Draft EDGAR Form N-CEN XML Technical Specification (Version 1)

Implementation Date: September 2017

This draft EDGAR Form N-CEN XML Technical Specification, posted before Commission approval of potential regulatory changes in this release, is provided as a service to our filing community to assist filers, agents, and software developers in their preparation of responses to potential changes the staff anticipates. Since this is a draft technical specification, the SEC retains the right to change any part of the technical specification before the new system release is made final. In addition, the final EDGAR Form N-CEN XML Technical Specification is subject to Commission approval and may be revised before approval or not approved at all. Similarly, the posting of the draft technical specification does not indicate Commission approval of any pending proposed changes relating to the potential changes reflected in the draft technical specification. The changes outlined in this draft technical specification, if approved, are scheduled to take effect on September 11, 2017. The final version of the technical specification will be made available if approved by the Commission on or about September 11, 2017, on the SEC's Public Website.

The EDGAR Form N-CEN XML Technical Specification (Version 1) document details the valid structure and content of the Form N-CEN Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR) Extensible Markup Language (XML) submission types. This specification provides, to those filers that are interested, the basis for creating Form N-CEN XML submissions. The expectation is that software developers, working on behalf of filers, will be able to construct software that will generate a Form N-CEN XML submission that can be successfully processed by the EDGAR system.

The N-CEN submission file must conform to the EDGAR Form N-CEN Submission Taxonomy for the EDGAR system. This taxonomy comprises a collection of XML Schema Definition (.xsd) files that defines the structure of EDGAR Form N-CEN submissions.  The Form N-CEN XML submissions can be transmitted to the SEC via the ‘Transmit’ link on the EDGAR FilerWeb (https://www.edgarfiling.sec.gov/) or the ‘Transmit XML Submission’ link on the EDGAR OnlineForms/XML Website (https://www.onlineforms.edgarfiling.sec.gov).