Search EDGAR by company name, ticker symbol or CIK number. It matches on the registrant name as filed, so a trading name or a former name often returns nothing while the legal name works. If the company has never filed with the SEC it will not appear at all, whatever you search for.
What an EDGAR company search returns, and what it does not
EDGAR stands for Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval. Search it by company name or ticker and you get the registrant's name, its CIK number, the SIC industry code, the state of incorporation, a business address, and the full filing history: 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, DEF 14A, S-1. For a company that files with the SEC, that is genuinely strong material, and it is free with no account.
The limitation is coverage, not quality. An entity appears in EDGAR only if it has something to file. That is a wider net than "listed companies": funds, foreign issuers, company insiders, institutional managers and private companies raising capital under Regulation D all file, and all get a record. But it is still a net, not a register. The ordinary small and mid-sized business you want to check has no filing obligation, so it has no EDGAR record, however large or long-established it is. It registered with a Secretary of State instead, which EDGAR does not touch.
EDGAR against an enriched company record
SEC EDGAR
- Registrant name, CIK number and SIC code
- Full filing history: 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, DEF 14A, S-1
- Structured XBRL financials, from 2009 onward
- State of incorporation and a business address
- Roughly 4,700 listed operating filers, plus funds, insiders and Form D issuers
- No website field, no email, phone is a switchboard
CompanyData US records
- Registered name, registration ID and entity status
- SIC and NAICS industry classification
- Revenue estimates and employee bands
- Website, trade names and contact fields (with a data licence)
- Corporate hierarchy and parent company
- Listed and private companies in the same schema, 190+ countries
Why three sources give you three different numbers
Comparing EDGAR, the Census Bureau and a commercial database looks like comparing coverage. It is not: the three count different things, and the units matter more than the totals.
SEC EDGAR
~4,700Listed operating companies that report to the SEC
A filing obligation, not a register. The wider EDGAR filer population, including funds and insiders, runs into the hundreds of thousands of CIKs.
US Census Bureau
~36 millionBusinesses with measurable economic activity
30,427,808 nonemployer establishments in 2023 plus roughly 5.6 million employer firms under 500 staff.
This database
64.5 millionRegistered legal entities
60.8 million of them active. Higher than the Census figure because one business can be several entities: a holding company, an operating company and a separate foreign registration in every state it does business in, plus entities that stay registered long after they stop trading.
So none of these numbers contradicts another, and none of them is the number of "companies in America". Ours is the count of registrations you can search; Census counts economic activity; EDGAR counts filing obligations.
US company identifiers: CIK, EIN and state entity numbers
Three different numbers identify a US company, issued by three different bodies, and mixing them up is the fastest way to lose an afternoon. Only the first is an EDGAR concept.
CIK (Central Index Key)
Up to 10 digits, zero-padded
0000320193
Assigned by the SEC to anyone who files with it. Only companies that file have one, so most US businesses do not. Look one up in EDGAR's own company search.
EIN (Employer Identification Number)
9 digits, written NN-NNNNNNN
12-3456789
Issued by the IRS for tax purposes. There is no public EIN directory: EINs surface on SEC filing headers, W-9s and other public records, which is why people end up searching EDGAR for one.
State entity number
Set by each state, no national format
Delaware 1234567 · California C1234567
Issued by the Secretary of State the company registered with. This is the number that exists for every US business, and the one EDGAR knows nothing about.
What EDGAR costs, and what the states charge
EDGAR itself is free and fully programmatic. The costs in a US company check come from the state registers and from certified documents.
EDGAR company search and filing downloads
FreeEDGAR full-text search across filings
FreeEDGAR APIs at data.sec.gov (no API key)
FreeSecretary of State entity search
Free in almost every stateCertified copies and certificates of good standing
Paid, per documentState bulk data files
Free in some states, paid in othersThis lookup
Free, no accountHow to search SEC EDGAR in four steps
1. Check whether the company files at all
If it is not listed and not a large filer, it will not be in EDGAR and no amount of searching will change that. Start with the search box above: if the company appears in our records but has no filings, you already have your answer.
2. Search EDGAR by name or ticker, not by EIN
EDGAR's company search matches on registrant name, ticker and CIK. EIN is not a search key; it sits inside the filing header, which is why an EIN hunt ends in full-text search rather than company search.
3. Use full-text search for anything inside a filing
EDGAR full-text search covers filings from 2001 onward and looks inside the documents, so it finds a subsidiary name, an executive or a contract counterparty that the company search will never surface.
4. Go to the state register for private companies
Every US business is registered with a Secretary of State, and that register is where entity status, the registered agent and the formation date live. Which of the 50 you need depends on the state of incorporation, not on where the business operates.
Common mistakes when searching EDGAR
✗ Treating EDGAR as the US company register.
✓ It is an archive of filings by entities with an SEC obligation. There is no federal company register at all, so absence from EDGAR says nothing about whether a company exists or is in good standing.
✗ Assuming everything in EDGAR is a listed company.
✓ Funds, foreign issuers, insiders filing Forms 3, 4 and 5, institutional managers filing 13F and private companies filing Form D after a funding round all appear. A hit in EDGAR does not mean the company is public.
✗ Searching EDGAR for a company's EIN.
