Form 15-12B Files Dataset

The Form 15-12B Files Dataset is a structured collection of every EDGAR submission of Form 15-12B and its amendment Form 15-12B/A — the certifications by which an issuer terminates the registration of an exchange-listed class of securities under Section 12(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and, where applicable, suspends its Section 13(a) and 15(d) reporting duties. Each record corresponds to one filing keyed by EDGAR accession number and bundles a normalized metadata.json with the original Form 15 HTML body as delivered to EDGAR. The filer is always the issuer of the deregistered class, signed by an authorized officer (typically the CFO, general counsel, or corporate secretary). The dataset covers the full electronic EDGAR history beginning January 1994, organized into monthly ZIP containers keyed YYYY/YYYY-MM.zip and covering form types 15-12B and 15-12B/A.

Dataset APIs

Dataset Files

What This Dataset Contains

The dataset captures the cover-page-style certification that marks the formal exit of a Section 12(b)-registered class of securities from the Exchange Act reporting system. Form 15 is a short, form-driven filing made when the statutory conditions for termination of registration or suspension of reporting have been satisfied. EDGAR splits the form by statutory basis — 15-12B for exchange-listed securities registered under Section 12(b), 15-12G for Section 12(g) registrations (out of scope for this dataset), and 15-15D for bare suspensions of the Section 15(d) reporting obligation (also out of scope). This dataset's scope is strictly the 12(b) branch: submissions labelled 15-12B and their amendments 15-12B/A.

Substantively, each filing is a cover-page-style certification rather than a narrative disclosure. It supplies the registrant's identification, the class(es) being deregistered, the rule paragraph(s) on which the certification or suspension is predicated, the approximate number of holders of record, and an authorized signature attesting that the prerequisites of the rule have been met. On acceptance, Section 12(b) registration terminates either immediately or on the tenth day after filing, depending on the rule paragraph invoked, and the reporting obligations are suspended.

Records are delivered in monthly ZIP archives. Inside each archive, every accession occupies its own directory named by the 18-digit EDGAR accession number with dashes removed (for example 0001140361-22-023154 becomes 000114036122023154). The file types found in the dataset are TXT, JSON, HTML, and PDF; Form 15 itself is delivered as HTML with a JSON sidecar, while PDF occurs only in the long tail. Coverage begins in January 1994, reflecting the earliest electronic Form 15-12B submissions on EDGAR; paper-only filings predating EDGAR are not represented.

Content Structure of a Single Record

What one record represents

A single record in the Form 15-12B Files Dataset corresponds to one EDGAR submission of Form 15-12B or Form 15-12B/A — one certification (or one amendment of a prior certification) by which an issuer terminates the registration of a class of securities under Section 12(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and/or suspends its ongoing reporting duty under Sections 13 or 15(d). Each record is uniquely identified by its EDGAR accession number and is materialized as a single accession-keyed folder inside the dataset's monthly ZIP containers. The unit of observation is the filing, not the issuer and not the individual class of securities: an issuer that deregisters several classes in one certification produces one record, and a later amendment of that certification produces a second, independent 15-12B/A record.

Container and record layout

Records are grouped into per-month ZIP archives keyed YYYY/YYYY-MM.zip; each archive holds every 15-12B and 15-12B/A submission accepted by EDGAR that calendar month. Inside an archive, every accession occupies its own directory named by the 18-digit EDGAR accession number with dashes removed. Each accession directory contains two logical components: a metadata.json describing the filing, and the filing's primary document(s) as delivered to EDGAR — in practice a single HTML file carrying the Form 15 body (commonly form15.htm, *_1512b.htm, or a filer-specific slug). Image files that may have been part of the original EDGAR package are excluded, and the full raw SGML submission .txt is not stored locally — its canonical URL is carried in metadata.json as linkToTxt.

metadata.json anatomy

metadata.json is a normalized, per-filing summary parsed from the EDGAR SGML submission header and is the structured counterpart to the HTML body. Top-level fields describe the filing itself:

