To read a 10-K, start with Item 1 (Business) to learn what the company does, then Item 7 (MD&A) for management’s account of the year, then Item 8 — the audited financial statements and, above all, the notes — and finish with what is new in Item 1A (Risk Factors). Most of the rest can be skimmed. Here is what a 10-K is, how it differs from the other forms, what every item contains, and the red flags worth searching for.
Form 10-K is the annual report a US public company files with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is the most complete public document about a company: a description of the business, management’s discussion of the year, the risks, and the full financial statements, audited by an independent accounting firm. The chief executive and chief financial officer certify it personally.
It is not the same as the glossy “annual report to shareholders” with photographs and a letter from the chief executive, although many companies now send the 10-K itself inside a printed cover. The 10-K is the legal document; when the two differ in tone, the 10-K is the one with liability attached.
The deadline depends on size: 60 days after the fiscal year ends for large accelerated filers, 75 days for accelerated filers and 90 days for everyone else. A company that cannot make it files a Form NT 10-K, which buys fifteen more days.
The 10-K is one of a family. The forms an investor meets most often:
| Form | Filed by | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 10-K | US companies | Annual report with audited financial statements. Due 60, 75 or 90 days after the fiscal year ends, depending on company size. |
| 10-Q | US companies | Quarterly report for the first three quarters, with reviewed but unaudited statements. Due 40 or 45 days after the quarter ends. |
| 8-K | US companies | Current report on a specific event: results released, an acquisition, a change of chief executive or auditor. Generally due within four business days. |
| 20-F | Foreign private issuers | The annual report of a company based outside the US. Due four months after the fiscal year ends. |
| 40-F | Eligible Canadian issuers | An annual report that largely wraps the documents filed at home in Canada. |
| 6-K | Foreign private issuers | Whatever the company publishes at home or to its exchange: interim results, press releases. |
There is no 10-Q for the fourth quarter: it is covered by the 10-K, and the fourth quarter’s figures are the year less the first nine months. Results usually reach the market first through an 8-K carrying the earnings press release, often before the 10-K or 10-Q that contains the full statements. Insider purchases and sales are a different form again, Form 4 — see how to read a Form 4.
Every filing is free on the SEC’s EDGAR system. Search by company name or ticker at sec.gov/edgar/search and filter the results by form type. Each filing has an index page listing the main document and its exhibits. The investor relations section of a company’s own website usually links the same documents.
Read the HTML version rather than a PDF: the table of contents links to each item, and a search inside the page is the fastest way to get around a document that often runs to well over a hundred pages.
Every 10-K follows the same structure, set by the form and by the SEC’s Regulation S-K, so once you know the order you can open any company’s report at the right page. Smaller reporting companies may omit some items.
| Item | Title | How to treat it |
|---|---|---|
| Part I | ||
| Item 1 | Business | Read. What the company sells, to whom, its segments, competition and employees. |
| Item 1A | Risk Factors | Read what changed since last year; skim the boilerplate. |
| Item 1B | Unresolved Staff Comments | Usually “None”. Anything else is worth a look. |
| Item 1C | Cybersecurity | Skim. How cyber risk is managed and overseen. |
| Item 2 | Properties | Skim, unless the business is its property. |
| Item 3 | Legal Proceedings | Skim for size; the notes carry the detail. |
| Item 4 | Mine Safety Disclosures | Only for mining companies. |
| Part II | ||
| Item 5 | Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities | Skim; the buyback table for the last quarter is here. |
| Item 6 | [Reserved] | Empty since the SEC removed Selected Financial Data in 2021. |
| Item 7 | Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations (MD&A) | Read. Management explains the year in its own words. |
| Item 7A | Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk | Skim: interest rate, currency and commodity exposure. |
| Item 8 | Financial Statements and Supplementary Data | Read: the auditor’s report, the statements and the notes. |
| Item 9 | Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure | Usually nothing. A disagreement is a red flag. |
| Item 9A | Controls and Procedures | Check for the words “material weakness”. |
| Item 9B | Other Information | Skim. |
| Item 9C | Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspections | Relevant only where the auditor could not be inspected by the US audit regulator. |
| Part III | ||
| Items 10–14 | Directors and governance, executive compensation, ownership, related transactions, auditor fees | Often incorporated by reference from the proxy statement (DEF 14A). Read the pay section there. |
| Part IV | ||
| Item 15 | Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules | Skim the list: material contracts, subsidiaries, the officer certifications. |
| Item 16 | Form 10-K Summary | Optional, and rarely used. |
Skim the rest: properties, mine safety, the exhibit list. Part III — directors, executive pay, who owns the shares — is usually published in the proxy statement a few weeks later; read the pay section there to see what management is rewarded for, whether earnings per share, revenue, or the share price.
A 10-K is long, but some words are worth a search (Ctrl+F) in every one:
And a few patterns in the numbers rather than the words:
None of these proves anything on its own. Each is a question the rest of the document should answer.
In the app, SEC filings appear as rows of the news feed: each names the form — 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K — and links to the filing on EDGAR. A company’s News tab lists its filings beside the headlines and insider trades, the Reports tab of the News screen collects the report filings for the companies in your portfolio and watchlist, and the Coming up & last reported card on a company’s Summary tab names its latest 10-Q or 10-K. The news feeds are free on every plan.
For the numbers, the company page’s Financials tab draws the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow, as filed with the SEC, year by year or quarter by quarter — quicker for spotting a trend than paging through three years of tables in Item 8.
Then write down what you concluded. An investment journal entry holds a one-sentence thesis and a review date, and the app counts what has been published about the company since you last reaffirmed it — so next year’s 10-K arrives as a prompt to check the thesis rather than as one more document.
Educational only. Not investment advice.
Lemma Analysis gives independent investors both lenses in one terminal — a stock screener and an intrinsic value tool for the fundamentals, alongside price history and charts for timing.