Browse the library

Fundamentals · Reading financial reports

SEC filings explained: 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, proxy, 13F and more

A map of the SEC forms investors meet, the filing deadlines by filer status, and how to search EDGAR and its XBRL data, using Apple’s real filing calendar.

Beginner 13 min read By Finabase Research Updated Oct 30, 2026

On this page

Why companies file with the SEC
The map of forms
Filing deadlines depend on filer status
Apple's real filing calendar
How to find and search filings on EDGAR
Pitfalls when reading filings
How Finabase does it
Frequently asked questions
Summary

Every US public company has to tell investors, in writing and on a schedule, how its business is doing. Those reports are SEC filings, and they are the primary source for almost everything a fundamental investor uses: revenue, profit, debt, risks, executive pay, insider trades and who owns the shares. They are all free on EDGAR, the Securities and Exchange Commission's electronic filing system at sec.gov.

The trouble for a beginner is the alphabet soup. A single company can file a dozen different form types in a year. This page is the map. It explains which forms matter, what each one contains, when it is due, and how to find and search them, using the filings Apple Inc. actually made between its fiscal 2025 year-end and October 2026.

Why companies file with the SEC

US securities law rests on disclosure. The Securities Act of 1933 requires a company to register securities, with a prospectus, before selling them to the public. The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 then requires registered companies to keep reporting: annual and quarterly reports, plus current reports when something important happens. The SEC does not judge whether a company is a good investment. It requires that investors get the information to judge for themselves, and it can bring enforcement action when that information is false or misleading.

Two words in this world have precise meanings. A document is filed when it becomes part of the official record and carries the full liability attached to SEC filings. A document is furnished when it is provided to the SEC without being deemed filed, which lightens some of that liability. Earnings releases attached to an 8-K under Item 2.02 are deemed furnished, not filed, unless the company says otherwise (Form 8-K, General Instruction B.2), which is why the earnings-release exhibit and the 10-K are treated differently even when they show the same numbers.

The map of forms

Form	What it is	Who files it	When
10-K	Annual report: audited statements, MD&A, risk factors	US public companies	60, 75 or 90 days after fiscal year-end
10-Q	Quarterly report: unaudited condensed statements, MD&A	US public companies	40 or 45 days after quarters 1–3
8-K	Current report on a material event	US public companies	Generally within 4 business days
DEF 14A	Definitive proxy statement for the shareholder meeting	Companies soliciting votes	Before the meeting
S-1	Registration statement for a new offering, such as an IPO	Companies registering securities	Before the securities are sold
Form 3	Initial statement of an insider's holdings	Officers, directors, 10% owners	Within 10 days of becoming an insider
Form 4	Change in an insider's holdings	Officers, directors, 10% owners	By the end of the 2nd business day
Form 5	Annual catch-up of transactions not reported earlier	Insiders, when needed	45 days after the company's fiscal year-end
Schedule 13D	Ownership above 5% by an investor who may seek control	Activists and other 5% holders	5 business days after crossing 5%
Schedule 13G	Short-form ownership report above 5% for passive holders	Institutions and passive investors	45 days after quarter-end, or 5 business days for passive investors
Form 13F	Quarterly list of equity holdings	Managers with ≥ $100M in 13(f) securities	45 days after each calendar quarter
20-F	Annual report of a foreign private issuer	Non-US companies listed in the US	Within four months after fiscal year-end
6-K	Report of material information a foreign issuer publishes at home	Foreign private issuers	Promptly after it is made public at home

A few notes on the table:

The 10-K and 10-Q are the backbone of fundamental analysis. The guides to How to read a 10-K: a guided walkthrough of Apple’s annual report and How to read a 10-Q: quarterly reports, nine-month columns and TTM walk through Apple's.
The 8-K is how news reaches the record between periodic reports: earnings releases, executive changes, acquisitions, shareholder-vote results. The Form 8-K: what triggers it, the item numbers and how to read one page lists the item numbers.
The proxy statement carries executive compensation, director elections, auditor fees and shareholder proposals. Part III of the 10-K (Items 10–14) usually just points to it; the 10-K instructions allow that if the proxy is filed within 120 days of year-end.
The S-1 is the IPO document. It contains the same kind of business description and statements as a 10-K, plus the terms of the offering. See How IPOs work: from S-1 filing to first trade and lock-up.
Section 16 insider forms (3, 4, 5) cover officers, directors and owners of more than 10% of a class of stock. The Insider trading filings: Forms 3, 4 and 5 and how to read them page explains the transaction codes.
Schedules 13D and 13G were tightened by SEC amendments adopted in 2023: the initial 13D deadline fell from 10 days to five business days, with amendments due within two business days, and the revised 13G deadlines applied from September 30, 2024.
Form 13F is filed by the manager, not the company, so you find it under the fund's name. The 13F filings: what institutional holdings reports show and miss page explains why it is always at least 45 days stale.
Foreign companies that qualify as foreign private issuers file a 20-F instead of a 10-K and furnish 6-Ks instead of 10-Qs and 8-Ks, so a non-US company's quarterly numbers may not arrive in a standardized SEC form at all.