• id — a 32-character hexadecimal record identifier stable across the dataset.
• formType — "15-12B" or "15-12B/A".
• accessionNo — the canonical dashed accession number (e.g. "0001140361-22-023154").
• filedAt — ISO-8601 timestamp with timezone offset capturing EDGAR's acceptance moment.
• effectivenessDate — YYYY-MM-DD date on which deregistration becomes effective.
• description — human-readable form label, e.g. "Form 15-12B - Securities registration termination [Section 12(b)]".
• linkToFilingDetails, linkToTxt, linkToHtml, linkToXbrl — canonical EDGAR URLs for the filing index, the raw SGML submission text, the primary HTML document, and the XBRL instance respectively. linkToXbrl is empty because Form 15 carries no XBRL payload.
• documentFormatFiles — array describing each document in the original submission, with per-entry sequence, size (bytes, as string), documentUrl, description, and type. The primary Form 15 document is listed as sequence 1 with type 15-12B or 15-12B/A; the complete submission text file appears as an additional entry with blank sequence and blank type.
• dataFiles — array reserved for structured-data exhibits such as XBRL instances; empty for Form 15.
• seriesAndClassesContractsInformation — array reserved for investment-company series/class disclosures; empty for Form 15.
• entities — array of parties to the submission. Form 15-12B is a single-filer form, so this array typically contains one object describing the registrant.

Each entity object captures the registrant identification block:

• companyName — registrant name with a role suffix, e.g. "ADMA BIOLOGICS, INC. (Filer)".
• cik — EDGAR Central Index Key.
• irsNo — IRS Employer Identification Number.
• fileNo — SEC file number; for Section 12(b) registrants this takes the 001- prefix (e.g. "001-36728").
• filmNo — EDGAR film number assigned at acceptance.
• sic — Standard Industrial Classification code concatenated with its label (e.g. "2836 Biological Products, (No Diagnostic Substances)").
• stateOfIncorporation — two-letter state or country code ("DE", "NY", "X0" for unknown foreign, etc.).
• fiscalYearEnd — four-digit MMDD value.
• act — Exchange Act designation, typically "34".
• type — form type under which this entity participates ("15-12B" or "15-12B/A").
• tickers — array of ticker symbols associated with the registrant at the time of filing.

Primary document anatomy

The primary HTML document preserves the exact body EDGAR received, wrapped by the SGML document envelope — <DOCUMENT>, <TYPE>15-12B, <SEQUENCE>1, <FILENAME>, <DESCRIPTION>, and <TEXT> tags — the same wrapper used inside the full submission .txt. The HTML inside <TEXT> reproduces the standardized Form 15 layout regardless of the producer (Broadridge EDGARfilings PROfile, Workiva Wdesk, Donnelley, and similar); differences between filings are cosmetic CSS and table-structure variations rather than content differences. Rendered content is typically a few kilobytes and is tabular-legal rather than narrative — no risk factors, no MD&A, no financial statements.

The form body is a single-page certification and contains, in the conventional order:

