Family Office 101
The Family Office in 90 Seconds
A plain-English definition before the jargon begins.
A family office is an organized system for coordinating a family’s wealth, entities, professionals, information, risks, decisions and long-term priorities.
The SEC uses a narrower regulatory definition when determining whether a single-family office can be excluded from the Investment Advisers Act. Under Rule 202(a)(11)(G)-1, the office must generally advise only family clients, be wholly owned by family clients and exclusively controlled by family members and/or family entities, and not hold itself out to the public as an investment adviser.
This magazine uses “family office thinking” more broadly when discussing coordination. That distinction matters: calling a planning system a family office does not automatically create an SEC exemption, an investment-adviser status or any special tax treatment.
Sources and research trail
This page was developed from the source manuscript and should be read with the publication's primary-source library.
- SEC Family Offices Final Rule
- SEC Small Entity Compliance Guide