Introduction to SEC EDGAR Data Ingestion

SEC EDGAR (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval) is one of the most important public sources of financial data for U.S. public companies. In the Public-Data Connector Prototype, ingesting data from SEC EDGAR enables retrieval of company filing history, 10-K annual reports, 10-Q quarterly reports, and detailed XBRL financial statements.

The SEC provides free, public RESTful APIs that return well-structured JSON data without requiring authentication or API keys.

1. SEC EDGAR Submissions API

Official Documentation: SEC EDGAR APIs

Description: This API returns a company’s complete filing history, basic company information (name, ticker, exchange, SIC code), and metadata for all submitted filings including 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, and others.

Main Endpoint: https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK##########.json

Example

https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0000320193.json

2. SEC EDGAR Company Facts API

Description: Returns all extracted XBRL financial data for a company in a single API call. This is one of the most valuable endpoints for financial analysis.

Main Endpoint: https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK##########.json

Example

https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0000320193.json

3. SEC EDGAR Company Concept API

Description: Returns the complete time-series history of a specific financial concept (e.g., Revenue, Net Income, Assets, Liabilities, Cash, etc.).

Main Endpoint: https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyconcept/CIK##########/us-gaap/[Concept].json

Example

https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyconcept/CIK0000320193/us-gaap/Revenues.json

4. SEC EDGAR Frames API & XBRL Overview

Description: Enables comparison of a specific financial metric across multiple companies and time periods (annual, quarterly, or instantaneous data).

Main Endpoint: https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/frames/us-gaap/[Concept]/[Unit]/[Period].json

Example

https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/frames/us-gaap/AccountsPayableCurrent/USD/CY2019Q1I.json

Bulk Data Downloads

For large-scale processing, SEC provides daily updated bulk ZIP files:

• Company Facts ZIP: companyfacts.zip
• Submissions ZIP: submissions.zip

Best Practices for SEC EDGAR Ingestion

• Always include a descriptive User-Agent header in requests
• Respect rate limits (maximum 10 requests per second)
• Store source metadata (accession number, filing date, URL, timestamp) for audit trail
• Use bulk ZIP files for initial data seeding and large-scale ETL
• Combine with parsing tools for XBRL data processing

Conclusion

The SEC EDGAR Submissions, Company Facts, and Company Concept APIs form the core of financial data ingestion in the Public-Data Connector Prototype. Successfully integrating these APIs allows the prototype to retrieve reliable company financial information, filing history, and structured XBRL data — providing a strong foundation for vendor analysis, economic dependency calculations, and risk assessment tools.