1. Agency and form heading. "UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION / Washington, D.C. 20549 / FORM 15" followed by the subtitle "CERTIFICATION AND NOTICE OF TERMINATION OF REGISTRATION UNDER SECTION 12(g) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 OR SUSPENSION OF DUTY TO FILE REPORTS UNDER [Sections 13 and 15(d)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/78m) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934". The heading is shared across all Form 15 variants; the statutory basis that actually applies is determined by which rule-provision checkbox is marked, not by the heading text.
2. Commission File Number. The 001--prefixed file number assigned to the Section 12(b) registration being terminated.
3. Registrant identification. Exact registrant name, principal executive office address, and telephone number.
4. Title(s) of the class(es) of securities covered by the form. Free-text field listing class, series, and descriptors (e.g. "Common Stock, par value $0.0001 per share") for each class being deregistered. Multiple classes are enumerated within this single field.
5. Title(s) of all classes of securities for which a duty to file reports under Section 13(a) or 15(d) remains. Paired field disclosing whether any other classes continue to trigger reporting obligations; typically blank or "None" when the certification terminates all remaining classes.
6. Rule-provision checkbox table. The core legal election of the filing. Six checkboxes, each corresponding to a specific paragraph of Rule 12g-4, Rule 12h-3, Rule 15d-6, or Rule 15d-22 under the Exchange Act:
   • Rule 12g-4(a)(1) — termination where a class is held by fewer than 300 persons, or fewer than 1,200 for banks, bank holding companies, and savings-and-loan holding companies.
   • Rule 12g-4(a)(2) — termination where a class is held by fewer than 500 persons and the issuer has had less than $10 million in total assets on the last day of each of its three most recent fiscal years.
   • Rule 12h-3(b)(1)(i) — suspension of Section 15(d) reporting where the class is held by fewer than 300 persons (fewer than 1,200 for the enumerated financial institutions).
   • Rule 12h-3(b)(1)(ii) — suspension of Section 15(d) reporting where the class is held by fewer than 500 persons and the issuer has had less than $10 million in total assets on the last day of each of its three most recent fiscal years.
   • Rule 15d-6 — notice of suspension of the Section 15(d) reporting obligation.
   • Rule 15d-22(b) — suspension of reporting with respect to asset-backed securities upon filing Form 15. Each box is rendered with either a filled (checked) or empty (unchecked) ballot-box glyph in the HTML. The checked box(es) identify the statutory basis and therefore govern whether deregistration is immediate or takes effect on the tenth day after filing.
7. Approximate number of holders of record. Numeric field giving the count as of the certification or notice date; anchors the rule election above, since the <300/<500/<1,200 thresholds turn on it.
8. Signature block. Certification phrase, date of signature, signatory's name and title (commonly CFO, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, or other authorized officer), and a representation of signing authority on behalf of the registrant.

Included content

Each record bundles everything needed to reconstruct the filing's substantive content and to link it back into EDGAR: the structured metadata.json with header-derived fields, URL back-references, and the registrant-entity block; and the original Form 15 HTML body with its SGML envelope intact. The documentFormatFiles array preserves the full manifest of what EDGAR received, including size and description of each original document, so consumers can reason about the complete submission even though only the primary document is stored locally.

Excluded or separate content

• Image files that may have accompanied the original EDGAR package are omitted; Form 15 rarely contains pictorial exhibits.
• Raw SGML submission .txt is not stored inside the folder; its canonical URL is available as linkToTxt in metadata.json.
• XBRL instance documents do not exist for Form 15 — the form is not an XBRL-bearing filing. linkToXbrl is empty and dataFiles is an empty array across the dataset.

Form 15-12B/A amendments

Amendments appear as independent records with their own accession number, folder, and metadata; the formType field distinguishes them from the original certification. Amendments typically correct the class description, the rule-provision election, the holders-of-record count, the effectiveness date, or the signatory. Structurally the HTML body uses the same Form 15 layout. metadata.json carries no explicit pointer from an amendment back to the parent certification — the relationship must be inferred from shared registrant identifiers (cik, fileNo) and proximity of filedAt.

Format evolution

Early Form 15-12B filings in the mid-1990s were delivered as plain ASCII inside the SGML <DOCUMENT> envelope, with checkboxes rendered using character glyphs ([X], [ ]) rather than HTML ballot-box entities. HTML-formatted primary documents became the norm in the late 1990s and have been essentially universal since, wrapped by the same SGML <DOCUMENT> tags. The dataset preserves this wrapping as received, so envelope tags are visible at the top of every primary document. The substantive content of Form 15 — rule-provision checklist, holders-of-record field, signature block — has been stable since before EDGAR's inception; the most visible drift is editorial, with the Rule 12h-3(b)(1)(ii) and Rule 15d-22(b) paragraphs now routinely presented as distinct elections where older filings sometimes collapsed them into the parent rule citation.

