The Securities and Exchange Commission
Summary
The SEC spent $2.20 billion and used 4,542 full-time staff to police U.S. securities markets in FY2025 -- about $6.42 for every U.S. resident -- while its own enforcement results say the agency obtained $17.9 billion in monetary-relief orders and returned roughly $262 million directly to harmed investors that year.
What is this organization?
What does it do?
The oversees more than 33,000 entities⧉ -- more than 16,300 investment advisers, 3,200 broker-dealers, 13,500 registered funds, and 29 national securities exchanges -- and reviews the disclosures and financial statements of more than 7,900 reporting companies⧉. In FY2025 it filed 456 enforcement actions⧉ -- 303 standalone cases plus 69 follow-on administrative proceedings -- and fielded a record 53,753 tips, complaints, and referrals⧉, nearly 19% more than the year before.
What does it cost to run — money and people?
The 's FY2025 total obligations were $2.20 billion⧉, funded almost entirely by securities transaction and filing fees rather than general tax revenue⧉ -- by design its budget is deficit-neutral. It used 4,542 full-time equivalent positions⧉ that year, even as its own financial report says agency headcount fell 17% during FY2025 to roughly 4,000 employees⧉ as staff took early-retirement and separation offers. Divided across the 342.4 million U.S. residents FRED tracked that October⧉, the FY2025 budget works out to $6.42 per person.
View data as table
| Enforcement | 693,061 | 31.5% of budget |
|---|---|---|
| Examinations | 499,894 | 22.7% of budget |
| Agency Direction & Admin Support | 313,339 | 14.2% of budget |
| Corporation Finance | 184,287 | 8.4% of budget |
| Trading and Markets | 122,953 | 5.6% of budget |
| Other Program Offices | 109,206 | 5.0% of budget |
| Investment Management | 95,683 | 4.4% of budget |
| Economic and Risk Analysis | 84,978 | 3.9% of budget |
| General Counsel | 71,355 | 3.2% of budget |
| Inspector General | 24,672 | 1.1% of budget |
Why is it good for society?
In FY2025 the 's enforcement program obtained orders for $17.9 billion in monetary relief⧉ -- $10.8 billion in disgorgement of ill-gotten gains and prejudgment interest, $7.2 billion in civil penalties -- and returned approximately $262 million directly to harmed investors⧉, on top of $60 million paid to 48 whistleblowers who helped uncover the underlying fraud. Absent that machinery, the proceeds of Ponzi schemes, insider trading, and disclosure fraud stay with the wrongdoer rather than the investor who lost them.
- The 's FY2025 budget works out to $6.42 per U.S. resident -- and its own enforcement results say the agency ordered $17.9 billion in monetary relief that year, more than 8 times its entire annual budget, though only a fraction of that relief (about $262 million) was returned directly to harmed investors.
- The 's FY2025 Actual full-time-equivalent count was 4,542, even as its own financial report says actual agency headcount fell 17% during the year to roughly 4,000 employees on Fork-in-the-Road, early-retirement, and separation-incentive departures.
Your handles.* Suspect fraud, an unregistered offering, or a broker who mishandled your account? File a Tip, Complaint, or Referral with the directly. If you have original, non-public information about a securities-law violation, the SEC Whistleblower Office⧉ can pay an award of 10-30% of monetary sanctions collected, when they exceed $1 million⧉. To weigh in on a pending rule, use the rulemaking comment docket.
Sources(6) ▾
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Fiscal Year 2027 Congressional Budget Justification / Annual Performance Plan; Fiscal Year 2025 Annual Performance Report (2026-04-03) — The 's own annual budget justification to Congress -- this edition carries FY2025 Actual figures (obligations by object class/program, full-time equivalents by program) alongside the FY2026 Enacted and FY2027 Request columns. Source for this entry's FY2025 total obligations, FY2025 , the program-level budget breakdown, the agency's mission statement, its deficit-neutral fee-funded structure, and its entity-oversight and reporting-company workload counts. Document last-modified per HTTP header 2026-04-03. sec.gov · original document
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 2025 Agency Financial Report (2026-01-16) — The 's own audited annual financial report for the year ended September 30, 2025 -- source for this entry's fee-funding mechanism detail (Section 31 transaction fees offsetting the appropriation) and the agency's own narrative on FY2025 headcount attrition (Deferred Resignation/VERA/VSIP departures). sec.gov · original document
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (Newsroom), SEC Announces Enforcement Results for Fiscal Year 2025 (Press Release 2026-34) (2026-04-07) — The 's own official announcement of its FY2025 (Oct 2024-Sept 2025) enforcement statistics -- source for this entry's enforcement-actions-filed count, tips/complaints/referrals received, total monetary relief ordered, the amount returned directly to harmed investors, and the whistleblower awards paid, all used in the 'what does it do' and 'why is it good for society' sections. sec.gov · original document
- Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives (uscode.house.gov), 15 U.S.C. Section 78d -- Securities and Exchange Commission (2025-01-01) — The current U.S. Code text of Section 4 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 -- source for the Commission's creation, its five-commissioner composition, the political-balance and Senate-confirmation requirements, and the June 6, 1934 enactment date. The Wayback capture (2025-04-02) predates a 2025 amendment (Pub. L. 119-21) that struck the unrelated Reserve Fund subsection; the Commission-establishment text quoted here is unaffected by that amendment and reads identically in both versions. uscode.house.gov · original document
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Whistleblower Program (2026-01-01) — The 's own official Whistleblower Program page -- source for the 'Your handles' note block's whistleblower-award parameters (the $1 million sanctions threshold and the 10-30% award range). Archive.org SPN re-save attempted once (returned HTTP 520, consistent with the outlet's known SPN-outage hazard) and not retried; the existing 2024 capture is used instead -- the cited award-percentage rule is a stable statutory parameter (Exchange Act Section 21F / Dodd-Frank), not a figure expected to have changed. sec.gov · original document
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED), based on U.S. Census Bureau data, Population (POPTHM) (2026-01-22) — FRED's monthly U.S. resident-population-plus-armed-forces-overseas series, sourced from Census Bureau data -- used here for the October 1, 2025 population figure (the FY2025 fiscal-year-end reference point) as the per-resident KPI's denominator. The live CSV endpoint was unreachable from the blind verifier's sandbox (curl connection failure, WebFetch 403); the archiveUrl above (an independent web.archive.org capture, a different host, located via a single availability-API probe) was used instead and confirmed to carry the same '2025-10-01,342366' row -- see verification.json. fred.stlouisfed.org · original document
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The was created by Section 4 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934⧉ (15 U.S.C. Section 78d), enacted June 6, 1934 after the October 1929 stock market crash collapsed public confidence in the securities markets and Congress held hearings on what to do about it⧉. The statute establishes an independent five-member Commission⧉ -- no more than three commissioners from one political party -- appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to staggered five-year terms. Its core mission⧉ is to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation: it sits between every investor and every company or fund selling them a security.