The Form 40-17F2 Files Dataset collects every Form 40-17F2 and Form 40-17F2/A certificate filed on EDGAR by registered management investment companies under Rule 17f-2 of the Investment Company Act of 1940. Each record is a single filing event — an accession-numbered folder carrying a metadata.json envelope and the primary certificate document produced by an independent public accountant attesting to the self-custody of portfolio securities. The underlying form, administratively titled Form N-17f-2, is the vehicle through which the accountant's examination report and the paired management compliance statement reach the Commission. Filings span the electronic-submission era, with the earliest records in the dataset dating to July 1997, and the dataset is distributed as ZIP containers covering TXT, JSON, HTML, and PDF artifacts.
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Dataset Index JSON API
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Download a single container file (e.g. monthly archive) from the dataset.
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The dataset covers the full EDGAR population of Form 40-17F2 certificates and their amendments (Form 40-17F2/A) filed by registered management investment companies that self-custody portfolio securities and similar investments. Form 40-17F2 implements the certification requirement of Rule 17f-2(f): Section 17(f) of the Investment Company Act constrains how a registered management investment company may hold its portfolio securities, and Rule 17f-2 is the narrow exception that permits self-custody — the company holding its own securities, or holding them with an affiliated bank or transfer agent — conditional on verification by an independent public accountant at least three times each fiscal year, with at least two of those verifications conducted on a surprise basis. Form 40-17F2 is the vehicle for transmitting the resulting accountant's certificate to the Commission. Form 40-17F2/A is used solely to amend a previously filed certificate.
The unit of observation is one filing event, not one examination event. A single 40-17F2 routinely bundles several independent examination cycles into one document, so the number of certified examinations in the dataset is larger than the number of records. Coverage begins in July 1997, when the earliest electronic 40-17F2 submissions appear on EDGAR, and continues through the most recent refresh. The dataset is distributed as ZIP containers organized by month; inside each container, every record folder carries a metadata.json envelope plus the primary form document — HTML for the vast majority of modern filings, with TXT or PDF appearing for some historical and idiosyncratic filings.
One record is a single Form 40-17F2 submission (or its amendment, Form 40-17F2/A) filed on EDGAR by a registered management investment company under Rule 17f-2 of the Investment Company Act of 1940. Physically, a record is one accession-numbered folder that carries a metadata.json envelope derived from the EDGAR submission header and the primary 40-17F2 document — the certificate of accounting itself — as rendered HTML (or, for a minority of filings, TXT or PDF). The folder name is the 18-digit, no-dash accession number; the dashed form (NNNNNNNNNN-NN-NNNNNN) is preserved inside metadata.json.accessionNo.
The form is administratively titled Form N-17f-2; the EDGAR form-type code is 40-17F2. Its operative content is the accountant's examination report on management's assertion of compliance with paragraphs (b) and (c) of Rule 17f-2 — that securities were physically deposited with proper safeguards, that access was properly controlled, and that records were properly maintained — together with the management compliance statement that the accountant's report opines on.
Each accession folder materializes two artifacts for modern filings:
metadata.json — a flat JSON object decomposed from the EDGAR submission header..htm file containing the SGML-wrapped HTML rendering of the certificate. The filename is filer-determined — common shapes include d<digits>d4017f2.htm, <short>_40-17f2.htm, and ea<digits>-01_4017f2.htm — but the embedded SGML <TYPE>40-17F2 and <SEQUENCE>1 headers are stable.The file-types found in the dataset are TXT, JSON, HTML, and PDF, though in practice the overwhelming majority of modern records consist of one HTML primary document plus the JSON envelope. The complete-submission .txt SGML wrapper that EDGAR generates for every filing is not stored on disk; only its URL is preserved in metadata.json.linkToTxt. Image attachments referenced by the original submission as GRAPHIC documents — typically auditor letterhead JPEGs and signature images — are enumerated inside metadata.json.documentFormatFiles[] but are not materialized in the record folder. For a small share of historical and idiosyncratic filings the certificate was submitted as PDF or as a TXT body rather than HTML; in those cases the .htm is replaced or supplemented by the alternate format and the dataset carries whichever primary documents the original submission used, still excluding graphics.