Interpretation and extraction notes

• Checkbox state is authoritative. The rule-provision checkboxes are the legal signal of what the filing does. Parsing checked/unchecked state from the HTML — via Unicode ballot-box characters, inline images, or form-control markup depending on the producer — is required to distinguish a Section 12(b) termination from a mere Section 15(d) suspension and to identify which paragraph of Rule 12g-4 or Rule 12h-3 was invoked.
• effectivenessDate is a recorded date, not a legal determinant. It reflects EDGAR's recorded effectiveness but does not itself encode whether effectiveness was immediate or subject to the ten-day waiting period; that inference requires reading the rule election.
• Holders-of-record count is in the HTML only. This numeric free-text field lives in the document body, not in metadata.json, and must be extracted from the HTML.
• fileNo prefix as validator. A 001- prefix is consistent with a genuine Section 12(b) deregistration; other prefixes (for example 000-) would indicate a mislabeled or misrouted submission.
• Amendment joins. 15-12B/A records should be joined to their parent certifications by registrant identifiers (cik, fileNo) rather than any explicit linkage field.
• Record presence reflects acceptance, not finality. A record's presence in the dataset reflects EDGAR's acceptance of the filing, not necessarily the final legal status of the registration — a deregistration can be withdrawn or reversed by subsequent action outside the Form 15 series.

Who Files or Publishes This Dataset, and When

Who files the record

The filer of a Form 15-12B is always the issuer of the class of securities being deregistered. It is not filed by shareholders, underwriters, exchanges, transfer agents, or the Commission. An officer or authorized representative (typically a CFO, general counsel, or corporate secretary) signs the certification, but the legal filer is the issuer itself.

The population of issuers using Form 15-12B is narrower than the full EDGAR reporting universe. It is limited to registrants whose class was registered under Section 12(b) of the Exchange Act by virtue of being listed on a national securities exchange (NYSE, NYSE American, Nasdaq, NYSE Arca, Cboe BZX, IEX, and predecessor exchanges). Typical filers include:

• Domestic operating companies deregistering common stock, preferred stock, debt securities, warrants, units, or other listed classes.
• Foreign private issuers exiting U.S. listing outside the Rule 12h-6 safe harbor (FPIs that qualify for and elect Rule 12h-6 use Form 15F instead).
• SPACs, shell companies, and successor registrants whose listed class ceases to exist after a business combination, redemption, liquidation, or change of form.

Because Section 12(b) registration attaches to each listed class, a single issuer may file multiple Form 15-12B submissions over time covering different classes (for example, deregistering a senior note series while keeping common stock registered).

When the record is created or required

Form 15-12B is event-driven, not periodic. It is filed when an issuer seeks to terminate the Section 12(b) registration of a listed class and, where applicable, concurrently suspend its Section 13(a) and 15(d) reporting duties for that class.

Common triggering events:

• Voluntary delisting from a national securities exchange, typically following Form 25.
• Involuntary delisting for failure to meet continued listing standards (minimum price, market cap, public float, governance, late filings).
• Going-private transactions, mergers, and acquisitions in which the listed class is cashed out, converted, or absorbed.
• Redemption, maturity, or retirement of separately listed debt or preferred series.
• SPAC business combination, liquidation, or trust dissolution eliminating the originally listed class.
• Corporate dissolution, bankruptcy plan consummation, or going-dark decisions by smaller reporting companies after delisting.

Timing and effectiveness:

• Immediate suspension. Upon filing, reporting duties under Sections 13(a) and 15(d) for the covered class are immediately suspended.
• 90-day automatic effectiveness. Termination of Section 12(b) registration becomes effective 90 days after filing (or such shorter period as the Commission determines), subject to Commission denial during that window.
• Form 25 sequence. In a typical voluntary delisting, the exchange or issuer first files Form 25 to strike the class from listing; Form 15-12B follows shortly after to confirm termination of the Section 12(b) registration and to claim suspension of any Section 15(d) duties under Rule 12h-3.
• Amendments (15-12B/A). Filed at any time to correct the class description, CUSIP, holder count, or certification, or to respond to staff comment. No periodic cadence applies.

No filing fee is associated with Form 15-12B.

