Following the recent government shutdown, the SEC moved quickly to resume examinations and initiate several enforcement actions in federal court. The release of the 2026 Examination Priorities reflects this renewed activity and reinforces the SEC’s continued commitment to active oversight. The Priorities also reflect a more collaborative tone from the SEC’s Division of Examinations (the Division), including indications that staff intend to engage more closely with market participants when shaping future examinations.
As in previous years, the Division’s priorities for the 2026 fiscal year are grounded in its four pillars: to promote compliance, prevent fraud, inform policy, and monitor risk.
The Perennial Priorities
Certain priorities remain constant year after year because they reflect core principles embedded in the federal securities laws. The Division has included the following topics since they first started publishing their priorities in 2013:
- Investment advisers can expect SEC examiners to test for compliance with the fiduciary standard of conduct under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.
- Investment companies can expect examiners to assess whether at least 80% of each fund’s assets align with its stated investment focus.
- Broker-dealers can expect SEC examiners to review compliance with Regulation Best Interest, Form CRS, the financial responsibility rules, retail sales practice requirements, and procedures for managing conflicts of interest.
Investment advisers, investment companies, and broker-dealers can all expect SEC examiners to request a demonstration of:
- the effectiveness of their compliance programs
- the accuracy and fairness of their disclosures
- how they allocate fees and expenses between themselves and clients, including the rationale supporting those methods
- their operational resilience, including cybersecurity controls
Shifts in Approach
Private Fund Advisers
For 2026, the Division consolidated its priorities for private fund advisers into its broader investment adviser priorities. This underscores that obligations under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 apply to advisers regardless of which client segment they serve.
The 2026 Priorities for investment advisers also call out priorities specific to private fund advisers, including private credit and private funds with investment lock-up for extended periods, managers of private funds that are new to the space, newly launched funds, and the management of other types of accounts alongside private funds that could result in potential conflicts of interest.
Crypto
In 2023, the Division began dedicating a section of its Examination Priorities to crypto assets and related services, including offering, selling, and trading. In the 2026 Priorities, the Division removed this standalone section as well as other references to crypto. This move appears to reflect the new SEC majority’s consistent view that its jurisdiction over digital assets extends only to those digital assets that meet the definition of security. The absence of crypto in this year’s Priorities may also reflect a wish to step back and let the regulatory landscape evolve, as Congress, the SEC, and other financial regulators continue to develop a more comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto and other digital assets.
Despite this pause, firms should recall that the Examination Priorities are not an exhaustive list of potential review areas, and SEC rules continue to apply regardless of whether they are highlighted in the Priorities. Firms should continue to maintain robust compliance programs and monitor regulatory developments closely.
New Focus Areas for 2026
While some topics are nearly guaranteed to appear in the Examination Priorities, many others are specific to market conditions, new legislation or regulation, and financial innovation. This year, we have seen the Division retire some topics and advance the following new ones:
Greater focus on retail investors: Retail investors have been a priority since the Division of Examinations began publishing its priorities. This year, however, the Division has given added emphasis to this theme. Wealth managers, investment companies, investment company advisers, and broker-dealers are likely to find examiners shining a brighter spotlight on how their businesses are serving retail investors.
New, complex, and risky instruments: The Division annually evaluates securities markets to identify instruments likely to pose challenges in the expected market environment. For example, the 2025 Priorities included a focus on investments in commercial real estate, which experienced significant stress in 2024. Since then, it has begun to recover, and the 2026 Priorities dropped it as a priority.
In contrast, the 2026 Priorities keep examiners focused on high-cost instruments and introduce a new focus on complex investments like illiquid-asset ETFs, option-based ETFs, and leveraged or inverse ETFs, which may pose risks due to leverage, liquidity challenges, and volatile market conditions. The Division’s interest in these assets may also relate to the SEC’s policy assessing whether limits on investment companies, such as ETFs, should be amended to permit more illiquid assets to be offered to retail investors.