metadata.json envelopeThe metadata file is a flat object built from the EDGAR submission header. Its meaningful fields are:
formType — 40-17F2 for an original certificate, 40-17F2/A for an amendment.accessionNo — dashed accession identifier.effectivenessDate — SEC effectiveness date (YYYY-MM-DD).filedAt — ISO 8601 timestamp of EDGAR receipt, with timezone offset.description — boilerplate human-readable form description.linkToFilingDetails — URL of the primary 40-17F2 document on EDGAR.linkToTxt — URL of the complete-submission SGML .txt wrapper.linkToHtml — URL of the EDGAR filing index page (*-index.htm).linkToXbrl — empty string; Form 40-17F2 carries no XBRL payload.documentFormatFiles[] — one object per attachment in the original submission, each with sequence (integer, or a single space for the wrapper .txt), size (bytes, as a string), documentUrl, filer-supplied description, and type (typical values: 40-17F2, GRAPHIC, or blank for the complete-submission text). This array is the authoritative inventory of every original-submission document, whether or not the file is materialized in the ZIP.entities[] — typically two objects: one with role (Filed by) and one with role (Subject). For 40-17F2 these are almost always the same investment company; the form does not split filer-agent and subject across distinct CIKs. Each entity carries cik, companyName (with role suffix), type (the form type), irsNo (frequently 000000000), and, when the EDGAR header supplies them, stateOfIncorporation (two-letter US code) and fiscalYearEnd (MMDD). The (Subject) entity additionally carries act (typically 40, indicating Investment Company Act registration), fileNo (the Investment Company Act file number such as 811-XXXXX for registered investment companies or 814-XXXXX for business development companies), and filmNo (the EDGAR film number assigned at filing).seriesAndClassesContractsInformation[] — empty; series and class structures are not reported on 40-17F2 even when the filer is a series trust.dataFiles[] — empty; the form has no data-file attachments.id — opaque dataset-publisher identifier.The primary .htm file begins with the SGML <DOCUMENT> header that EDGAR wraps around every primary submission document, followed by the inline <HTML> payload that renders the form:
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<DOCUMENT>
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<TYPE>40-17F2
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<SEQUENCE>1
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<FILENAME>d936919d4017f2.htm
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<DESCRIPTION>WEST BAY BDC LLC
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<TEXT>
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<HTML>... full HTML rendering of Form N-17f-2 ...</HTML>
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</TEXT>
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</DOCUMENT>
The <DESCRIPTION> is typically the investment company name. Inside <HTML>, the body reproduces the standard paper-form layout of Form N-17f-2 in the following order.
The leading block is the SEC form header — [UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION](https://www.sec.gov/) / Washington, D.C. 20549 / FORM N-17f-2 / Certificate of Accounting of Securities and Similar Investments in the Custody of Management Investment Companies / Pursuant to Rule 17f-2 [[17 CFR 270.17f-2](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-17/chapter-II/part-270/section-270.17f-2)] — followed by the structured cover-sheet table whose four numbered items collect the registrant identification:
811-23751, 814-01758) and Date examination completed (a narrative date such as November 19, 2025).Other (specify) cell, with a single cell marked.The cover page is the only section with fielded structure; everything that follows is narrative legal and audit text. When a filing bundles multiple examination cycles, Item 1's examination date generally reflects only the most recent of them — the other dates live inside the body.
