FINRA Rule 2210 explained: Communications with the public

FINRA Rule 2210 governs how broker-dealers and their registered representatives communicate with the public, from emails and social media posts to websites, seminars and advertisements. It sorts every written communication into one of three types (correspondence, retail communications and institutional communications), and the type decides who must approve it, whether it is filed with FINRA, and which content standards apply. On the SIE, Series 7, Series 9/10 and Series 24 exams, most Rule 2210 questions come down to classifying a communication correctly and knowing the approval and filing rule that follows from it.

In October 2026 the SEC approved an amendment that will let firms show performance projections and targeted returns under conditions. It is not in effect yet: FINRA will announce the effective date in a later Regulatory Notice. The last section of this guide covers it.

What Rule 2210 covers

Rule 2210, “Communications with the Public,” applies to FINRA member firms and their associated persons. It has seven parts:

• Definitions of the three communication types and of retail and institutional investors (paragraph (a))
• Approval, review and recordkeeping (paragraph (b))
• Filing requirements with FINRA’s Advertising Regulation Department (paragraph (c))
• Content standards that every communication must meet (paragraph (d))
• Use of FINRA’s name (paragraph (e))
• Public appearances such as seminars and interviews (paragraph (f))
• A catch-all making a violation of SEC, SIPC or MSRB communications rules a violation of Rule 2210 too (paragraph (g))

A few product-specific rules sit next to it: Rule 2211 for variable life insurance and variable annuities, Rule 2212 for investment company rankings, Rule 2216 for CMOs, and Rule 2220 for options communications. The Series 7 content outline lists all of them alongside Rule 2210.

The three types of communication

Everything starts with the audience. The rule defines a retail investor as anyone who is not an institutional investor, whether or not they have an account with the firm. Institutional investors include banks, insurance companies, registered investment companies and other entities described in Rule 4512(c), governmental entities, employee benefit and qualified plans with at least 100 participants, other FINRA members and their registered persons, and anyone acting solely on behalf of one of these.

Two details trip up test takers:

• The 25-person line counts retail investors within any 30 calendar-day period. A personalized email to 20 retail clients is correspondence; the same email sent to 26 retail clients in the same month is a retail communication.
• An institutional communication loses that status if the firm has reason to believe it will be forwarded to retail investors. A piece written for pension plan sponsors that a rep plans to hand to individual clients has to be treated as a retail communication.

Oral communications aren’t one of the three types. Live, unscripted seminars, interviews and speeches fall under the public appearance rules covered below.

Approval and review

Retail communications need approval by an appropriately qualified registered principal before the earlier of their first use or their filing with FINRA. There are narrow exceptions where principal approval isn’t required, as long as the firm supervises the communication the way it supervises correspondence:

• Retail communications that make no financial or investment recommendation and don’t otherwise promote a product or service of the firm
• Posts on an online interactive electronic forum, such as a live chat or a comment thread
• Certain communications excepted from the definition of a research report, unless they make a recommendation

Approval also isn’t needed for a retail communication that another member already filed with FINRA and got a favorable review letter for, used without material change.

A Supervisory Analyst can approve research reports and other research communications in their product area, but not a communication that needs a separate registration they don’t hold.

Correspondence doesn’t need pre-approval. It is supervised under the review procedures of FINRA Rule 3110, which allows firms to review it after it is sent, under risk-based procedures.

Institutional communications don’t need pre-approval either, but the firm must have written procedures for a principal to review them. If those procedures don’t require review before first use, they must include training for associated persons, documentation of that training, and surveillance and follow-up to make sure the procedures are followed.

Filing with FINRA

Some retail communications have to be filed with FINRA’s Advertising Regulation Department. The deadlines are the part to memorize.

At least 10 business days before first use:

• A new member firm’s retail communications in public media (including a generally accessible website, newspapers, radio, TV and billboards) for its first year of FINRA membership
• Investment company retail communications that include rankings or comparisons in a category that isn’t generally published or that the fund, its underwriter or an affiliate created
• Retail communications about security futures

FINRA can also require a firm that has broken the rule’s standards to pre-file its communications for a set period.

