No commissions, no ads, no advice. This Brown Brothers Harriman profile draws only on public records, each linked so you can confirm it yourself.

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The short answer: is Brown Brothers Harriman a fiduciary?

It depends on your account: Brown Brothers Harriman is a fiduciary in its advisory programs, and follows the Regulation Best Interest standard as a broker. Publicly, it files with the SEC as Brown Brothers Harriman (CRD #111231). As of its latest Form ADV (filed March 30, 2026), the firm reported $7.2 billion in regulatory assets under management. According to the same filing, those assets sit with 7 institutional clients: 6 investment companies and 1 pooled investment vehicle, not individual households. Its Form ADV (Item 5.E) lists how it is paid: a percentage of assets under management. It's all in the public filings. A few minutes is enough to confirm every line yourself.

The firm is a dual registrant, so the standard of care changes with the type of account you hold. In its advisory programs it acts as an investment adviser with a fiduciary duty. In brokerage accounts it acts as a broker-dealer under Regulation Best Interest (a best-interest obligation at the time of a recommendation, not a continuous fiduciary relationship). The practical move is to ask which type of account you have. Get started with Truthifi

What "fiduciary" means: a fiduciary is legally bound to place a client's interests above its own. (More on fiduciary duty)

Brown Brothers Harriman at a glance

✅ Verified from public filings, last checked October 5, 2026. Brown Brothers Harriman (SEC CRD #111231) is a fiduciary in its advisory programs, on a fee-based basis, with $7.2 billion in regulatory assets under management. Every figure below links to its primary source.

What	Brown Brothers Harriman	Source
SEC CRD	#111231	IAPD
Registration	Investment adviser and broker-dealer (dual registrant)	IAPD
Registered since	May 30, 2001 (SEC)	IAPD
Fiduciary?	Yes in advisory programs, Reg BI in brokerage	SEC Reg BI
Fee model	Fee-based (commissions + advisory)	Form ADV Item 5.E
How it's paid	A percentage of assets under management	Form ADV Item 5.E
Regulatory Assets Under Management	$7.2 billion (Form ADV filed March 30, 2026)	IAPD
Clients	7 institutional clients (6 investment companies, 1 pooled vehicle), all discretionary	IAPD
Employees	48 (25 in advisory roles)	IAPD
Ownership	Founder/principal-owned	Form ADV Schedule A
Disclosures	Form ADV answers No to firm-level disciplinary questions	IAPD
HQ	New York, NY	IAPD

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Brown Brothers Harriman fees: what you'll pay

Brown Brothers Harriman fees depend on the account type: commissions in a brokerage account, an asset-based fee in an advisory program. In a brokerage account you generally pay commissions and product costs (mutual fund sales loads, markups, annuity commissions). In an advisory program you pay an asset-based advisory fee instead of per-trade commissions, plus the underlying fund expenses. Knowing which account you're in tells you what you're paying. Its Form ADV (Item 5.E) lists how it is paid: a percentage of assets under management.

Because its advisory clients are funds, that asset-based fee is generally paid by the fund itself. A shareholder in one of those funds usually bears it inside the fund's expense ratio, not as a separate bill. (Why the fee you see may not be the fee you pay)

Fee-based is the label for a dual registrant that can earn both advisory fees and commissions. For this registration, the advisory pay reported in Item 5.E is a percentage of the assets it manages for its fund clients. (How fee-only differs)

Who owns Brown Brothers Harriman, and what conflicts does it disclose?

Schedule A of its Form ADV names the owners. Brown Brothers Harriman is principally owned by Jeffrey Alan Schoenfeld, Taylor Stockwell Bodman, William Brophy Tyree, and Thomas Eric Berk, as listed in Schedule A of its Form ADV. (Form ADV Schedule A)

Its Form ADV Part 2A describes the firm's conflicts of interest, including how it and its advisers are paid.

Brown Brothers Harriman SEC record: disclosures

To check Brown Brothers Harriman's regulatory record, start with the firm's own filings. On its Form ADV, Brown Brothers Harriman answers No to the firm-level disciplinary-history questions. You can confirm that on the public record. Individual advisers can have their own records, so look them up on IAPD and FINRA BrokerCheck too. Any Brown Brothers Harriman disclosures sit on the public record, not on anyone's characterization of them.

According to IAPD (2026), it has been registered with the SEC since May 30, 2001, makes notice filings in 1 jurisdiction, and reports 48 employees. Of those, 25 work in investment advisory roles, about 52% of staff. Its public CRD and filings confirm it's a real, regulated adviser, not that it's the right fit for you.

Reading Brown Brothers Harriman reviews against the public record

Reviews of a firm with this name tend to describe a private bank or custody relationship. The filing behind CRD #111231 describes something narrower: managing money for 7 funds. Before you weigh Brown Brothers Harriman reviews, check three things this profile takes from the public record. First, how the firm is paid: advisory and brokerage accounts are paid differently, so the standard that applies depends on your account. Second, who owns it and what conflicts it discloses. Third, whether its Form ADV reports any disciplinary history. Read reviews alongside the record, not instead of it.

How to verify Brown Brothers Harriman yourself

Here's how to confirm all of it in three steps:

1. Check the SEC adviser record (IAPD): https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/111231.
2. Read the filings (Form ADV / Form CRS): linked from the IAPD page.
3. Confirm the entity: match Brown Brothers Harriman (CRD #111231, legal name BROWN BROTHERS HARRIMAN & CO.) so you're reading the right firm.

What Brown Brothers Harriman does and who it serves

According to its Form ADV, Brown Brothers Harriman provides portfolio management, and its client breakdown shows that work goes to institutional clients: funds, with no individuals or small businesses listed.