The substantive opinion section. It is addressed to the investment company's audit committee, board of directors, or shareholders; identifies the audit firm (PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, KPMG LLP, Deloitte & Touche LLP, EY, BDO, Tait Weller Baker LLP, Cohen & Company, and similar names dominate the population); and states that the firm examined management's assertion of compliance with paragraphs (b) and (c) of Rule 17f-2 as of a specified examination date. The body describes the procedures performed: physical inspection or confirmation of securities held by the company's custodian, transfer agent, sub-custodian, or own vault; reconciliation of those holdings to the company's books and records; agreement of a sample of security purchases and sales transacted since the prior examination to supporting documentation; and inquiry into related controls. The section closes with the audit opinion (typically that management's assertion is fairly stated in all material respects in accordance with the criteria established in Rule 17f-2(b) and (c)), the firm's manuscript or /s/-style signature, the city and state of the issuing office, and the report date. Auditor letterhead frequently appears as an <IMG> tag at the top of this section; the referenced graphic file is not materialized in the dataset.
The companion assertion, signed by an officer of the investment company — most often the Principal Accounting Officer, Treasurer, Chief Financial Officer, or equivalent. The statement affirms that the company complied with paragraphs (b) and (c) of Rule 17f-2 over the examination period, identifies the examination date, and closes with a signature line, the signer's printed name, title, and date. This is the assertion on which the accountant's report opines.
Because Rule 17f-2 requires at least three examinations per fiscal year — two on a surprise basis, one at fiscal year-end — and because filers commonly bundle several examinations into a single 40-17F2 submission rather than filing one certificate per cycle, the Report of Independent Accountants and Management Statement Regarding Compliance sections are typically repeated end-to-end for each examination date covered by the filing. Successive accountant-report and management-statement pairs are separated in the HTML by <HR> page-break dividers. The number of pairs per record is variable: a single filing may carry one, two, three, or more examination cycles, following the filer's own calendar of surprise and scheduled examinations.
A Form 40-17F2/A record has the same structural anatomy as a 40-17F2. The amendment relationship is signaled only by the form type in metadata.json.formType and in the SGML <TYPE> header; the form carries no standardized "explanation of amendment" item. Filers commonly use amendments to substitute a corrected accountant's report, restate examination dates, replace a signed page, or correct a typographical error on the cover sheet.
For each accession, the record materializes:
metadata.json envelope with the full EDGAR header decomposition described above.All non-graphic attachments listed by the EDGAR submission as part of the primary form package are materialized.
GRAPHIC-type documents (auditor letterhead JPEGs, signature images) are listed in documentFormatFiles[] but not stored in the record folder. Where the HTML body references them via <IMG> tags, the references resolve to absent local assets; surrounding text is intact..txt SGML wrapper — not stored on disk; only its URL is preserved in linkToTxt.*-index.htm) — not stored; URL preserved in linkToHtml.seriesAndClassesContractsInformation[] is empty accordingly.The substantive requirements of Form 40-17F2 have been remarkably stable across the period covered by the dataset (from July 1997 onward). Rule 17f-2 itself — three examinations per fiscal year, two on a surprise basis, certificate filed by an independent public accountant — has not been redesigned in that window. The form has consistently requested the same four cover-page items (file number and examination date; state; exact registrant name; principal office address), and the operative content has consistently been the accountant's examination report paired with the management compliance assertion.
What has shifted is auditing-standard convention rather than form requirement:
These shifts are stylistic and reflect evolving auditor practice; they do not change the structural anatomy of the record.
The dataset spans the EDGAR text era through the modern HTML era for this form type:
<TEXT> element. Cover-page item grids were drawn with whitespace and ASCII characters; signatures appeared as /s/ plus typed names.<HTML> inside the SGML <DOCUMENT> element, the cover-page grid is rendered as an HTML <table>, and auditor letterhead is embedded as <IMG> references to GRAPHIC attachments.Date examination completed in cover-page Item 1 generally reflects only the most recent examination in the bundle; earlier examination dates are recoverable only from the body text.entities[] carries both (Filed by) and (Subject) rows for the same investment company, so joining on either role yields the same CIK. There is no separate filer-agent identifier exposed on this form.entities[].fileNo distinguishes registered investment companies (811-) from business development companies (814-) and other Investment Company Act registrants. This is the most reliable structural classifier of the filer population./s/<Firm> line in the body remains the authoritative machine-readable signature.Form 40-17F2 is filed by a registered management investment company that self-custodies its portfolio securities and similar investments under Section 17(f) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 and Rule 17f-2 thereunder. The investment company is the EDGAR registrant and legal filer. The self-custody arrangement is the gating fact: funds that place their assets with a qualified bank (Section 17(f)(1)), a member of a national securities exchange (Rule 17f-1), or a registered clearing agency or securities depository (Rule 17f-4) do not file this form.