The adviser’s investment process: Several of the 2026 Priorities reflect a focus on the investment adviser’s process for evaluating and controlling investment risks, including volatility and liquidity risks.
Investment Companies
While many priorities for investment companies carry over from 2025, in a new 2026 priority, examiners will focus on funds that participate in mergers or similar transactions and their associated operational and compliance challenges. This priority reflects the Division’s ongoing attention to market developments and acknowledges that rising M&A activity heightens the risk of inadequate business integration, particularly when firms take on new client types or strategies.
Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity has been described by the SEC as a “perennial examination priority.” The Division has confirmed that it will continue to review registrants’ policies, procedures, and practices to determine whether they are reasonably managing information security and operational risks. Examiners will pay particular attention to:
- Governance practices
- Data loss prevention
- Access controls
- Account management
- Incident response
- Incident recovery
The Division will also prioritize examination of training and security controls employed by firms to identify and mitigate new risks associated with use of AI, including how firms utilize threat intelligence information.
Information Security and Privacy Obligations
Examiners will focus on firms’ compliance response, including:
- Policies and procedures
- Internal controls
- Identity Theft Prevention Program
- Oversight of third-party vendors
- Governance practices
Reg S-ID
Firms should expect examiners to review the firm’s policies and procedures designed to identify, detect, and respond to account takeovers and fraudulent transfers. They will also expect firms to have implemented employee training programs to support identity theft prevention obligations.
Reg S-P
As part of the Division’s role in assessing firms’ preparations to comply with new rules and rule amendments, in the coming year, examiners will focus on a firm’s compliance response to Reg S-P. Examiners will assess whether firms have developed, implemented, and maintained written policies and procedures that address administrative, technical, and physical safeguards for customer information. Incident response programs will also be reviewed for alignment with the requirements of Reg S-P.
Emerging Technologies
The SEC will continue to prioritize the use of automated tools and AI technologies. In 2026, examiners will focus resources on firms that provide automated investment advisory services and will evaluate:
- Are disclosures about automated tools fair, accurate, and consistent with actual practices?
- Do operations and controls align with what the firm tells investors?
- Has the firm established policies and procedures to supervise and monitor the use of AI?
- Are the algorithmic recommendations consistent with investors’ investment profiles and stated strategies?
- Do controls validate that advice generated by automated tools meet applicable regulatory obligations?
- Has the firm integrated regulatory technology into internal processes, and if so, how are those processes supervised?
Regulation Systems Compliance and Integrity
The Examination Division’s focus on Regulation Systems Compliance and Integrity (SCI) entities will include reviewing incident response policies and procedures, assessing how entities evaluate their effectiveness, managing third-party risk, and ensuring proper identification of systems that qualify as SCI or indirect SCI systems.
Anti-Money Laundering (AML)
SEC examiners will review whether firms are:
- Appropriately tailoring their AML programs to fit their business models and associated AML risks.
- Conducting independent testing of their AML programs.
- Establishing adequate customer identification programs.
- Meeting their Suspicious Activity Report filing obligations.
Examiners may also review AML policies and procedures for oversight of financial intermediaries.
Taken together, the 2026 Examination Priorities underscore the SEC’s heightened expectations for governance, controls, and documentation across the industry. Firms should be prepared to demonstrate a mature compliance framework, clear supervisory oversight, and evidence of continuous improvement.
ACA Can Help
ACA offers comprehensive support to help your firm prepare for the SEC’s 2026 Examination Priorities. Our services include:
- Regulatory readiness assessments to identify gaps and strengthen compliance programs.
- Mock SEC examinations to test preparedness and remediate issues before regulators arrive.
- Policy and procedure reviews to ensure alignment with new Priorities and best practices.
- Cybersecurity and data protection consulting, including incident response planning.
- Training and advisory services on emerging technologies, complex investments, and risk management.