Financial Advisor Website Disclaimer: What to Include and Where to Put It
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or compliance advice. Requirements vary based on your registration status, state, and specific circumstances. Work with a qualified compliance attorney or your compliance officer for language specific to your situation.
A financial advisor website disclaimer is not optional. It's a regulatory requirement, a professional standard, and a meaningful trust signal when it's done well.
Nearly every advisor has one. Fewer fully understand what it's required to say, where it needs to appear, or why the placement and wording choices matter for both compliance and conversion.
This article covers the practical basics.
What a website disclaimer actually does
A disclaimer on an advisory website serves two related purposes.
First, it satisfies regulatory requirements. The SEC, state securities regulators, and FINRA have specific disclosure requirements for investment advisers and broker-dealers communicating with the public. Your website is a communication with the public. Disclaimers are part of how advisers demonstrate that their communications meet these standards.
Second, it establishes the nature of the content on your site. Your website contains information. That information is not investment advice. It's not a substitute for a personalized recommendation. The disclaimer makes this clear so that a visitor doesn't read a blog post about Roth conversions and conclude that you've advised them to do one.
Done well, a disclaimer is two or three short paragraphs that any visitor can read in 60 seconds and that leave no ambiguity about what the site is and what it isn't.
Done poorly, a disclaimer is a wall of dense legal text that visitors scroll past, ignore, and that does more to signal "we're scared of you" than "we're a professional firm with transparent practices."
What to include
The following elements are standard for most advisory website disclaimers. Work with your compliance officer or attorney to tailor the language and confirm it's appropriate for your registration status and state.
Investment adviser registration disclosure.
Any website that belongs to or is associated with a registered investment adviser should state the registration status clearly.
Standard language: "Smith Financial Planning LLC is a registered investment adviser. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training."
The second sentence, "registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training," is required by SEC guidance when describing adviser registration status. Don't omit it.
Content is informational, not investment advice.
Your website contains information: articles, service descriptions, educational content. That content is not personalized investment advice.
Standard language: "The information presented on this website is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell any security, or an offer to provide investment advisory services."
Past performance disclaimer.
If your site discusses any investment outcomes, references to market performance, or anything that touches on historical results, the past performance disclaimer is required.
Standard language: "Past performance is not indicative of future results. All investments involve risk, including the possible loss of principal."
Even if you don't discuss past performance explicitly, including this in your disclaimer is standard practice and protects against misinterpretation of any content on the site.
No client relationship without agreement.
A visitor reading your website has not entered into an advisory relationship with you. The disclaimer should make this explicit.
Standard language: "Viewing this website does not create an investment adviser-client relationship. A client relationship is only established upon execution of a written investment advisory agreement."
Jurisdictional disclosure.
You may not be registered or permitted to provide services in every state. Many advisers are registered only in specific states or have de minimis exemptions in others.
Standard language: "Investment advisory services are offered only to residents of states in which Smith Financial Planning LLC is registered or exempt from registration. Please consult our Form ADV Part 2 for information about our registration status and states in which we are authorized to conduct business."
External links disclaimer.
If your site links to external resources, news sites, financial calculators, or other third-party content, include a statement that you're not responsible for that external content.
Standard language: "Links to third-party websites are provided for informational purposes only. Smith Financial Planning LLC does not endorse, control, or guarantee the accuracy of information on linked sites."
Form ADV reference.
Providing access to your Form ADV Part 2 is required for delivering it to clients, and linking to it from your website is recommended practice.
Standard language: "For complete information about our services, fees, and conflicts of interest, please refer to our Form ADV Part 2, available upon request or at [link to ADV]."
What not to include
Longer is not better for a disclaimer. Common additions that add length without adding value:
Exhaustive lists of everything the website cannot do. "This website does not constitute tax advice, legal advice, accounting advice, or any other professional advice." If this becomes a list of 20 things the site isn't, the reader stops reading.
Attempt to waive all legal responsibility through broad language. Disclaimers cannot override regulatory requirements. Writing a disclaimer that appears to disclaim everything including liability for factual errors won't hold up and signals poor legal drafting.
Contradictory statements. "We are committed to your financial success" in the homepage copy, followed by a disclaimer that says you're not responsible for any financial decisions made based on the website, is internally inconsistent. Consistency between your marketing copy and your disclaimer matters.
Where to put it
Placement matters both for compliance and for visitor experience.
The footer. The primary location for a website disclaimer is the footer, where it appears on every page of the site. This is where visitors expect to find legal and regulatory information. The footer disclaimer should include the most important elements: registration disclosure, informational purpose statement, and past performance disclaimer.
The footer text doesn't need to be long. 80-120 words covering the essential elements is appropriate for a footer. A "Full Disclosures" or "Legal" link in the footer can point to a more complete disclosure page.
Dedicated disclosure page. A page titled "Disclosures," "Legal," or "Important Information" can contain the complete disclaimer text along with additional regulatory information: your ADV Part 2 link, CRD number, a description of your registration status, and state-specific disclosures if relevant.
This page is referenced from the footer and from any context where additional disclosure detail is needed, such as near testimonials or performance-related content.
Near specific content. When specific types of content require specific disclosures, those disclosures appear near that content. Testimonials require their own disclosures next to each testimonial. Performance data requires specific performance advertising disclosures near that data. The general site disclaimer doesn't cover these.
On articles and blog posts. If you publish articles or educational content, a brief disclaimer at the top or bottom of each post is recommended: "This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to take any particular action. Please consult your financial adviser before making any investment decisions."
Formatting considerations
A disclaimer that nobody can read serves no one.
Font size. Footer disclaimers typically appear in smaller text than body content. 12-13px is readable. 9px is not. If a visitor on mobile has to pinch-zoom to read your disclaimer, that's a problem both for accessibility and for regulatory purpose.
Contrast. Light gray text on a white or near-white background is common in footer design and often reduces readability to borderline levels. Your disclaimer should be legible. High contrast text is both more readable and more consistent with the purpose of the disclosure.
Length in the footer. Keep the footer disclaimer to 2-3 sentences covering the essential points. Link to the full disclosures page for detail. A footer disclaimer that runs for eight paragraphs defeats the purpose of a footer.
FINRA-registered advisors: additional considerations
For broker-dealer representatives subject to FINRA Rule 2210, website disclosures must comply with FINRA's requirements for member communications.
FINRA requires that member firms retain records of communications with the public, including websites. Material changes to website content should be documented and retained according to your firm's record-keeping procedures.
Your firm's compliance department will typically have pre-approved disclaimer language and procedures for website compliance review. Use those.
The FINRA requirement to include a link to BrokerCheck (FINRA.org/brokercheck) applies to broker-dealer member firms on their websites. This link is commonly placed in the footer alongside or near the disclaimer.
Updating your disclaimer
Regulatory requirements change. Your registration status may change. Your service offerings may evolve.
Review your disclaimer annually, at minimum, with your compliance officer. When the SEC or your state issues new guidance that affects what your website must disclose, the disclaimer needs to be updated accordingly.
The Marketing Rule's 2022 implementation was a significant update that affected how testimonials, performance, and endorsements needed to be disclosed. Any firm that didn't update their disclaimer and testimonial implementation in 2022-2023 may have gaps in their compliance posture.
A disclaimer written in 2018 that hasn't been updated since is a compliance risk. Schedule an annual review.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or compliance advice. Consult a qualified compliance attorney or your compliance officer for language specific to your situation.
Finsites builds compliance-aware advisory websites with properly formatted footer disclaimers, ADV linkage, CRD number display, and testimonial disclosure implementation. Book a growth call to discuss your site's compliance posture.
