute the counts, shares and densities shown above. Each record carries a professional type, name, licensee business, suburb, state and postcode.

• Snapshot date: April 2026. Registers change daily as professionals join, leave or move; figures are a point-in-time count.
• Address basis: counts use registered business address, not client-service location.
• De-duplication: a professional authorised under multiple registers can appear more than once; totals are of register entries, not unique individuals.
• Population: ABS National, state and territory population (2024), used only for the per-capita column.

Frequently asked questions

How many financial advisers are there in Australia?

The ASIC Financial Advisers Register lists about 15,579 current financial advisers. Counting the broader financial-services workforce — credit representatives, AFS licensees and mortgage brokers — the ASIC registers hold roughly 73,822 professionals in total (April 2026 snapshot).

Which state has the most financial advisers?

New South Wales has the most professionals overall (25,867), ahead of Victoria (22,399). But per head of population the ranking flips: Victoria has about 322 professionals per 100,000 residents versus 305 in NSW. The Northern Territory is the least served at roughly 73 per 100,000.

Where are most financial advisers based?

Financial advisers cluster in the two biggest CBDs, and it is almost a dead heat: Sydney has 1,762 registered advisers and Melbourne 1,740. Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide follow well behind.

Who are the largest licensees?

By adviser headcount the largest single licensee is Morgans Financial Limited (435 advisers). The top 10 licensees account for 20.1% of all advisers, but the market is fragmented — there are about 3,358 distinct licensee businesses across the registers.

Where does this data come from?

It is a first-party count built from Australia's public financial registers published via data.gov.au — the ASIC Financial Advisers Register, Credit Representatives and AFS Licensees. Figures reflect each professional's registered business address, which is not necessarily where they serve clients.

Related: find a professional in our directory of financial advisers, mortgage brokers and credit representatives, or explore our 204+ Australian money calculators.