Filing deadlines depend on filer status

The SEC sorts companies into filer categories, defined in Exchange Act Rule 12b-2. The category sets the periodic-report deadlines.

Filer status	Public float (general test)	10-K due after year-end	10-Q due after quarter-end
Large accelerated filer	$700 million or more	60 days	40 days
Accelerated filer	$75 million to under $700 million	75 days	40 days
Non-accelerated filer	Below $75 million, among others	90 days	45 days

Public float is the market value of the common equity held by non-affiliates, that is, shares not held by executives, directors and controlling holders. It is measured on the last business day of the company's second fiscal quarter. Under Rule 12b-2, a large accelerated filer must also have been reporting for at least 12 calendar months, have filed at least one annual report, and not qualify as a smaller reporting company under that definition's revenue test.

Formula

10-K deadline = fiscal year-end + 60 days   (large accelerated filer)
10-Q deadline = quarter-end + 40 days       (large and accelerated filers)
days taken    = filing date − period end date

Is quarterly reporting about to change?

On May 5, 2026, the SEC proposed letting companies choose to file one semiannual report, on a new Form 10-S, instead of three 10-Qs. As of October 30, 2026 it remains a proposal, not an adopted rule, and quarterly 10-Qs are still required. A separate May 2026 proposal would collapse the filer categories into two (large accelerated and non-accelerated filers). If either is adopted, the tables above will change; check the SEC's rulemaking pages for the current status.

Apple's real filing calendar

One year of Apple’s periodic filings: each 10-Q (and the 10-K) followed an 8-K earnings release by one day. Source: SEC EDGAR filing index for Apple Inc. (CIK 320193).

Apple's EDGAR index shows a rhythm common among large companies. It reports results in an earnings release attached to an 8-K, after the market closes, then files the full 10-K or 10-Q the next day.

Period ended	Earnings release (8-K)	Full report	Days after period end	Deadline
Sept 27, 2025 (FY)	Oct 30, 2025	10-K Oct 31, 2025	34	Nov 26, 2025
Dec 27, 2025 (Q1)	Jan 29, 2026	10-Q Jan 30, 2026	34	Feb 5, 2026
Mar 28, 2026 (Q2)	Apr 30, 2026	10-Q May 1, 2026	34	May 7, 2026
June 27, 2026 (Q3)	July 30, 2026	10-Q July 31, 2026	34	Aug 6, 2026

Apple's fiscal quarters end on the last Saturday of December, March, June and September, so the period-end dates move by a day or two each year. There is no 10-Q for the fourth quarter: Form 10-Q's instructions say none is needed, because the 10-K covers the full year. Fourth-quarter numbers appear only in the earnings release and, by subtraction, in the 10-K.

The same index shows the other forms in action:

DEF 14A, Apple's proxy statement, filed January 8, 2026, ahead of the annual meeting. The 8-K reporting the vote results followed on February 24, 2026.
8-Ks on December 5, 2025, January 2, 2026 and April 20, 2026 for changes among officers or directors (Item 5.02).
Forms 3 and 4 almost every few weeks, as executives and directors received, sold or withheld shares. Each new officer files a Form 3.
Schedule 13G filings by large holders, such as one on April 29, 2026 and an amendment on March 26, 2026.
Form 144, a notice of a proposed sale of shares by an affiliate such as an executive, often followed by that insider's Form 4, and Form SD, Apple's annual specialized disclosure on conflict minerals, filed May 28, 2026.

How to find and search filings on EDGAR

Company search

The simplest route is EDGAR's company search: type a ticker or name and you get every filing in date order, filterable by form type. Each company has a permanent Central Index Key (CIK); Apple's is 320193. A filing page lists the main document, its exhibits and its XBRL files. The main 10-K or 10-Q document is the one marked with the form type.