Important distinctions

• Issuer, not exchange. Even when delisting is initiated by the exchange, and even when Form 25 is filed by the exchange, the Form 15-12B is always an issuer filing.
• Class-level, not entity-level. Each Form 15-12B covers only the specific class or classes named on its face. An issuer may appear multiple times across unrelated deregistration events.
• Form 15-12B vs. Form 15-12G. If the class was registered under Section 12(g) (typical for OTC-quoted classes meeting holder-and-asset thresholds), the issuer uses Form 15-12G.
• Form 15-12B vs. Form 15-15D. Form 15-15D is used when the only remaining obligation is Section 15(d) reporting arising from a Securities Act registration statement, with no Section 12 registration to terminate.
• Foreign private issuers and Form 15F. FPIs exiting under the Rule 12h-6 safe harbor file Form 15F. An FPI using Form 15-12B is typically one that does not qualify for, or has chosen not to invoke, Rule 12h-6.
• Registered investment companies. RICs deregister via Form N-8F under the Investment Company Act, not Form 15.
• Revival of reporting duties. If the Commission denies termination within the 90-day window, or if the issuer later exceeds holder thresholds or files a new Securities Act registration, reporting duties can be reinstated; the original Form 15-12B remains as the certification event.
• Signer vs. filer. The officer who signs the certification is not a separate reporting person; the legal filer is the issuer.

How This Dataset Differs From Similar Datasets or Filings

Form 15-12B sits in a tight cluster of SEC filings that govern how a registered class of securities exits the Exchange Act reporting system. Its closest neighbors split into three groups: other Form 15 variants that terminate reporting under different statutory provisions (15-12G, 15-15D, 15F), the Form 25 delisting notice that typically precedes it, and the registration forms (8-A, 10) that anchor the opposite end of the lifecycle. The distinctions below turn on which statutory hook created the reporting duty, who the filer is, and where the filing falls in the exit sequence.

Form 15-12G

Direct sibling. Certifies termination of registration for a class registered under Section 12(g) rather than 12(b). Structure and fields are nearly identical, but the filer population differs: 12(g) covers classes registered because of asset and holder thresholds (typically smaller or OTC issuers), while 12(b) covers exchange-listed classes. Use 15-12B to track exits from NYSE or Nasdaq; use 15-12G to track deregistrations of non-listed classes or drops below 12(g) thresholds.

Form 15-15D

Certifies suspension of the Section 15(d) reporting duty that arises from an effective Securities Act registration statement (e.g., S-1), not from exchange listing or 12(g) thresholds. The overlap with 15-12B is only conceptual (both end Exchange Act reporting); the statutory basis is different. A single issuer can file both simultaneously for different classes. Conflating the two miscounts deregistration events and obscures the legal basis for each.

Form 15F

Foreign-issuer analog filed under Rule 12h-6. Restricted to foreign private issuers and carries substantive eligibility content (U.S. trading volume relative to worldwide volume, primary non-U.S. listing, twelve-month reporting history) that 15-12B does not require. Treat 15F as the form for full foreign-issuer withdrawal from the U.S. reporting system; 15-12B covers any issuer deregistering a specific 12(b) class, and a foreign issuer may file 15-12B for the 12(b) class while using 15F for the broader exit.

Form 25

The delisting notice itself, filed by the exchange (or issuer under Rule 12d2-2). Form 25 removes the class from the exchange; Section 12(b) registration then terminates automatically 90 days later, at which point Form 15-12B certifies that termination. The two are sequential, not interchangeable: Form 25 answers "when did the class delist?"; Form 15-12B answers "when did reporting obligations end?". A Form 25 without a subsequent Form 15 usually means the issuer still reports under another provision; a Form 15-12B almost always follows a Form 25.

Form 15-12B/A

Amendments, included in this dataset. They correct prior certifications (e.g., restated holder counts, corrected class descriptions) and are generally narrow. They do not reverse deregistration; restoring reporting requires a new registration filing such as Form 8-A. Treat as corrections, not substantive new events.

Form 8-A and Form 10 (lifecycle counterparts)

Not substitutes, but the registration bookends. Form 8-A registers a class under Section 12(b) in connection with exchange listing; Form 10 is the general Exchange Act registration statement. A complete lifecycle study pairs 8-A (entry) with Form 25 (delisting) and Form 15-12B (deregistration) to mark the full span under the 12(b) regime.