Both open-end (mutual fund) and closed-end management investment companies can file if they self-custody, though self-custody is uncommon in modern practice. Unit investment trusts, face-amount certificate companies, business development companies, and funds using foreign custodians under Rule 17f-5 or Rule 17f-7 fall outside this reporting path and use other custody regimes.
The independent public accountant is not the filer. The accountant is engaged by the investment company to perform the Rule 17f-2 examination and signs the certificate of examination that constitutes the substantive content of the filing. The accountant must be independent within the meaning of the Commission's auditor-independence standards.
Form 40-17F2 is examination-driven, not calendar-periodic. Rule 17f-2(b) requires that an independent public accountant examine the self-custodied securities and similar investments at least three times during each fiscal year of the investment company, and that at least two of those three examinations be conducted on a surprise basis (without prior notice to the fund's officers or employees). The third may be scheduled.
For each examination the accountant prepares a certificate describing the nature and extent of the work performed and the findings. That certificate is transmitted to the Commission on Form 40-17F2 promptly after the examination is completed. Each examination produces its own certificate and its own filing, so an active self-custodying registrant is expected to generate at least three Form 40-17F2 submissions per fiscal year. The filing is not tied to Form N-CEN, N-CSR, or any proxy schedule.
Rule 17f-2 does not specify a numerical day-count deadline between the examination date and the filing date; the operative requirement is that the examinations occur on the required cadence and that the resulting certificate is filed with the Commission. Electronic submission on EDGAR began in the late 1990s; the earliest records in this dataset date to July 1997.
A Form 40-17F2/A is filed to correct or supplement a previously submitted certificate. Typical triggers:
An amendment references the original Form 40-17F2 it modifies. It does not represent a new examination; it revises the record of an examination already performed.
Form 40-17F2 occupies a narrow slice of the Investment Company Act reporting regime covering how registered management investment companies safeguard portfolio securities held in self-custody. The most useful comparison set is limited to other Section 17(f) custody filings, the periodic investment company reports that describe custody arrangements, and the legacy forms that once carried related information.
Form 40-17F1 is the direct sibling of 40-17F2 and the dataset most frequently confused with it. Both are accountant certificates filed under Section 17(f), but they cover opposite custody arrangements:
Because self-custody carries higher risk, Rule 17f-2 mandates at least three examinations per fiscal year with at least two conducted on a surprise basis. Rule 17f-1 follows a different, less intensive cadence. The two datasets are complementary, not substitutable: 40-17F1 maps depository custody (a large population), while 40-17F2 maps the much smaller self-custody universe.
Older rule text and pre-EDGAR literature often label these filings N-17f-1 and N-17f-2. Substantively, these are the same certificates now indexed on EDGAR as 40-17F1 and 40-17F2. The 40-17F2 Files Dataset (July 1997 to present) captures the EDGAR-era form type and should not be treated as a separate series from the N-17f-2 label used in older sources, nor from the paired Form N-17f-1 label.
N-CEN replaced Form N-SAR in 2018 as the structured annual census for registered investment companies. Items in the C.7 block identify each custodian a fund uses, including whether custody is maintained by a bank, a foreign custodian, a depository, or the fund itself under Rule 17f-2. Overlap with 40-17F2 is limited to subject matter:
Users typically use N-CEN to identify the self-custody population and 40-17F2 to study the verification activity for those funds.
N-SAR was the semi-annual investment company report used through mid-2018 and contained custody-related fields broadly analogous to N-CEN's C.7 items. For custody analysis before 2018, N-SAR is the periodic counterpart to 40-17F2; after 2018, N-CEN takes that role. N-SAR carries structured field-level custody relationships only and contains no accountant certification or examination-level detail.
