The Central Registration Depository, known as the CRD, is the securities industry’s master electronic database for licensing and tracking broker-dealer firms and their registered representatives across the United States. FINRA operates it jointly with the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), and since its launch in 1981 it has held the registration, employment, exam, disciplinary, and customer complaint records of hundreds of thousands of securities professionals.1North American Securities Administrators Association. CRD and IARD If you have ever looked up a stockbroker on BrokerCheck, you were reading information pulled from the CRD.
Who Runs the CRD and Why It Exists
FINRA maintains the system in partnership with NASAA, which represents state and provincial securities regulators across North America. That partnership gives federal and state authorities a shared clearinghouse for monitoring the people and firms that deal with the investing public.1North American Securities Administrators Association. CRD and IARD Before it existed, a broker moving between states had to redo licensing paperwork in each jurisdiction, and someone with a bad record could quietly reappear elsewhere. The centralized system closed both gaps.
FINRA’s authority to run the CRD flows from Section 15A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which authorizes registered national securities associations to oversee broker-dealers and the people who work for them. The CRD is the operational core of that mandate, letting regulators verify qualifications, flag misconduct, and share information across jurisdictions in real time.
What the CRD Records
A CRD profile is a permanent, cumulative record that follows a securities professional throughout their career. It goes well beyond basic biographical detail.
Professional Background
Each record includes the individual’s full employment history, education, professional designations, and qualification exam results, along with every current and past firm affiliation. Regulators can see every stop a representative has made, which makes it hard to conceal gaps or problematic departures.
Disclosure Events
The disclosure portion of the record covers the categories regulators consider relevant to a person’s fitness for the industry. Criminal disclosures include any felony charge or conviction, plus certain misdemeanors involving investments, fraud, forgery, theft, or bribery.2FINRA. Form U4 Uniform Application for Securities Industry Registration or Transfer Regulatory action disclosures cover findings, orders, or sanctions by the SEC, CFTC, state securities regulators, or self-regulatory organizations. Civil judicial disclosures capture investment-related lawsuits. Customer complaint and arbitration disclosures log disputes with clients, including those that were settled without any admission of wrongdoing.3FINRA. Central Registration Depository – Disclosure FAQ
Financial disclosures round out the record: personal bankruptcies, unpaid judgments or liens, and bond denials or revocations. Between them, these categories can produce a detailed picture of both professional conduct and personal financial responsibility.
Outside Business Activities
Registered representatives must give their firm written notice before taking on any outside employment, independent contracting work, or other compensated business activity beyond their securities role.4FINRA. FINRA Rule 3270 – Outside Business Activities of Registered Persons The firm evaluates whether the activity could interfere with the representative’s duties or confuse clients about what falls under the firm’s umbrella. Passive investments are exempt. Approved outside activities get reported on the representative’s Form U4 and become part of the CRD record.
The Forms That Feed the System
Four standardized forms drive most CRD activity. Each has a specific job.
Form U4: Individual Registration
Form U4 is the uniform application every securities professional files to become registered or to transfer between firms.5FINRA. Form U4 It requires ten years of employment history, five years of residential addresses, and detailed answers to the disclosure questions covering criminal, regulatory, civil, customer, and financial events.2FINRA. Form U4 Uniform Application for Securities Industry Registration or Transfer Accuracy matters. Omitting a past felony charge or fudging employment dates can trigger independent disciplinary action even when the underlying facts would not have blocked registration.
Form U5: Termination Notice
When a registered representative leaves a firm for any reason, the firm files Form U5 to terminate that person’s registration.6FINRA. Form U5 The form states the reason for the departure and any new disclosure events that arose while the person was with the firm. This is where things get contentious. A firm might characterize a departure as “permitted to resign” or “discharged,” and that language stays with the representative in the CRD. Representatives who believe their Form U5 is inaccurate have limited avenues to challenge it, which is why the expungement process below matters.
Form BD: Broker-Dealer Registration
Form BD is the uniform application for entities seeking registration as broker-dealers under the Securities Exchange Act. It captures ownership structure, business activities, control persons, and disciplinary history, and must be updated promptly when circumstances change.