✓ EIN is not an EDGAR search key. It appears in filing header data for companies that file, so full-text search can find it, but no EDGAR lookup starts from an EIN.
✗ Assuming the state of incorporation is where the business operates.
✓ Delaware incorporation is routine for companies headquartered anywhere. The register you need is the state it incorporated in, which is often not the state on its letterhead.
✗ Expecting headcount from the structured data.
✓ The XBRL employee concept returns nothing for most filers. Headcount is prose inside the 10-K, which is why an enriched record with an employee band is usually the faster route.
✗ Calling data.sec.gov from the browser.
✓ It does not support CORS, so browser-side calls fail. Server-side only, at most 10 requests a second, with a User-Agent that names your organisation.
Automate these lookups with our API
Send a company name or number, get the same records back as structured JSON. Classify a whole list in one run instead of searching them one by one. Every new key starts with 150 free lookups.
Just need a ready-made company database?
No integration, no code. The same enriched register as a ready-made Excel or CSV file: pick your SIC codes, regions and sizes, and get a free sample first.
EDGAR glossary
- CIK
- Central Index Key: the number the SEC assigns to every filer, used as the key in every EDGAR API path.
- 10-K
- The annual report a US listed company files with the SEC, carrying audited financials, risk factors and segment detail.
- 10-Q
- The quarterly report, lighter than a 10-K and unaudited.
- 8-K
- The current report, filed when something material happens between periodic reports.
- DEF 14A
- The definitive proxy statement, which is where executive compensation and board detail sit.
- XBRL
- The tagging standard that makes filing financials machine-readable. Available through EDGAR from 2009 onward.
- Registered agent
- The person or company designated to receive legal service on a business's behalf in its state of registration. A state register concept, not an EDGAR one.
- Secretary of State
- The state official who runs the business register. Fifty of them, each with its own search, formats and fees.
Frequently asked questions about EDGAR
Yes. EDGAR company search, full-text search and filing downloads are free with no account, and the data.sec.gov APIs need no API key. The limits are technical rather than commercial: at most 10 requests a second, a User-Agent header naming your organisation, and no browser-side calls because the endpoints do not support CORS.
Almost always because it has nothing to file. EDGAR is an archive of SEC filings, and a company with no filing obligation never generates a record, however large or long-established it is. There is no federal company register in the United States, so the place to confirm that a private company exists is the Secretary of State it incorporated with.
Some are. A private company that raises capital under Regulation D files a Form D, which gives it an EDGAR record and a CIK number without making it public in any sense. The same goes for companies that filed an S-1 but never completed an offering. So an EDGAR hit does not mean a company is listed, and no EDGAR hit does not mean it is small.
No. Our US records do not carry an SEC filer flag: they cover registered entities, listed and private alike, without distinguishing which of them report to the SEC. Use this search to find and size a company, and EDGAR's own company search to check whether it has filings and read them.
The Central Index Key is the identifier the SEC assigns to everyone who files with it, up to 10 digits and usually written zero-padded, as in 0000320193. It is the key in every EDGAR API path. Only SEC filers have one, so most US businesses do not, and you find one through EDGAR's own company search.
Sometimes, and only for companies that file. The EIN appears in the header data of SEC filings, so full-text search can surface it, but EIN is not a search key in EDGAR's company search and there is no public EIN directory. For a company that does not file with the SEC, EDGAR will not have its EIN at all.
EDGAR is a filing system: it holds documents that SEC registrants are obliged to submit. A Secretary of State register is a register of incorporation: it holds the legal existence, status, registered agent and formation date of every business in that state. There is no federal equivalent, which is why a full US check means EDGAR for filers and the right one of 50 state registers for everyone else.
Yes, covering filings from 2001 onward. It searches inside the documents rather than across registrant names, which makes it the right tool for finding a subsidiary, an executive or a counterparty mentioned in a filing, and the wrong tool for confirming whether a company exists.
Filings go back further than the structured data. The machine-readable XBRL financials are available from 2009 onward; before that the numbers are inside the documents rather than tagged, so they have to be read rather than queried.
Yes, for listed filers. The SEC maintains a public mapping of ticker symbols to CIK numbers, so a ticker resolves to a filer and its filing history. Companies without a listed security have no ticker, and are found by name instead.
No, and deliberately so. This search covers our own US business records, listed and private alike, with industry codes, revenue estimates and employee bands. EDGAR covers SEC filings. Use this to find and size a company, and EDGAR to read what a filer has told the regulator.
Not an SEC filer? Try the state register
Private US companies register with a Secretary of State, not the SEC. See which of the 50 state registers you need, or go straight to one of the states that come up most often after an EDGAR search returns nothing.
Official sources
Coverage figures and identifier formats on this page were checked against the sources below. The US business population quoted above is the Census Bureau's; our own totals are live counts from this database, not estimates.
- SEC EDGAR company search — Company profiles, CIK numbers and filing history, direct from the SEC.
- SEC EDGAR full-text search — Searches inside filing documents from 2001 onward.
- SEC developer resources — The data.sec.gov APIs, their rate limits and the User-Agent policy.
- IRS — Employer Identification Number — What an EIN is and how it is issued.
Last verified September 2026.