N-PORT is often grouped with custody filings because both involve portfolio securities, but the overlap is superficial. Form N-PORT reports what a fund holds: composition, valuation, liquidity, and risk metrics on a monthly basis. It says nothing about where or how those securities are held. 40-17F2 says nothing about holdings composition or value, only that securities claimed to be in self-custody were examined and verified. Reconciling reported holdings against physical self-custody requires both datasets.
Certified shareholder reports (N-CSR), relief notices (Form N-18F-1), and registration statements (Form N-1A, Form N-2, Form N-3) may mention custody arrangements in narrative sections, but none is a substitute for 40-17F2. They describe custody as context within broader disclosure; 40-17F2 is the standalone accountant attestation. For the evidentiary question of whether self-custody holdings were independently verified, 40-17F2 is primary. See also Form N-CSR for the certified shareholder report form specification.
| Dimension | 40-17F2 | 40-17F1 | N-CEN | N-PORT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who files | Funds using self-custody under Rule 17f-2 | Funds using exchange-member custody under Rule 17f-1 | All registered investment companies | Registered funds (ex-MMF) |
| What is examined | Self-held portfolio securities | Depository-held portfolio securities | Fund structure and service providers | Portfolio holdings and risk |
| Custody mechanism | Fund or affiliate holds securities physically | National securities exchange member custodian | Any custody type (descriptive) | Not addressed |
| Cadence | At least 3 exams per fiscal year, at least 2 surprise | Different examination schedule | Annual | Monthly |
| Author | Independent public accountant | Independent public accountant | Fund | Fund |
| Output type | Evidentiary attestation | Evidentiary attestation | Structured census | Structured holdings data |
Three structural features make 40-17F2 distinct:
The dataset is therefore a targeted evidentiary record of self-custody verification. It complements the periodic descriptive filings (N-CEN, N-PORT, N-SAR) that situate custody arrangements and runs structurally parallel to 40-17F1, which covers the far more common depository-custody case.
Form 40-17F2 certificates serve a narrow set of specialists working on Rule 17f-2 self-custody compliance at registered management investment companies. Each role draws on specific fields: filer CIK, independent accountant identity, examination dates, scope and findings paragraphs, and amendment status (40-17F2 vs. 40-17F2/A).
In-house compliance officers at self-custodying funds pull the filing history by CIK to confirm that three examinations occurred each fiscal year, that at least two were on a surprise basis, and that prior errors were corrected via 40-17F2/A. Examination dates and findings paragraphs feed annual Rule 38a-1 reviews, CCO board reports, and internal audit workpapers.
Outside counsel drafting a 40-17F2 benchmark scope language, findings wording, and amendment narratives against peer filings for similar fund types. They mine the archive for current market phrasing on surprise examinations, reconciliation procedures, and qualifications, and advise boards on remediation when findings paragraphs disclose exceptions.
Audit partners performing Rule 17f-2 engagements review historical certificates filed by their firm and peers to calibrate scope language, procedure descriptions (physical inspection, subsidiary-ledger reconciliation, issuer confirmation), and exception reporting. Prior examination dates per CIK inform planning memos so surprise-visit timing does not become predictable.
Operations leads at self-custodying funds and their advisers compare their own certificates to peers on procedural detail: vault access, asset segregation, securities-in-transit treatment, and sub-custodian handling. The findings and scope paragraphs drive internal control documentation and preparation for the next surprise examination.
IM and exam staff (from the SEC Division of Investment Management) verify that required certificates are on file for each self-custodying registrant, check examination-date spacing for consistency with the surprise requirement, and read findings for missing securities, reconciliation differences, or scope limitations. Irregular filing cadence, frequent amendments, or qualified findings feed risk-based exam targeting.
Researchers in fund governance and auditing extract filer CIKs, accountant identities, examination frequencies, and findings text to study audit-market concentration in 17f-2 work, amendment rates, and correlations between fund structure and custody arrangements. Amendment status and findings language support empirical work on audit quality.