Within 10 business days after first use:

• Retail communications that promote or recommend a specific registered investment company or fund family (mutual funds, ETFs, variable insurance products, closed-end funds and UITs)
• Retail communications about public direct participation programs
• Retail communications about CMOs registered under the Securities Act
• Retail communications about registered securities derived from or based on a single security, a basket, an index, a commodity, a debt issuance or a foreign currency (structured products, for example)

Never filed: correspondence, institutional communications, posts on interactive forums, retail communications that make no recommendation and don’t promote a product or service, communications that only list the firm’s products or services, press releases made available only to the media, prospectuses filed with the SEC, and retail communications already filed and used without material change. With each filing, a firm gives the date of first use and the name, title and CRD number of the principal who approved it.

Content standards

Paragraph (d) applies to every communication, whatever its type. The core standard is that communications must be fair and balanced, based on principles of fair dealing and good faith, and give a sound basis for evaluating the facts. No communication may omit a material fact if the omission would make it misleading, or make a false, exaggerated, unwarranted, promissory or misleading claim. Risks and potential benefits get balanced treatment, and details must suit the audience.

The specific standards that show up most on exams:

• No projections or predictions of performance. A communication may not predict or project performance, imply that past performance will recur, or make an exaggerated or unwarranted forecast. Until the 2026 amendment takes effect, there are three exceptions: a hypothetical illustration of mathematical principles that doesn’t project an investment’s performance, an investment analysis tool (or a report from one) that meets Rule 2214, and a price target in a research report that has a reasonable basis, discloses its valuation methods and discloses the risks to reaching it.
• Comparisons. A retail communication comparing investments or services must disclose all material differences, such as objectives, costs, liquidity, safety, guarantees, fluctuation of principal and tax features.
• The firm’s name. Retail communications and correspondence must prominently disclose the member’s name and any relationship with a non-member named in them.
• Tax claims. Income can’t be called tax-free when the tax is only deferred. An illustration comparing tax-deferred and taxable compounding may not assume a gross return above 10% a year.
• Testimonials. A testimonial about a technical aspect of investing must come from someone qualified to give it. One about the firm’s advice or performance must disclose that it may not be representative of other customers’ experience, that it is no guarantee of future performance, and, if more than $100 was paid for it, that it is a paid testimonial.
• Recommendations. A retail communication recommending a security needs a reasonable basis, and must disclose when the firm makes a market in it, when the firm or someone closely involved in preparing it has a financial interest in the issuer (more than a nominal one), and when the firm managed or co-managed a public offering of the issuer’s securities in the past 12 months. Past recommendations can be shown only as a complete list covering at least the preceding year, with a cautionary legend.
• BrokerCheck. A firm’s website must link to FINRA BrokerCheck on its main retail page and on any page profiling a registered person who works with retail investors.
• FINRA’s name. A firm may say it is a FINRA member, but never imply that FINRA endorses or guarantees it. The only allowed reference to FINRA’s review of a communication is “Reviewed by FINRA” or “FINRA Reviewed.”

Public appearances and seminars

A seminar, a radio or TV interview or a speech that is unscripted, and isn’t itself a retail communication, institutional communication or correspondence, is a public appearance. The person speaking must follow the general content standards of paragraph (d)(1). If they recommend a security, they need a reasonable basis and must disclose any financial interest they hold in the issuer and any other material conflict of interest they know of.

The written materials used at the event (scripts, slides and handouts) are communications in their own right, so they are classified and approved by their audience and use. Firms must have written procedures to supervise public appearances, including training and follow-up.

Recordkeeping

Retail and institutional communications are kept for the retention period of SEC Rule 17a-4(b), three years. The record includes a copy of the communication, its dates of first and last use, the name of the principal who approved it and the date of approval, and the source of any statistical table, chart, graph, performance projection or other illustration in it. Correspondence is kept under FINRA’s general books-and-records and supervision rules.

