How do I transfer an investment account from one firm to another?
There are a couple of ways to do this, but I would use the method below because it mimics what happened in real life. This assumes that your holdings were moved "in kind," i.e. the shares were transferred directly, not sold in the old account and re-purchased in the new one.
It will enter one Removed transaction for each security held in the old account(s) on the transfer date and an Added transaction in the new account for each tax lot of each security. It preserves the cost basis and acquisition dates of the securities transferred. The pre-transfer cash and security transactions will remain in the old accounts and the new account will only have transactions for your current holdings. This is also a good method to use if there are many thousands of transactions in the old account and the performance is slow.
When reporting on performance over a period that includes the transfer, include both the old and new accounts in the analysis.
The alternate method redirects your existing account so that the current holdings remain there and new transactions are downloaded from the new financial institution (FI). With this method, the result in Quicken will be as if was with the new brokerage from the beginning.
Follow steps 1-4 above, then re-activate the account for downloading, using the new financial institution. When it finds your new account, be sure to choose the option to link it to the current account, not add a new account. If transactions are downloaded to add the current holdings, delete them.
@Paul4907 please see the FAQ post for your question:
One additional note with regard to the Shares Transferred rarely applicable - The Shares Transferred will not transfer a short position in a security. You will need to cover the short in the old account and create the short in the new account manually. I am not sure how that would get handled in the real world.
IF all of the securities are being moved, and not sold with only cash moved, I'd simply disconnect the account from downloads from the old brokerage and then re-connect to the new brokerage … which I've done previously.
To ME, it was the same account … which is why I didn't bother to create a new account in Q and move the securities in Q.
Hello @Paul4907,
We haven't heard back from you in a while. Do you still need assistance? Were you able to review the responses you received from our SuperUsers so far?
Check back and let us know! Thank you.
Thank you Jim for the detailed instructions. However, I have a brokerage account that I tried to transfer to another brokerage account and only two of the three securities transferred using your suggested method. My account summary at the new FI shows that all three securities transferred successfully. In Quicken, my old account still shows the transactions for the security that did not transfer, but if I try the transfer again for the one security, I receive a message that there are not enough shares for this security in the account I am trying to transfer from. If I specify all securities, I receive a message that there are no securities available for transfer. I have 81 transactions for the security that did not transfer in Quicken, and I hope I will not have to enter them manually. Any suggestions?
@rlbaker Re: shares that did not transfer, are there any short positions in the security that did not transfer? If so, see this post by @q_lurker
Or you may be able to click on the gear at the top right of the old account and select Move transactions to move them.
Be sure to back up your data file first in case you do not like the result.
@rlbaker Please clarify.
In your Quicken in the old account, is there a Remove Shares for the third security?
Is it removing the number of shares consistent with the real world holding?
If you go to a Portfolio view (Ctrl-U) for that account, how many shares for that security are shown before and after the intended transfer date?
In the old account transaction list, are there any placeholders involving that security? Be sure preference settings include showing hidden transactions.
I had no short positions. I tried the Move transactions and it appeared to work. However, the file would not validate and would not repair. Glad I had the backup.
My transaction list does not include any Shares Removed for the third security. Quicken has not removed any of the shares. In the Portfolio view before and after the intended transfer date, the number of shares is the same. This also matches the actual number of shares transferred to the new FI.
@Jim_Harman and @q_lurker Thanks again for your suggestions. FYI, I discovered a prior transfer of shares that I had made several years ago. I did not use the Shares transferred between accounts. I probably just removed the shares from the old account and then added them to the new account. After deleting those transactions, the transfer was successful using the method you described.
I followed Jim Harman's Aug 13, 2026 instructions to move 2 accounts at Schwab to Fidelity. They were a big help.
I knew that Schwab would transfer the lots for each security to Fidelity to preserve long/short term reports, but that Quickens One Step Update would only download total shares. I'd have to manually enter each lot’s purchase date, shares, and price – far too much work. I chose to use “Shares Transferred Between Accounts” to move each lot.
I followed steps 5 through 8, making numerous backups at each step. My new Fidelity accounts were initially empty. After moving the transactions and cash, I compared a few of the security lots in the new Fidelity accounts with those in the old Schwab accounts before the transfer. They were the same; so far, so good.
Next, I connected my Fidelity accounts for One Step Update and ran the updates. One account downloaded about 100 transactions, classified as either Match, Near-match, or New. The Fidelity website didn’t have any new transactions from those I’d transferred. The account’s register was already correct. I decided to delete all the downloads.
I wanted to preserve the downloads in case deleting them was a mistake. I closed Quicken, made a backup, then reopened it. I selected the Fidelity account. A Verify Cash Balance window popped up and Placeholders appeared in the register. Transactions are still in the Downloaded Transactions panel.
When I clicked the “X” to close the Verify Cash Balance window, all downloaded transactions were accepted!
Below are screenshots of what happens if you accept the downloads. Quicken will end with the correct number of shares, but it will delete the basis for the first lot. To recover, I opened a backup made before running OSU, ran OSU again, then deleted each downloaded transaction one at a time.
As Jim recommends, make backups. I’d suggest downloading transactions to the new account, deleting all of them, then you can safely run “Shares Transferred Between Accounts.”
