Your first SEC API request.

SEC API provides authenticated JSON endpoints for company discovery, SEC filing metadata, and XBRL company facts. This guide takes you from a ticker symbol to a list of filings.

1. Create your API key

Create an account, then generate an API key in your dashboard. Treat it like a password: keep it on your server and never put it in public repositories or client-side JavaScript.

Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY

2. Find a company

Search by ticker or company name. The response gives you a Central Index Key (CIK), the SEC identifier you use in filing and facts requests.

curl "https://sec-api.dev/api/v1/companies?query=AAPL" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

3. Retrieve its filings

Apple’s CIK is 320193. Use it to request filing metadata. Filter by a form, and use limit and offset to paginate.

curl "https://sec-api.dev/api/v1/filings?cik=320193&form=10-K&limit=5" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

JavaScript / Node.js

Set SEC_API_KEY in your server environment, then use the standard fetch API.

const response = await fetch(
  'https://sec-api.dev/api/v1/filings?cik=320193&form=10-K',
  { headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.SEC_API_KEY}` } }
);
const payload = await response.json();
if (!response.ok) {
  throw new Error(payload.error?.message ?? 'SEC API request failed');
}
console.log(payload.data);

Python

This example uses Python’s standard library, with no SDK dependency.

import json
import os
from urllib.request import Request, urlopen
from urllib.error import HTTPError

request = Request(
    'https://sec-api.dev/api/v1/filings?cik=320193&form=10-K',
    headers={'Authorization': f"Bearer {os.environ['SEC_API_KEY']}"}
)
try:
    with urlopen(request, timeout=30) as response:
        print(json.load(response)['data'])
except HTTPError as error:
    print(error.code, error.read().decode())

What to keep in mind

Use the original SEC filing as the authority for financial interpretation. Reporting periods, units, taxonomies, and amendments matter. A filing’s acceptance date is not necessarily its financial reporting period.

The API returns source and fetch metadata. Inspect meta.stale where present before treating a response as freshly retrieved. Handle non-2xx responses explicitly, and respect any retry guidance in rate-limit errors.

Continue to the endpoint reference →