Full-text search

EDGAR full-text search looks inside the text of filings and their exhibits, back to 2001. It is how you answer questions that no data table can, such as which companies mentioned a particular supplier or regulation. According to the SEC's FAQ:

Put words in double quotes to match an exact phrase: "Digital Markets Act".
Terms are combined with AND by default. Use OR between alternatives, NOT or a leading hyphen to exclude a term, and NEAR(n) to find terms within n words of each other.
Add * to the end of a stem to match variations (tariff*). Wildcards do not work at the start or middle of a word, inside quoted phrases, or in Boolean searches.
Filter by form type, date range and company or CIK under the advanced options. Natural-language questions are not supported, and results are ranked by relevance, so narrow with a form type and dates.

XBRL: the numbers as data

Companies tag the numbers in their financial statements with standard labels from the US GAAP taxonomy, a format called XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language). The SEC publishes those tags through free APIs at data.sec.gov, with no API key required:

Company facts returns every tagged number a company has reported, for example https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0000320193.json for Apple.
Company concept returns one line item over time, such as diluted EPS.
Frames returns one concept for every company for a single period, which is how you build cross-company comparisons.
Submissions returns a company's filing history and metadata.

Apple tags fiscal 2025 net sales as RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax, with a value of 416,161,000,000 and a period from September 29, 2024 to September 27, 2025. Diluted EPS is EarningsPerShareDiluted, 7.46. The SEC asks automated users to declare a user agent in request headers and caps access at 10 requests per second.

Pitfalls when reading filings

Mistaking the fiscal year for the calendar year. Apple's fiscal 2025 ended in September 2025. Many data sources, including the SEC's own frames API and Finabase's quarterly labels, map periods to the nearest calendar period, so the same quarter can carry two different names.

Missing amendments. A filing ending in "/A" (10-K/A, 8-K/A) amends an earlier one. Apple filed an 8-K/A on September 1, 2026. Always check whether the version you are reading has been superseded.

Reading the press release instead of the filing. The earnings release is faster and often leads with adjusted, non-GAAP figures. The 10-K and 10-Q carry the GAAP statements and the notes. See GAAP vs non-GAAP earnings: how adjusted numbers are built.

Treating a Form 144 as a sale. A Form 144 is a notice of a proposed sale. The Form 4 that follows is the record of what actually happened.

How Finabase does it

Finabase turns several of these filings into screens you can scan without opening EDGAR.

The Financials tab shows income statement, balance sheet and cash flow lines from the company's 10-K and 10-Q filings, annual or quarterly, with up to 40 periods of history. Quarters are labeled by calendar quarter: Apple's 10-Q for the quarter ended June 27, 2026 appears as "Q2 2026", period ending June 30, 2026.
The Holders tab lists top institutional and mutual fund holders, with percentage held, shares, value and the date reported; that is the 13F-derived view. It also lists insiders with their latest transaction.
/insider lists Form 4 filings across the market: open-market buys, sales and option exercises, with date, insider, shares, price, value, shares owned after, and a link to the filing.
The Earnings tab and the earnings calendar track the report dates that, for most large companies, coincide with the 8-K earnings release.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a 10-K and a 10-Q?

A 10-K is the annual report, with audited financial statements and a full description of the business and its risks. A 10-Q is the quarterly report for each of the first three fiscal quarters, with condensed statements that are reviewed but not audited. There is no 10-Q for the fourth quarter; the 10-K covers it.

How soon after the quarter ends do companies report?

A large accelerated filer must file its 10-Q within 40 days of quarter-end and its 10-K within 60 days of year-end; smaller companies get up to 45 and 90 days. Many large companies report much sooner: Apple filed each of its fiscal 2026 10-Qs 34 days after the quarter ended.

Are SEC filings free?

Yes. Every filing on EDGAR is free to read and download, and the SEC's XBRL data APIs at data.sec.gov require no account or key.

What is an 8-K used for?

An 8-K reports a material event between periodic reports, generally within four business days: results of operations, a change of officers or directors, an acquisition, bankruptcy, or the results of a shareholder vote. Companies also use it to furnish their quarterly earnings release.

Do foreign companies file 10-Ks?

Most foreign private issuers do not. They file an annual report on Form 20-F, due within four months of fiscal year-end, and furnish other information on Form 6-K when they publish it at home. Some foreign companies choose to file 10-Ks and 10-Qs anyway.

Summary

SEC filings are the primary record of every US public company. The 10-K gives the audited annual picture, the 10-Q updates it for each of the first three quarters, and the 8-K reports material events in between. The proxy covers pay and votes, the S-1 covers new offerings, and Forms 3, 4, 5, 13D, 13G and 13F show who owns and trades the shares. Deadlines depend on filer status: a large accelerated filer like Apple has 60 days for its 10-K and 40 days for each 10-Q, and Apple used 34. EDGAR's company search, full-text search and XBRL APIs make all of it free to find, read and analyze.