Engineering teams at regulatory-data vendors ingest accession metadata (CIK, filing date, 40-17F2 vs. 40-17F2/A) and parse certificate text for examination dates, accountant identity, and findings to populate compliance dashboards and fund-complex trackers sold to compliance, audit, and legal users.
Every user group works from the same core fields — filer CIK, accountant identity, examination dates, scope, findings, and amendment status — but applies them to distinct compliance, legal, audit, supervisory, research, or product workflows centered on self-custody attestation.
The dataset supports a small number of concrete, operational workflows centered on Rule 17f-2 self-custody verification. Each use case below names the persona, the fields exploited, and the output produced.
A fund compliance officer at a self-custodying registrant pulls every 40-17F2 and 40-17F2/A for the fund's CIK from entities[].cik, then parses each Date examination completed on cover-page Item 1 and every additional examination date embedded in the repeated Report of Independent Accountants blocks. The output is a per-fiscal-year compliance calendar that flags any year short of three examinations, any stretch where fewer than two were on a surprise basis, and any gap exceeding the fund's internal threshold. The same calendar feeds the CCO's Rule 38a-1 annual report and the audit committee package.
Division of Investment Management and Examinations staff join fileNo prefixes (811- vs. 814-) in metadata.json.entities[] against the N-CEN self-custody population to identify registrants that should be filing 40-17F2 but are not, or whose filing cadence is irregular. Examination dates extracted from the body, plus 40-17F2/A amendment counts per CIK, produce a risk-ranked targeting list for routine and for-cause exams. Qualified opinion language, restated examination dates, and replaced accountant reports in amendments act as escalation triggers.
Outside fund counsel drafting or reviewing a client's 40-17F2 extracts the Report of Independent Accountants and Management Statement Regarding Compliance blocks for a cohort of similar registrants (same file-number prefix, similar custody footprint), normalizes procedure descriptions (physical inspection, sub-custodian confirmation, purchases-and-sales sampling), and compares them to the client's current certificate. The output is a redlined scope-and-findings template plus a memo to the board identifying deviations from market practice and any exception language that warrants remediation before the next surprise examination.
An academic researcher studying PCAOB-registered attestation work on 1940-Act custody engagements parses the signature block of each Report of Independent Accountants to capture the audit firm, office city and state, and report date, joined with filer CIK, fiscalYearEnd, and stateOfIncorporation from the envelope. Amendment status (40-17F2/A), restated examination dates, and any modified opinion language become the dependent variables. The result is a panel dataset supporting papers on market share among firms such as PwC, KPMG, Deloitte, EY, BDO, Tait Weller Baker, and Cohen, and on correlations between auditor identity and amendment frequency.
A regulatory-data vendor ingests metadata.json for every 40-17F2 accession, parses each certificate into one row per examination cycle (one Report of Independent Accountants / Management Statement pair), and normalizes accountant name, examination date, signing officer, and any exception wording. The product is a subscription dashboard that alerts compliance, audit, and legal users in near real time to new filings, amendments, missed cadence windows, and qualified findings across tracked fund complexes, with drill-through to the original HTML on EDGAR via linkToFilingDetails.
An audit partner planning the next Rule 17f-2 engagement pulls the client's and peers' prior examination dates from the repeated body blocks and computes the day-of-month, day-of-week, and inter-examination interval distributions. The output is a planning-memo appendix that helps the engagement team schedule upcoming surprise visits in a way that is statistically unpredictable to fund operations, while still satisfying the three-per-fiscal-year and two-surprise minimums required by the rule.
The Form 40-17F2 Files Dataset is accessible through a public JSON index endpoint and two download routes for the full archive and individual monthly containers.
Dataset Index JSON API: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-4017f2-files.json
This endpoint returns metadata describing the dataset, including the name, description, last updated timestamp, earliest sample date, total record count, total size in bytes, covered form types (40-17F2, 40-17F2/A), container format (ZIP), and included file types (TXT, JSON, HTML, PDF). The response also contains the download URL for the full archive and a list of all monthly container files, each with its size, record count, last updated timestamp, and download URL. Use this endpoint to monitor which containers changed in the most recent refresh run and decide which partitions to re-download on a day-by-day basis. No API key is required to call this endpoint.
