SEC EDGAR Filings — 8-K Items Decoded

Pull SEC filings for any US-listed company and get the meaning, not just the form code. Every row says what kind of filing it is, decodes 8-K item codes into plain language, and flags material events — so 8-K becomes executive_change, and 1.03 becomes bankruptcy.

Free official SEC data (data.sec.gov). No API key, no login, no proxy, no anti-bot.

Why this one

EDGAR is free — the friction was never access, it's that a raw filing list is meaningless until you know that item 5.02 is an executive departure and 4.02 is a restatement. Other scrapers hand you the form code. This one hands you the answer.

What you get

Field	Description
company / ticker / cik	Filer identity (tickers auto-resolved to CIK)
formType	8-K, 10-K, 10-Q, 4, S-1, SC 13D, 13F…
signal	Plain-language kind: earnings, executive_change, acquisition, bankruptcy, restatement, activist_stake, ipo_registration, insider_transaction, annual_report…
materialEvent	true for the filings that actually move a stock or a story
itemsDecoded	Each 8-K item code with its official description
filingDate / reportDate / ageDays	When it was filed, the period covered, how old it is
filingUrl	Direct link to the primary document on SEC.gov
accessionNumber / isXBRL / sizeBytes	Filing identifiers and metadata

How to use it

1. Add tickers (or CIKs) and your contact email — the SEC's fair-access policy requires a contact address in the request header. It's sent only to the SEC.
2. Optionally filter by form types and a since date.
3. Tick Material events only to get just the filings that matter, then schedule it as an alert feed.

Input

{
  "tickers": ["AAPL", "TSLA"],
  "contactEmail": "you@example.com",
  "formTypes": ["8-K", "10-K", "10-Q"],
  "sinceDate": "2026-01-01",
  "materialEventsOnly": false,
  "maxItems": 5000
}

Sample output

[
  {
    "company": "Apple Inc.",
    "ticker": "AAPL",
    "cik": "0000320193",
    "formType": "8-K",
    "signal": "executive_change",
    "materialEvent": true,
    "itemsDecoded": [
      { "code": "5.02", "description": "Departure or election of directors or principal officers" },
      { "code": "9.01", "description": "Financial statements and exhibits" }
    ],
    "items": "5.02,9.01",
    "filingDate": "2026-08-24",
    "reportDate": "2026-08-23",
    "ageDays": 10,
    "accessionNumber": "0000320193-26-000010",
    "filingUrl": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/000032019326000010/a8k.htm",
    "isXBRL": false,
    "status": "ok"
  }
]

Typical uses

• Material-event alert feed — schedule daily with materialEventsOnly, wire the webhook, and get pinged only on bankruptcies, restatements, exec departures, acquisitions and activist stakes.
• Earnings calendar — filter 8-K + signal = earnings across your watchlist.
• Insider tracking — formTypes: ["4"] for a company's insider transaction filings.
• Alt-data / research — a clean, typed filings history to join against price data.
• Compliance & journalism — monitor a peer set for delisting risk or auditor changes.

Pricing

$1.50 / 1,000 filings ($0.0015 per result), plus a near-zero start fee. You are never charged beyond your maxItems, and companies that return nothing are reported in QUALITY_REPORT, not billed.

FAQ & limitations

• Do I need an API key? No. EDGAR is free and public. The only requirement is the contact email in the header, which is the SEC's own fair-access rule.
• Why is a contact email required? SEC blocks traffic without a declared User-Agent. It's sent only to sec.gov and is never stored or shared.
• How far back does it go? The submissions API returns each company's recent filing history (typically the last ~1,000 filings); use sinceDate and maxPerCompany to scope it.
• Does it fetch the filing text? No — it returns the metadata plus a direct filingUrl. Pair it with the PDF Text Extractor actor to pull the document contents.
• Rate limits? SEC asks for ≤10 requests/second; this actor paces itself well under that.
• Non-US companies? Only filers with a SEC CIK (US-listed, including many foreign issuers via 20-F).

Related actors

• PDF Text Extractor — pull the text out of any filing document you find here.
• Stock Market Data — join filings to price and 52-week position.
• Prediction Markets — event pricing alongside corporate events.
• Portfolio Health Monitor — smoke-test your scheduled actors and alert when one degrades.