How Rule 2210 is tested

FINRA’s content outlines put communications with the public in a different place on each exam:

• SIE: Section 3, “Understanding Trading, Customer Accounts and Prohibited Activities” (31% of the exam, 23 of 75 questions), lists communications with the public, their classifications and general requirements, and the do-not-call list, next to best interest and suitability. Expect classification questions at an introductory level.
• Series 7: Function 1, “Seeks Business for the Broker-Dealer from Customers and Potential Customers” (9 of 125 questions), covers standards and approvals for public communications, the three types, seminars, and product-specific advertising for funds, variable contracts, options, municipal securities, research, CMOs and CDs. It lists Rule 2210 with Rules 2211, 2212, 2213, 2216 and 2220.
• Series 9/10: the Series 10 has a whole function, “Supervise Communications with the Public” (16 of 145 items), written from the principal’s side: who approves what, what gets filed and when, and how correspondence is reviewed. The Series 9 has “Supervise Options Communications” (5 of 55 items), where options rules such as Rule 2220 sit on top of Rule 2210.
• Series 24: Function 3, “Supervision of Retail and Institutional Customer-Related Activities” (32 of 150 questions), includes monitoring, reviewing and approving speaking engagements and other communications with the public, social media and electronic communications, and the differences among research, retail and institutional communications and correspondence.

The questions repeat a few patterns. Count the retail recipients in 30 days to classify the piece. Then ask who approves it (a principal before use, or review under Rule 3110) and whether it is filed (before use, within 10 business days after, or never). Spot the forbidden content: a projection, an unbalanced claim, a paid testimonial without its disclosure.

Rule 2210 is a small slice of each exam, so it rewards drilling rather than rereading. Work through questions until classification is automatic, and aim for 100% readiness, with full-length practice exam scores about 10 points above the passing score (70% on the SIE, 72% on the Series 7) on several exams in a row. Achievable’s Series 7 course and SIE course cover communications with the public in their rules and ethics chapters (chapter 15 in each), with quizzes and full practice exams. For the Series 7’s other big conduct rule, see What is suitability? FINRA Rule 2111 explained.

The 2026 amendment: projections and targeted returns

Status: approved by the SEC on October 15, 2026; effective date not yet set.

Rule 2210 has long barred communications that predict or project performance, and FINRA reads that ban as covering targeted returns too. In February 2026 FINRA filed SR-FINRA-2026-004 to add a fourth exception. After public comment and a partial amendment, the SEC approved it on October 15, 2026, in Release No. 34-106675 (the SEC’s approval order in the Federal Register).

The new paragraph (d)(1)(F)(iv) will let a firm project performance or give a targeted return for a security, a securities portfolio, or an asset allocation or other investment strategy, if the firm:

• Adopts and implements written policies and procedures reasonably designed to make sure the communication is relevant to the likely financial situation and investment objectives of its intended audience
• Gives enough information for the audience to understand the criteria and assumptions behind the projection or target, and the risks and limitations of relying on it in making investment decisions

The rule’s recordkeeping paragraph will also require firms to keep information on the source of any projection or targeted return they use. FINRA had first proposed a separate reasonable-basis requirement and dropped it in response to comments. The SEC found that the general content standards, together with the new recordkeeping requirement, effectively require a firm to substantiate a projection before using it. Every communication still has to be fair, balanced and not misleading.

The change isn’t a green light for advertising projected returns to the general public. FINRA told the SEC that, under reasonably designed procedures, these communications should go only to investors the firm reasonably believes have the resources and financial expertise to analyze them, and generally not to a mass audience or general retail investors.

FINRA’s online rulebook already shows the new text, but it doesn’t apply until FINRA announces the effective date in a Regulatory Notice. Until then, the rule in force is the general ban with its three exceptions, and that is what exam questions are built on. FINRA will update the content outlines when the exams change, so check the Series 7, SIE, Series 9/10 and Series 24 pages before your test date.

Key takeaways

• Rule 2210 sorts written communications into correspondence (25 or fewer retail investors in 30 days), retail communications (more than 25) and institutional communications (institutional investors only).
• Retail communications need a principal’s approval before use. Correspondence and institutional communications are supervised under written review procedures instead.
• New firms pre-file public retail communications for their first year. Most fund, DPP, CMO and structured product retail communications are filed within 10 business days after first use. Correspondence and institutional communications are never filed.
• Every communication must be fair and balanced, and may not project performance except under the rule’s narrow exceptions.
• The SEC approved a fourth exception for projections and targeted returns on October 15, 2026. It isn’t effective until FINRA announces a date, so study the current rule.