Key differences at a glance

• Statutory basis: 15-12B (Section 12(b), exchange listing) vs. 15-12G (12(g), threshold-based) vs. 15-15D (15(d), offering-based) vs. 15F (12h-6, foreign private issuer).
• Filer population: 15-12B is open to any issuer with a 12(b) class; 15F is restricted to foreign private issuers; 15-12G and 15-15D are filed by issuers whose reporting arose without exchange listing.
• Sequence: Form 25 precedes 15-12B; 8-A/Form 10 precede both.
• Content depth: 15F is materially more detailed than any domestic Form 15 variant; 15-12B/A is a narrow correction filing.

Boundary summary

The Form 15-12B Files Dataset captures one specific event: the certification that a class of exchange-listed, Section 12(b)-registered securities has exited the Exchange Act reporting system. It is not a delisting dataset (use Form 25), not a non-listed deregistration dataset (use 15-12G), not an offering-based suspension dataset (use 15-15D), and not a foreign-issuer exit dataset (use 15F). Substitution across these forms misrepresents the statutory basis, filer population, and timing of each exit.

Who Uses This Dataset

Form 15-12B marks the formal exit of an exchange-listed security from SEC reporting, and users across operations, legal, research, and engineering teams rely on a small set of fields: registrant and CIK, deregistered class, exchange cited, holder-of-record count, rule invoked (12g-4, 12h-3, or 15d-6), and filing and effective dates.

Reference data and security master teams

Engineers and analysts at data vendors, custodians, prime brokers, and buy-side operations use the filing to retire CUSIPs and tickers, flip issuers to non-reporting status, and suppress stale identifiers downstream. Registrant CIK, security class, and filing date drive the automated pipelines.

Index and ETF construction teams

Index methodologists and ETF portfolio managers use the effective deregistration date and the specific class deregistered to drop issuers from equity, high-yield, and small-cap benchmarks, feeding rebalance and corporate-action queues.

Corporate actions and custody operations

Corporate-action analysts at custodians and transfer agents close out going-private deals, reverse mergers, bankruptcy exits, and voluntary deregistrations. They key on the rule cited, holder count, and any 15-12B/A amendments before releasing restricted shares or archiving issuer files.

Securities lawyers and disclosure counsel

Deregistration counsel use the filings as a precedent library when drafting Form 15 certifications, advising on Rule 13e-3 transactions, and confirming threshold eligibility. Rule citation, holder disclosure, and amendment history are the main reference points.

In-house SEC reporting teams

Issuer-side counsel and reporting specialists approaching suspension thresholds study filings from similar companies to model their own exit, focusing on exchange cited, holder count, and treatment of multiple share classes.

Event-driven and distressed analysts

Special-situations and distressed-debt desks treat the filing as the terminal event in a delisting or restructuring timeline, correlating it with prior NT filings, bankruptcy petitions, and exchange delisting notices to price residual liquidity and transition to non-reporting status.

Credit analysts on private and high-yield debt

Analysts covering leveraged loans and bonds from issuers that went private use the dataset to mark the date public Form 10-K and Form 10-Q data ended and to check whether indenture covenants still compel voluntary reporting.

M&A and private equity sourcing

Diligence teams screen recently deregistered issuers as carve-out and add-on candidates, bounding the target's last audited public disclosures by the Form 15 effective date.

Forensic accountants and litigation support

Experts in securities litigation and bankruptcy disputes use the filing date to define damages windows, statute-of-limitations cutoffs, and the last public financial snapshot. Amendments matter when the original certification is contested.

Academic researchers

Studies of delisting waves, going-private activity, and the shrinking public-company population use the dataset as a census of exchange-listed deregistrations, mining rule cited and holder counts for empirical work.

Financial data journalists

Reporters covering delistings, SPAC unwinds, and small-cap exits use registrant, exchange, and filing date to build trend pieces and transparency trackers.

LLM and RAG developers

Teams building SEC-focused retrieval systems index Form 15-12B metadata alongside 10-K and 10-Q corpora so assistants correctly flag issuers that stopped reporting and respect temporal boundaries in financial Q&A.

