FINRA Tightens Rules on Brokers' Side Hustles and Hobbies
Published Date: 5/6/2026
Notice
Summary
FINRA wants to update its rules about what outside jobs and activities financial workers can have. This new rule, FINRA Rule 3290, replaces two older rules to make things clearer and easier to follow. If approved, it affects financial pros who must report outside work, with no big cost changes but tighter reporting rules coming soon.
Analyzed Economic Effects
5 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 3 costs, 0 mixed.
Approval required for paid outside securities deals
If you plan to take part in an outside securities transaction where you may receive selling compensation, you must give prior written notice and obtain your member firm's prior written approval. If approved, the member must record the transaction on its books and supervise your participation as if the transaction were executed on behalf of the member.
Firms can limit or bar outside activities
When a member firm gets notice of an outside activity or outside securities transaction, the firm must assess whether it involves customers, conflicts with duties, or would be viewed as part of the firm's business, and the firm may impose conditions, limitations, or prohibit the activity. If a firm imposes conditions or limits, it must reasonably supervise compliance with those conditions.
Less supervision for unaffiliated adviser roles
The proposed rule replaces prior supervision and recordkeeping requirements for a registered person's activity at an unaffiliated investment adviser with a notice-and-assessment approach. That activity would be treated as an outside activity rather than an outside securities transaction in many cases.
New written notice for outside activities
If you are a FINRA-registered person, you must give your member firm prior written notice before doing any investment-related activity outside your firm and you must update that notice if there is a material change. The notice must describe the outside activity and your role in detail.
Certain activities excluded from the rule
The proposed rule explicitly excludes specific activities from coverage, including activity on behalf of a member or its affiliate, securities transactions among immediate family with no selling compensation, transactions covered by FINRA Rule 3210, personal investments in non-securities, and purchase/sale/rental/lease of a main home and up to two secondary homes meeting listed ownership tests. It also treats activity at an unaffiliated registered investment adviser and certain activities covered by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act or Regulation R as outside activities rather than outside securities transactions.
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