SEC EDGAR API Reference

Overview

SEC's Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system. Provides free access to corporate filings, company data, and XBRL financial data. No API key required, but a User-Agent header identifying you is mandatory.

Base URLs

• Company/Filings Data: https://data.sec.gov
• EDGAR Website/Archives: https://www.sec.gov
• XBRL API: https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl

Authentication

• API Key: Not required.
• User-Agent Header: REQUIRED on every request. Must contain company/person name and email. `` User-Agent: MyCompany admin@mycompany.com `` Requests without a proper User-Agent are blocked (403).

Rate Limits

• 10 requests per second per source IP.
• Exceeding this results in temporary IP-based throttling (HTTP 429).
• Use the official bulk ZIP archives for large jobs instead of querying every company separately.

Key Endpoints

Full-text discovery

Use EDGAR full-text search for interactive discovery. Its efts.sec.gov backend is not one of the documented data.sec.gov public APIs; do not treat inferred UI routes, filters, or response fields as a stable retrieval contract. Use the documented submissions and XBRL routes below for reproducible API retrieval.

3. Company Tickers & CIK Lookup

GET https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar

Legacy EDGAR company search.

Parameters:

Example:

https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=AAPL&type=10-K&dateb=&owner=include&count=10&output=atom

GET https://www.sec.gov/files/company_tickers.json

Returns a JSON mapping of all company tickers to CIK numbers.

Response:

{
  "0": {"cik_str": 320193, "ticker": "AAPL", "title": "Apple Inc."},
  "1": {"cik_str": 789019, "ticker": "MSFT", "title": "MICROSOFT CORP"},
  ...
}

GET https://www.sec.gov/files/company_tickers_exchange.json

Includes exchange information for each ticker.

4. Company Filings & Submissions

GET https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK{cik_padded}.json

Returns company metadata and recent filings for a given CIK (zero-padded to 10 digits).

Example:

https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0000320193.json

Response:

{
  "cik": "320193",
  "entityType": "operating",
  "sic": "3571",
  "sicDescription": "Electronic Computers",
  "name": "Apple Inc.",
  "tickers": ["AAPL"],
  "exchanges": ["Nasdaq"],
  "filings": {
    "recent": {
      "accessionNumber": ["0000320193-24-000123", ...],
      "filingDate": ["2024-11-01", ...],
      "reportDate": ["2024-09-28", ...],
      "form": ["10-K", ...],
      "primaryDocument": ["aapl-20240928.htm", ...],
      "primaryDocDescription": ["10-K", ...]
    },
    "files": [
      {"name": "CIK0000320193-submissions-001.json", "filingCount": 1000}
    ]
  }
}

filings.recent contains at least one year or 1,000 filings, whichever is larger. Retrieve older filenames from filings.files under the same /submissions/ base; keep the parallel arrays aligned by index.

5. Company Concept (XBRL Data)

GET https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyconcept/CIK{cik}/{taxonomy}/{tag}.json

Returns all values reported by a company for a specific XBRL tag across all filings.

Path Parameters:

Example:

https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyconcept/CIK0000320193/us-gaap/RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax.json

Response:

{
  "cik": 320193,
  "taxonomy": "us-gaap",
  "tag": "RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax",
  "label": "Revenue",
  "description": "Amount of revenue recognized...",
  "entityName": "Apple Inc.",
  "units": {
    "USD": [
      {
        "start": "2023-10-01",
        "end": "2024-09-28",
        "val": 391035000000,
        "accn": "0000320193-24-000123",
        "fy": 2024,
        "fp": "FY",
        "form": "10-K",
        "filed": "2024-11-01"
      }
    ]
  }
}

6. Company Facts (All XBRL for one company)

GET https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK{cik}.json

Returns aggregated company concepts from non-custom taxonomies applying to the entire entity. Custom tags and dimensional/segment facts require inspecting the filing itself.

Example:

https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0000320193.json

Response: Same structure as companyconcept but with all tags nested under facts.us-gaap, facts.dei, etc.

{
  "cik": 320193,
  "entityName": "Apple Inc.",
  "facts": {
    "dei": {
      "EntityCommonStockSharesOutstanding": { "units": { "shares": [...] } }
    },
    "us-gaap": {
      "RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax": { "units": { "USD": [...] } },
      "Assets": { "units": { "USD": [...] } }
    }
  }
}

7. Frames (Cross-Company XBRL for a period)

GET https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/frames/{taxonomy}/{tag}/{unit}/{period}.json

Returns the last-filed fact per reporting entity that best matches the requested calendar period. Reporting start/end dates can differ between entities; inspect them before comparing values.

Path Parameters:

Period format:

• CY2023 = calendar year 2023 (full year duration)
• CY2023Q1 = Q1 2023 duration
• CY2023Q4I = instant at end of Q4 2023 (balance sheet items)

Example:

https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/frames/us-gaap/Assets/USD/CY2023Q4I.json

Response:

{
  "taxonomy": "us-gaap",
  "tag": "Assets",
  "ccp": "CY2023Q4I",
  "uom": "USD",
  "label": "Assets",
  "description": "Sum of the carrying amounts...",
  "pts": 8500,
  "data": [
    {"accn": "0000320193-24-000123", "cik": 320193, "entityName": "Apple Inc.", "loc": "US-CA", "end": "2023-12-30", "val": 352583000000}
  ]
}

8. Filing Archives (Direct Document Access)

GET https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/{cik}/{accession_number_no_dashes}/{filename}

Direct access to any filing document.

Example:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000032019324000123/aapl-20240928.htm

The accession number format in the URL is stripped of dashes: 0000320193-24-000123 becomes 000032019324000123.

Common XBRL Tags Reference

Notes

• CIK numbers must be zero-padded to 10 digits in data.sec.gov URLs.
• Response excerpts and accession numbers here illustrate structure; obtain actual document names and accession numbers from submissions before constructing archive URLs.
• For bulk downloads, SEC provides index files at https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/full-index/.
• All responses are JSON unless otherwise noted. Filing documents can be HTML, XML, or plain text.