SEC Enhances Access to Financial Disclosure Data

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced open data enhancements that provide public access to financial statements and other disclosures made by publicly traded companies on its Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system (EDGAR).

The SEC is releasing for the first time Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that aggregate financial statement data, making corporate disclosures quicker and easier for developers and third-party services to use. APIs will allow developers to create web or mobile apps that directly serve retail investors.

"These new APIs make important information about public companies more accessible and usable than ever before," said Jed Hickman, Director, EDGAR Business Office. "This marks another important milestone in the SEC's continuing efforts to facilitate innovation and make financial disclosure data accessible to all market participants."

The free APIs provide access to EDGAR submission history by filer as well as eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) data from financial statements, including annual and quarterly reports, Forms 8-K, 20-F, 40-F, and 6-K. The SEC anticipates adding more datasets in the future.

The SEC updates APIs in real time throughout the day as EDGAR submissions are made public. In addition, a bulk ZIP file—making it possible to download all the API data—is updated and republished nightly.

The APIs were made available for beta testing prior to today’s release, allowing for a period of public testing and feedback. To learn more about the APIs and how to get started, visit the API documentation page at https://www.sec.gov/page/sec-api-documentation.