Types of SEC filings: the complete guide (2026)
10-K, 8-K, 13F, S-1, DEF 14A. SEC filings read like a stack of license plates, and the numbers don't tell you what any of them are for. But almost every filing you will ever care about falls into one of four groups, and once you see the groups, the whole system stops being intimidating.
Here is the full map: what each major filing is, which family it belongs to, and where to read the deep dive on the ones that matter.
How SEC filings are organized
There is no single "types of filings" menu at the SEC, which is why this feels harder than it is. Filings exist because a law requires someone to disclose something, so the cleanest way to group them is by who files and why: a company reporting results, an insider reporting a trade, a fund reporting holdings, a business raising money. Sort by that, and four families cover almost everything.
The sections below walk through each family, and the table further down lists every major form in one place.
Periodic reports: 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K
These are what a public company files on a schedule. Two are calendar-driven; one fires on events.
The 10-K is the big annual report: audited financials, the full business description, and the risk factors. The 10-Q is a lighter, unaudited quarterly update after each of the first three quarters. The 8-K is the odd one out, filed within four business days whenever something material happens, so it is the closest thing to live company news on EDGAR.
Ownership and holdings filings
This family is about who owns the stock and who is trading it. Three different groups have to disclose.
Company insiders file Form 3, 4 and 5: Form 3 when they become an insider, Form 4 within two business days of every trade, and Form 5 for year-end cleanup. Any manager with $100M or more in US stocks files a 13F listing its holdings each quarter. And anyone crossing 5% of a company files a Schedule 13D (activist intent) or 13G (passive).
Offerings, governance, and the rest
The last two families cover how a company raises money and how it governs itself.
On the capital side, the S-1 is the IPO registration, the 424B is the final prospectus with the actual price, and Form D covers private placements that skip a public offering. On the governance side, the DEF 14A is the proxy statement (shareholder votes and executive pay), Form 144 is notice that an insider plans to sell restricted stock, and N-PORT is a mutual fund or ETF's monthly holdings.
Every major SEC filing in one table
The whole set on one page, grouped by family. Click through to the deep dive where there is one.
| Filing | Family | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| 10-K | Periodic | Annual report: audited financials, business, risks |
| 10-Q | Periodic | Quarterly report, unaudited, first three quarters |
| 8-K | Periodic | Material event, within 4 business days |
| Form 3 / 4 / 5 | Ownership | Insider ownership and trades |
| 13F | Ownership | A large fund's quarterly stock holdings |
| 13D / 13G | Ownership | A stake above 5% (activist vs passive) |
| Form 144 | Governance | Notice of a planned insider stock sale |
| S-1 | Offering | IPO registration statement |
| 424B | Offering | Final prospectus with the offering price |
| Form D | Offering | Private placement, no public offering |
| DEF 14A | Governance | Proxy statement: votes and executive pay |
| N-PORT | Funds | A mutual fund or ETF's monthly holdings |
For when every one of these is due, the filing deadlines guide lays out each clock side by side.
Which filing answers your question?
Most of the time you are not looking for "a filing" at all. You have a question, and one form holds the answer. Start there.
Want the audited financials? The 10-K. What insiders are doing? Form 4. What a fund holds? The 13F. Breaking company news? The 8-K. A company about to list? The S-1. A new 5% stakeholder? A 13D or 13G. The number is just a label for the answer.
Where to find and pull SEC filings
Every filing here is free and public on SEC EDGAR, searchable by company, form type, or date. That works for reading one filing at a time. It works less well when you want to track a company's filings as they land, or pull the data into your own screen or app.
To pull the common filing types as clean JSON, the Edgrapi API parses them for you: financials from the 10-K, insider trades from Form 4, fund holdings from the 13F, events from the 8-K, and more. If you would rather see the data than write code, the free Superinvestors tracker shows what top funds hold, straight from their 13Fs. Either way, once you know which family a filing belongs to, the whole system reads like a map instead of a code.
Pull SEC filings as clean JSON →
Edgrapi surfaces public SEC filings for research. It is not investment advice.
Frequently asked questions
What are the main types of SEC filings?
They sort into a few families. Periodic reports (10-K annual, 10-Q quarterly, 8-K for material events) are what a company reports on a schedule. Ownership filings (Form 3/4/5, 13F, 13D/13G) show who holds and trades the stock. Offering filings (S-1, 424B, Form D) cover raising money. Governance filings (DEF 14A, Form 144) cover votes, pay, and planned sales.
What is the most important SEC filing?
For understanding a company, the 10-K annual report. It has the audited financials, the full business description, and the risk factors in one place. For timely news, the 8-K, filed within four business days of a material event. Which one matters most depends on your question: financials point to the 10-K, insider activity to Form 4, fund holdings to the 13F.
How many types of SEC filings are there?
EDGAR recognizes more than 150 distinct form types, but most people only ever need a dozen: 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, Form 3, Form 4, Form 5, 13F, 13D, 13G, S-1, 424B, and DEF 14A. The rest are specialized filings for funds, foreign issuers, broker-dealers, and one-off events.
Are all SEC filings public?
Almost all of them. Once a company or investor files with the SEC, the filing is public on EDGAR immediately and free to read. A few filings can be submitted confidentially for a limited window (an emerging-growth company can file its S-1 as a draft first), but the standard rule is that a filing is public the moment it lands.
Where can I find SEC filings?
All of them are on SEC EDGAR at sec.gov, searchable by company, form type, or date, and free. The raw filings are built for one-off lookups, not for tracking a pipeline, so many people use an API to pull filings as structured JSON. Edgrapi does that for the common filing types.
What is the difference between a 10-K and an 8-K?
A 10-K is the scheduled annual report, with audited financials and a full business review, filed once a year. An 8-K is unscheduled: it is filed within four business days whenever a material event happens, like an acquisition, a CEO change, or an earnings release. The 10-K is the deep annual picture; the 8-K is the real-time news feed between those reports.