Specific Use Cases

The workflows below show how teams consume Form 15-12B records in practice, grounded in the specific fields each record exposes: cik, fileNo (001- prefix), tickers, the deregistered class description in the HTML body, the Rule 12g-4 / Rule 12h-3 / Rule 15d-6 / Rule 15d-22 checkbox state, the holders-of-record count, filedAt, effectivenessDate, and the 15-12B/A amendment chain.

1. Retiring CUSIPs and flipping issuers to non-reporting in security masters

Reference-data engineers ingest the daily stream of 15-12B accessions, join on cik and fileNo to the internal issuer table, and use effectivenessDate to schedule ticker suppression and CUSIP retirement. The class description field in the HTML is parsed to target the correct share class when the issuer has multiple listed securities, and any later 15-12B/A in the same cik is rerun through the pipeline to rewrite the effective date or class scope.

2. Index and ETF deletion queues tied to the statutory effective moment

Index construction teams read the rule-provision checkbox to determine whether deregistration is immediate or takes effect on the tenth day after filedAt, then post the issuer to the next rebalance's deletion list. Pairing 15-12B with the prior Form 25 gives the full delisting-to-deregistration window; the tickers array and fileNo drive the match against benchmark constituents.

3. Going-private and Rule 13e-3 precedent libraries for counsel

Deregistration counsel filter the dataset by checked rule paragraph (Rule 12g-4(a)(1) vs. Rule 12h-3(b)(1)(i), etc.) and by the holders-of-record count extracted from the HTML body to assemble precedent sets for current transactions. The sic code on the registrant entity is used to pull industry-matched examples, and the 15-12B/A chain is inspected to see which fields filers most often correct post-filing.

4. Terminal-event tagging in distressed and event-driven timelines

Special-situations desks stitch filedAt from 15-12B onto a per-issuer event chain that already contains NT 10-K filings, Chapter 11 petitions, and Form 25 delisting notices. The checked rule paragraph distinguishes a "fell below 300 holders" exit from a post-merger suspension, which changes how residual liquidity and stub equity are priced.

5. Cutting off public-data windows for credit, M&A diligence, and litigation

Credit analysts, carve-out sourcing teams, and forensic accountants use effectivenessDate as the hard boundary after which 10-K and 10-Q data is no longer available for the issuer. The registrant's last audited figures are bracketed by this date; damages windows, statute-of-limitations cutoffs, and covenant-driven voluntary-reporting checks all key on it, with amendments consulted when the original certification is disputed.

6. Temporal guardrails for SEC-focused LLM and RAG systems

Teams indexing 10-K, 10-Q, and Form 8-K corpora load 15-12B cik plus effectivenessDate as a stop-reporting marker. Retrieval systems use this to refuse or caveat answers about post-deregistration financials, and to surface the rule cited and holders-of-record count when a user asks why a specific issuer stopped filing.

7. Empirical studies of delisting waves and the shrinking public-company population

Academic researchers treat the dataset as a census of Section 12(b) exits. They aggregate by filedAt year-month, sic, stateOfIncorporation, and checked rule paragraph to measure going-private activity, threshold-driven exits (<300 / <500 / <1,200 holders), and post-SPAC unwinds, using the holders-of-record count as the explanatory variable behind each rule election.

Dataset Access

The Form 15-12B Files Dataset can be accessed programmatically through a JSON index endpoint, as a single full archive download, or by retrieving individual monthly container files.

Dataset Index JSON API: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-1512b-files.json

This endpoint returns dataset-level metadata (name, description, last updated timestamp, earliest sample date, total records, total size, covered form types, container format, and file types), the download URL for the full dataset, and the list of all container files with per-container size, record count, updated timestamp, and download URL. Poll this endpoint to detect which containers were refreshed in the latest run and selectively download only the updated ones on a daily basis.

This endpoint does not require an API key.