Example response:
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{
2
"datasetId": "1f13365b-9ae0-6918-a207-34b2d096b121",
3
"datasetDownloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-4017f2-files.zip",
4
"name": "Form 40-17F2 Files Dataset",
5
"updatedAt": "2026-04-24T02:56:23.876Z",
6
"earliestSampleDate": "1997-07-01",
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"totalRecords": 24706,
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"totalSize": 101341653,
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"formTypes": ["40-17F2", "40-17F2/A"],
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"containerFormat": "ZIP",
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"fileTypes": ["TXT", "JSON", "HTML", "PDF"],
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"containers": [
13
{
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"downloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-4017f2-files/2026/2026-03.zip",
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"key": "2026/2026-03.zip",
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"size": 13818783,
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"records": 154,
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"updatedAt": "2026-04-24T02:56:23.876Z"
19
}
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]
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}
Download Entire Dataset: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-4017f2-files.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY
Downloads the complete dataset as a single ZIP archive containing every monthly container from July 1997 to the most recent refresh. This endpoint requires an API key.
Download Single Container: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-4017f2-files/2026/2026-03.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY
Downloads one monthly container, organized as YYYY/YYYY-MM.zip inside year folders. Use this route to pull only the partitions reported as updated by the index endpoint rather than retrieving the full archive. This endpoint requires an API key.
The dataset covers Form 40-17F2 and its amendment, Form 40-17F2/A — the EDGAR form-type codes for the certificate administratively titled Form N-17f-2, filed under Rule 17f-2 of the Investment Company Act of 1940. The operative content is an independent public accountant's examination report on management's assertion of compliance with paragraphs (b) and (c) of Rule 17f-2, paired with a management compliance statement.
One record is a single 40-17F2 or 40-17F2/A filing event — one accession-numbered folder carrying a metadata.json envelope decomposed from the EDGAR submission header and the primary certificate document. The unit of observation is the filing, not the examination event; a single filing routinely bundles multiple examination cycles, so the number of certified examinations in the dataset exceeds the number of records.
Form 40-17F2 is filed by registered management investment companies that self-custody their portfolio securities under Section 17(f) of the Investment Company Act and Rule 17f-2. Funds that place their assets with a qualified bank, a national securities exchange member under Rule 17f-1, or a registered clearing agency or depository under Rule 17f-4 do not file this form. The independent public accountant performing the examination is not the filer; the investment company is the EDGAR registrant.
Rule 17f-2 requires at least three independent-accountant examinations per fiscal year, at least two of them conducted on a surprise basis. Each examination produces its own certificate that is transmitted on Form 40-17F2 promptly after completion, so an active self-custodying registrant is expected to generate at least three filings per fiscal year.
The dataset covers Form 40-17F2 and 40-17F2/A filings from July 1997 — the earliest electronic submissions on EDGAR — through the most recent refresh.
The dataset is distributed as monthly ZIP containers organized as YYYY/YYYY-MM.zip. Inside each container, records include metadata.json envelopes plus primary form documents in HTML for the vast majority of modern filings, and TXT or PDF for some historical or idiosyncratic filings. GRAPHIC-type attachments (auditor letterhead JPEGs, signature images) are enumerated in documentFormatFiles[] but are not materialized on disk.
Both 40-17F1 and 40-17F2 are independent-accountant certificates filed under Section 17(f), but they cover opposite custody arrangements. Form 40-17F1 covers securities held by a member of a national securities exchange acting as custodian under Rule 17f-1, while Form 40-17F2 covers self-custody under Rule 17f-2, where the fund or an affiliate physically maintains the securities. Because self-custody carries higher risk, Rule 17f-2 mandates at least three examinations per fiscal year with at least two on a surprise basis, a more intensive cadence than Rule 17f-1.