Form U6: Regulatory Reporting
Form U6 is filed by regulators rather than firms or individuals. FINRA, state securities regulators, and other authorities use it to report disciplinary actions and final arbitration awards. When a Form U6 is filed, the affected firm gets a notification and must update its own Form BD, U4, or U5 filings to reflect it. Disclosable items from Form U6 become visible to the public through BrokerCheck.7FINRA. Form U6
Filings generally must be updated within 30 days of any material change, whether that is a new address, a name change, or a disclosure event.8FINRA. BrokerCheck FAQ Everything is submitted through the Web CRD electronic filing system, and each submission is reviewed for completeness and for any statutory disqualification triggers before a registration takes effect. Late disclosure filings carry escalating fees.9FINRA. Frequently Asked Questions About Late Disclosure Fees
Exams and Fingerprinting
Registration is not just paperwork. Before a registration becomes effective, the individual must pass the Securities Industry Essentials (SIE) exam and an appropriate representative-level qualification exam. A general securities representative takes the Series 7. Other categories have their own: Series 6 for investment company products, Series 63 or 66 for state-level requirements, and so on. Exam results are stored in the CRD, but only exams passed and the dates passed appear publicly; failed attempts and actual scores stay private.10FINRA. FINRA Rule 8312 – FINRA BrokerCheck Disclosure
Federal law also requires every partner, director, officer, and employee of a broker-dealer to be fingerprinted, with the prints sent to the FBI.11eCFR. 17 CFR 240.17f-2 – Fingerprinting of Securities Industry Personnel Firms have 30 days from filing a Form U4 to submit fingerprints. Miss the window and the registration status switches to “Inactive Prints”; leave it inactive for two years and FINRA terminates the registration.12FINRA. Submit Fingerprints Exemptions exist for personnel who do not sell securities, do not handle money or original books and records, and do not supervise anyone who does.
How the Public Sees CRD Information
BrokerCheck
Much of what sits in the CRD flows into BrokerCheck, FINRA’s free public search tool for researching any current or former registered representative or broker-dealer firm.8FINRA. BrokerCheck FAQ A BrokerCheck report shows current registrations, qualification exams passed, employment history, and disclosure events including customer complaints, regulatory actions, and criminal matters. It also shows summary information about arbitration awards and whether a firm has been designated a Restricted Firm.10FINRA. FINRA Rule 8312 – FINRA BrokerCheck Disclosure
What BrokerCheck does not show matters too. Social Security numbers, residential addresses, physical descriptions, and exam scores are excluded. FINRA withholds the reason for termination reported on Form U5 and any internal review disclosures.10FINRA. FINRA Rule 8312 – FINRA BrokerCheck Disclosure Regulatory investigations that were later vacated or withdrawn are kept out of public view as well. The result is a report investors can use to spot red flags without exposing sensitive personal data.
Investment Adviser Public Disclosure
The CRD, and by extension BrokerCheck, covers broker-dealers and their registered representatives. Investment advisers have a parallel system. The Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (IAPD) website, run by the SEC, provides information on investment adviser firms registered with the SEC or state regulators and displays each adviser’s Form ADV, which covers business operations, fee structures, and disciplinary history.13Investment Adviser Public Disclosure. Investment Adviser Public Disclosure – Homepage Professionals who hold both types of registration appear in both systems. A clean BrokerCheck report tells you nothing about the advisory side, so both databases are worth checking before hiring a financial professional.
Correcting a CRD Record: Expungement
Customer dispute information can follow a representative for decades, and not all of it is necessarily fair. FINRA Rule 13805 sets out a formal process for seeking expungement, and the process is deliberately difficult because the whole point of the CRD is accountability.
The representative files a statement of claim against the firm where they were associated when the dispute arose. The request must include the CRD occurrence numbers at issue and state whether expungement of the same information was ever previously sought.14FINRA. FINRA Rule 13805 – Expungement of Customer Dispute Information from the CRD System A three-person arbitration panel then holds a recorded hearing at which the representative must appear in person or by video. The customer involved in the original dispute has the right to attend, present evidence, and cross-examine witnesses.
The panel can grant expungement only if it unanimously finds at least one of three things: the claim was factually impossible or clearly erroneous, the representative was not involved in the alleged misconduct, or the information is false. The panel must provide a written explanation identifying the specific evidence it relied on.14FINRA. FINRA Rule 13805 – Expungement of Customer Dispute Information from the CRD System Hard deadlines apply. For disputes that went through arbitration or litigation, the request must be filed within two years of the case closing. For customer complaints that never became formal proceedings, the window is three years from when the complaint first appeared in the CRD.