SEC EDGAR Full-Text Search (Official API)

Search the full text of every SEC EDGAR filing since 2001 — 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, S-1, proxies, exhibits — for any phrase, and get clean, analyst-ready rows: company, tickers, CIK, form, filing date, 8-K item numbers, SIC, state, and direct links to the document and the filing index.

Uses SEC's own full-text search (efts.sec.gov) — no scraping of HTML, no API key, no proxies.

What it does better

• Past SEC's 10,000-hit wall. EDGAR's search stops at 10,000 results; this Actor automatically splits the date range so you can pull up to 50,000 rows in one run (tested: 32,694 "going concern" documents for 2025 in one run).
• Ticker or CIK lookups with or without a search phrase (e.g. "every Apple 10-K").
• Fails loudly on bad input — invalid dates, unknown tickers — instead of silently searching everything.
• No duplicates, optional one-row-per-filing mode.
• Fast: ~1,500 rows in ~7 s, 12,000 rows in ~2 min on 256 MB.
• Fair to SEC: max 5 requests/second (SEC's limit is 10), declared User-Agent, exponential backoff on 429/5xx.

Examples

Going-concern warnings in 8-Ks this quarter

{ "query": "\"going concern\"", "forms": ["8-K"], "startDate": "2026-07-01", "endDate": "2026-09-30", "maxResults": 500 }

Boolean: going concern AND material weakness in 2025 10-Ks

{ "query": "\"going concern\" AND \"material weakness\"", "forms": ["10-K"], "startDate": "2025-01-01", "endDate": "2025-12-31" }

Cybersecurity incident disclosures (Item 1.05)

{ "query": "\"Item 1.05\" OR \"cybersecurity incident\"", "forms": ["8-K"], "startDate": "2026-01-01" }

Every Apple 10-K (no phrase needed)

{ "tickers": ["AAPL"], "forms": ["10-K"] }

Tesla 8-Ks by CIK, one row per filing

{ "ciks": ["1318605"], "forms": ["8-K"], "startDate": "2025-01-01", "dedupeByFiling": true }

New IPO registrations (S-1) since June

{ "query": "\"initial public offering\"", "forms": ["S-1"], "startDate": "2026-06-01" }

Input

Field	Description
query	Full-text query. "quotes" = exact phrase. Supports AND, OR, NOT. Optional if you give tickers/CIKs.
forms	Form types, e.g. 8-K, 10-K, 10-Q, S-1, DEF 14A. SEC includes amendments (8-K/A). Empty = all.
tickers	Limit to companies by ticker. Unknown tickers are skipped with a warning; if none are valid the run fails.
ciks	Limit by SEC CIK number (works for companies without tickers).
startDate / endDate	YYYY-MM-DD. Default: last 30 days for phrase searches, 2001-01-01 for ticker/CIK lookups.
maxResults	Stop after N rows (1–50,000, default 100). You pay per row.
dedupeByFiling	Off: one row per matching document (main doc + exhibits). On: one row per filing.
userAgent	Optional. SEC asks for a name + email.

A SUMMARY record in the key-value store gives total matches, rows returned and timing.

Sample output

{
  "companyName": "HEALTHY CHOICE WELLNESS CORP.",
  "tickers": ["HCWC"],
  "cik": "1948864",
  "form": "8-K",
  "rootForm": "8-K",
  "fileDate": "2026-09-17",
  "periodEnding": "2026-09-17",
  "accessionNumber": "0001493152-26-043135",
  "documentType": "EX-99.1",
  "documentDescription": "EX-99.1",
  "items8K": ["1.01", "2.01", "2.02", "9.01"],
  "sic": "5411",
  "state": "FL",
  "location": "Hollywood, FL",
  "stateOfIncorporation": "DE",
  "fileNumber": "001-42274",
  "otherFilers": [],
  "documentUrl": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1948864/000149315226043135/ex99-1.htm",
  "filingIndexUrl": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1948864/000149315226043135/0001493152-26-043135-index.htm",
  "matchScore": 12.39,
  "query": "\"going concern\""
}

Pricing (pay per event)

• $0.005 per run
• $0.001 per filing row ($1 per 1,000). Platform compute is included — you pay only the per-run and per-row fees above. If your run hits your spending limit, the Actor stops and never returns unpaid rows.

Output fields

Field	Type	Description
companyName	string	Filer name
tickers	array	Tickers (if any)
cik	string	SEC Central Index Key
form / rootForm	string	Form as filed (e.g. 8-K/A) and root form (8-K)
fileDate / periodEnding	date	Filing date and period of report
accessionNumber	string	SEC accession number
documentType / documentDescription	string	Main document or exhibit type (e.g. EX-99.1)
items8K	array	8-K item numbers (e.g. 1.01, 2.02, 1.05)
sic	string	Industry SIC code
state / location / stateOfIncorporation	string	Business address state, city and incorporation state
fileNumber	string	SEC file number
otherFilers	array	Co-filers on the same filing
documentUrl / filingIndexUrl	URL	Direct document link and filing index
matchScore	number	SEC relevance score
query	string	Query that matched

What it costs (worked examples)

Run	Rows	Cost
Daily alert, small	50	$0.005 + $0.05 = $0.055
Quarter of going-concern 8-Ks	1,000	$0.005 + $1.00 = $1.005
Full-year research pull	50,000	$0.005 + $50.00 = $50.005

How it compares

	This Actor	EDGAR full-text search website
Max results per search	50,000 (auto date-splitting)	10,000
Ticker → CIK lookup	Built in	Manual
Output	Normalized rows: tickers, 8-K items, SIC, state, links	Web result list
Export / schedule / API	JSON, CSV, Excel, API, schedules, webhooks	Manual
Bad input	Fails with a clear message	Silently broad results

Use with AI agents (MCP), n8n, Make and Zapier

MCP (Claude, Cursor, any MCP client):

{ "mcpServers": { "apify": { "type": "http", "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=contented_catwalk/sec-edgar-full-text-search" } } }

Ask your agent e.g. "Find 8-Ks filed this week that mention a cybersecurity incident and list the companies." n8n: add the Apify node → Run an Actor and get dataset items → Actor contented_catwalk/sec-edgar-full-text-search → paste an example input. Add a Schedule trigger for daily alerts to Slack, email or Sheets. Make / Zapier: Apify app → Run Actor, then Get Dataset Items. API: POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/contented_catwalk~sec-edgar-full-text-search/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN> with the input JSON as the body.

Limits & FAQ

• Coverage: SEC full-text search covers 2001 onward. Older filings aren't searchable.
• Max 50,000 rows per run. Schedule daily/weekly runs for alerts instead of huge back-fills.
• Why more rows than filings? A filing has several documents (main + exhibits); each matching document is a row. Turn on dedupeByFiling for one row per filing.
• Ordering: by SEC relevance within each date window; newest windows first on very large pulls.
• Does it download the full text? No — it returns links to the documents. Pair with a document fetcher if you need text.
• Is a 10-K/A included when I ask for 10-K? Yes, SEC treats amendments as the same root form; filter on form if you don't want them.
• Empty results finish successfully with 0 rows and a warning; invalid input fails with a clear message (and costs nothing beyond the start fee).

Data source & terms

SEC EDGAR public full-text search and company_tickers.json. SEC data is public; requests follow SEC's fair-access policy. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. SEC.