Notes on the SEBI adviser and analyst framework
Everything here is read off SEBI's own circulars and FAQs, with the document and clause named at the foot of each piece. Where we have not read a figure in the primary text ourselves, we say so and leave it out.
Both registrations
Applies to advisers and analysts
The framework both registrations share: what changed, what it costs, what you may charge.
IA and RA
buildwright.co.in
What changed for IA and RA registration on 16 December 2024
SEBI rewrote the entry requirements for both registrations in one go. Net worth is gone, a part-time category exists, and BSE now sits between you and SEBI.
7 min read
IA and RA
buildwright.co.in
Investment Adviser or Research Analyst: which one covers what you actually do
The line is not seniority or scale. It is whether you are advising a specific client on their situation, or publishing a recommendation to whoever reads it.
8 min read
IA and RA
buildwright.co.in
What IA and RA registration costs, and what those figures leave out
SEBI's own fees are small enough to surprise people. The deposit, the enlistment fee and the annual audit are where the real number sits.
6 min read
IA and RA
buildwright.co.in
What a registered adviser or analyst can charge a client
There is a hard rupee ceiling per family per year, an alternative percentage mode, and rules about how far ahead you may bill. All of it applies only to individual and HUF clients.
7 min read
IA and RA
buildwright.co.in
The compliance year that starts the day your registration is granted
An annual audit inside six months, adverse findings filed by 31 October, a segregation certificate, five years of records, and a website that publishes your own audit status.
8 min read
IA and RA
buildwright.co.in
Which NISM certificate you and your team actually need
SEBI names the exact exam for the compliance officer, sets a deadline for everyone else who touches research or advice, and that deadline has already passed.
5 min read
Track specific
One registration only
Rules that bite on one side of the framework and not the other.
Investment Adviser
buildwright.co.in
The 300-client line: when an individual adviser has to become a company
Cross 300 client agreements on any single day, or ₹3 crore of fees in a financial year, and the registration you hold stops being the right one.
5 min read
Research Analyst
buildwright.co.in
What counts as a model portfolio, and the rules that come with one
A list of stocks a Research Analyst likes is not a model portfolio. The moment it carries weightages, a whole framework of factsheets, benchmarking and audit attaches to it.
5 min read
Research Analyst
buildwright.co.in
A person outside India issuing research on Indian securities: what regulation 4 actually requires
The regulation is short and the straightforward case is settled. The harder question, whether your own RA registration survives a move abroad, is one SEBI has not answered in writing.
6 min read
Investment Adviser
buildwright.co.in
The wall SEBI builds between an individual Investment Adviser and distribution
Four separate rules keep an individual adviser from also selling the products they recommend. None of them are about scale. They apply from client one.
6 min read
Working out whether any of this applies to you?
Tell us what you do for whom, and we'll tell you which registration it falls under and what the documentation looks like.