Example response:

          1
          {
        

          2
            "datasetId": "1f13365b-9ae0-6945-b078-1e8a6e94c02f",
        

          3
            "datasetDownloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-1512b-files.zip",
        

          4
            "name": "Form 15-12B Files Dataset",
        

          5
            "updatedAt": "2026-04-15T06:26:22.599Z",
        

          6
            "earliestSampleDate": "1994-01-01",
        

          7
            "totalRecords": 6044,
        

          8
            "totalSize": 19853791,
        

          9
            "formTypes": ["15-12B", "15-12B/A"],
        

          10
            "containerFormat": "ZIP",
        

          11
            "fileTypes": ["TXT", "JSON", "HTML", "PDF"],
        

          12
            "containers": [
        

          13
              {
        

          14
                "downloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-1512b-files/2026/2026-04.zip",
        

          15
                "key": "2026/2026-04.zip",
        

          16
                "size": 138527,
        

          17
                "records": 21,
        

          18
                "updatedAt": "2026-04-15T06:26:22.599Z"
        

          19
              }
        

          20
            ]
        

          21
          }
        

Download Entire Dataset: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-1512b-files.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY

Retrieves the complete dataset as a single ZIP archive containing every monthly container from January 1994 to present. This endpoint requires an API key.

Download Single Container: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-1512b-files/2026/2026-04.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY

Retrieves one monthly container archive, useful for incremental downloads or when only a specific time range is needed. This endpoint requires an API key.

Frequently Asked Questions

What form does this dataset cover?

The dataset covers EDGAR submissions of Form 15-12B and its amendment Form 15-12B/A — the certifications by which an issuer terminates the registration of an exchange-listed class of securities under Section 12(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and, where applicable, suspends related Section 13(a) and 15(d) reporting duties. Other Form 15 variants — 15-12G for Section 12(g) registrations and 15-15D for bare Section 15(d) suspensions — are out of scope.

What does one record in this dataset represent?

One record represents a single EDGAR submission of Form 15-12B or Form 15-12B/A, identified by its EDGAR accession number. The unit of observation is the filing itself, not the issuer and not the individual class of securities: a certification covering several classes produces one record, and a later amendment of that certification produces a second, independent 15-12B/A record.

Who is required to file Form 15-12B?

The filer is always the issuer of the class of securities being deregistered — never shareholders, underwriters, exchanges, transfer agents, or the Commission. An officer or authorized representative (typically a CFO, general counsel, or corporate secretary) signs the certification, but the legal filer is the issuer itself, and the population is restricted to registrants whose class was listed on a national securities exchange such as NYSE, NYSE American, or Nasdaq.

When is a Form 15-12B filed?

Form 15-12B is event-driven, not periodic, and is filed when an issuer seeks to terminate the Section 12(b) registration of a listed class. Common triggering events include voluntary or involuntary delisting (typically following a Form 25), going-private transactions, mergers and acquisitions, redemption or maturity of listed debt, SPAC business combinations or liquidations, and corporate dissolution or bankruptcy plan consummation. Reporting duties for the covered class are immediately suspended upon filing, and Section 12(b) registration terminates automatically 90 days later absent Commission denial.

What time period does the dataset cover?

The dataset begins with an earliest sample date of January 1, 1994, reflecting the earliest electronic Form 15-12B submissions accepted by EDGAR. Paper-only filings predating EDGAR are not represented. Coverage extends through the most recent monthly container and is refreshed on a daily cadence.

What file format is the dataset distributed in?

Records are delivered in monthly ZIP containers keyed YYYY/YYYY-MM.zip. Inside each container, every accession occupies its own directory named by the 18-digit EDGAR accession number with dashes removed, containing a normalized metadata.json and the primary Form 15 HTML body as delivered to EDGAR. The file types encountered across the dataset are TXT, JSON, HTML, and PDF; Form 15 itself is delivered as HTML with a JSON sidecar, and Form 15 carries no XBRL payload.

How does Form 15-12B differ from Form 25?

Form 25 is the delisting notice filed by the exchange (or by the issuer under Rule 12d2-2) that removes the class from the exchange; Form 15-12B is the issuer's certification that the resulting Section 12(b) registration has terminated and reporting obligations have ended. The two are sequential rather than interchangeable: Form 25 answers "when did the class delist?" while Form 15-12B answers "when did reporting obligations end?". A Form 15-12B almost always follows a Form 25, and a complete lifecycle study pairs the two with the registration bookends (Form 8-A or Form 10).