Its Form ADV (Item 5.D) breaks its clients down by type, 7 in all:

Client type	Clients	Assets managed
Investment companies	6	$6.80 billion
Pooled investment vehicles	1	$356.4 million

The 6 investment companies hold about 94% of reported assets, according to Item 5.D, and the pooled vehicle about 5%. It reports 7 clients, all managed on a discretionary basis, meaning the firm can trade without seeking each client's approval first (Item 5.F). Its main office is in New York, NY.

Here is what the low count hides. Each "client" is a fund, and a single fund can pool money from many shareholders. So 7 clients and $7.2 billion fit together: this registration counts funds, not households. These figures describe this one SEC registration, so they may not reflect other Brown Brothers Harriman businesses. Step 3 above is how you confirm which entity you're dealing with.

It reports it does not take custody of client assets: those assets are held by a separate qualified custodian, not the firm itself. That separation is a basic safeguard you can confirm on its Form ADV.

Our take: if you're an individual investor, you're most likely to meet this adviser as a shareholder in a fund it manages. For you, that fund's prospectus and expense ratio will usually say more than this firm's advisory fee schedule, so read those first.

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Confirming the firm is the easy part. Seeing everything you hold is the valuable one.

Confirming Brown Brothers Harriman is registered takes a few minutes. Knowing how much of your own money sits in funds it manages is harder. That fund position lives inside your brokerage or retirement account, next to a held-away retirement plan, a spouse's portfolio and fund costs that show up scattered and unreconciled. That scattered picture is the gap Truthifi is built to close.

How Truthifi can help

Truthifi links your accounts read-only and shows what you own, how it's allocated, how it's performing and where the risk sits, including concentration such as single-stock exposure, returns next to a benchmark, a fee breakdown of the fees on each account, by type, and your Truthifi Score. For a fund holder, the fee breakdown is where expense ratios stop being invisible. You can share the accounts you choose with any advisor you work with.

Prefer your own AI? A paid Truthifi plan lets you connect an AI assistant that supports MCP sign-in, such as Claude. Truthifi Connect is the lighter membership for people who only want to use their own assistant. Questions about your fees need Monitoring or Monitoring Plus+. (How to ask AI about your real accounts)

Ask AI about your Brown Brothers Harriman accounts

Once your accounts are connected read-only, you can ask in plain English:

• "How much of my portfolio sits in Brown Brothers Harriman-managed funds, and how is the rest allocated?"
• "What am I paying in fees, including fund expense ratios, across all of these accounts?"

Try it with Truthifi: start for free at app.truthifi.com and run a Monitoring Checkup (limits apply).

No commissions, no ads, no advice: Truthifi is not an investment adviser and doesn't give investment, tax or legal advice. Its access to your bank and brokerage accounts is read-only. Start free (limits apply). Monitoring Checkup is free. Per Truthifi platform data, the free plan lets you link up to 10 connections. Plans and limits are on the pricing page → truthifi.com.

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FAQ

Is Brown Brothers Harriman a fiduciary? It depends on your account. In its advisory programs it acts as a fiduciary. In brokerage accounts it follows the SEC's Regulation Best Interest standard. Ask which type of account you have.

What are Brown Brothers Harriman's fees? They depend on the account. Brokerage accounts generally pay commissions and product charges. Advisory programs charge an asset-based fee instead of per-trade commissions, plus underlying fund costs. See the Form CRS.

Who owns Brown Brothers Harriman? Brown Brothers Harriman is principally owned by Jeffrey Alan Schoenfeld, Taylor Stockwell Bodman, William Brophy Tyree, and Thomas Eric Berk, as listed in Schedule A of its Form ADV.

Does Brown Brothers Harriman have complaints or disclosures? Its Form ADV answers No to the firm-level disciplinary-history questions. Individual advisers can have their own records on IAPD and BrokerCheck.

Is Brown Brothers Harriman legit? Brown Brothers Harriman is registered with the SEC (CRD #111231) and its filings are public on the SEC's IAPD site, which confirms it is a real, regulated firm. Registration doesn't tell you whether it's the right fit or what you'll pay, so read the fee and conflict sections of its Form ADV.

Can AI help me check whether I'm getting good value? Yes. Start free (limits apply): Monitoring Checkup is free and lets you link up to 10 connections. You can also connect an AI assistant you already use (such as Claude). On Monitoring or Monitoring Plus+ you can ask it, in plain English, about the fees on each of your accounts. Truthifi is not an investment adviser and doesn't give investment, tax or legal advice.

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About this profile

Truthifi built this profile from the firm's own SEC filings (Form ADV and, where filed, Form CRS). Every page is reviewed by the Truthifi Team before publishing. The Truthifi advisor fact packs are an ongoing series checking U.S. investment advisers against their public filings, one firm at a time. Browse more firms on the Truthifi /advisors hub.

Read next from the Truthifi blog

• What is a fiduciary?
• Fee-only financial advisor: costs and how to find one
• Are you paying too much? Why that might be the wrong question
• How to ask AI about your real investment accounts
• Robo-advisor vs. human financial advisor: which is better?
• All advisor fact packs on Truthifi

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A note on sources. The facts on this page come from publicly available documents, Brown Brothers Harriman's SEC and FINRA filings, each linked inline so you can verify it yourself (SEC data current as of October 5, 2026). This is general information, not financial or legal advice, and Truthifi is not affiliated with Brown Brothers Harriman. Regulatory records change, so always confirm against the official sources linked above. Spot something that should be corrected? Email us at support@truthifi.com.

One question no filing can answer for you: how many of your own dollars this adviser already manages through funds you hold. Your statements, not its Form ADV, hold that number. See how Truthifi keeps your accounts secure