The Form 8F-2 ORDR Files Dataset captures the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's terminal deregistration orders issued under Section 8(f) of the Investment Company Act of 1940. Each record is a single Commission order — not a registrant-prepared filing — declaring that one named registered investment company has ceased to be an investment company and that its registration under the Act shall immediately cease to be in effect. The orders are issued by the Division of Investment Management under delegated authority after a fund winds up its affairs (typically through liquidation, merger, or distribution of substantially all assets), files a Form N-8F application, and the Commission's notice of application period elapses with no hearing requested. The dataset covers EDGAR submissions from May 2010 forward and is delivered as monthly ZIP archives, each record containing a metadata.json describing the EDGAR submission and a PDF carrying the operative order text.
Programmatically retrieve the full list of dataset archive files, download URLs and dataset metadata.
Dataset Index JSON API
Download the entire dataset as a single archive file.
Download Entire Dataset:
Download a single container file (e.g. monthly archive) from the dataset.
Download Single Container:
The dataset is a corpus of Commission-issued orders catalogued on EDGAR under the form-type code 8F-2 ORDR. Each order is a short, plain-text PDF on Commission letterhead — typically two pages — accompanied by a structured metadata file that mirrors the EDGAR submission header. The unit of accession is one Commission order pertaining to one applicant fund or company; records are not aggregated by month, by applicant family, or by release.
Because deregistration orders are issued infrequently relative to most EDGAR form types, monthly archives are sparse and some calendar months produce no archive at all. The dataset is bounded to filings from May 2010 forward; earlier deregistration orders exist under different cataloguing conventions and are outside scope. Records are distributed as monthly ZIP archives following a year/year-month.zip convention, and each record directory contains the order PDF plus its accompanying JSON metadata.
One record in the Form 8F-2 ORDR Files Dataset is a single SEC-issued deregistration order under Section 8(f) of the Investment Company Act of 1940, declaring that one named registered investment company has ceased to be an investment company. Physically, each record is an accession-named directory holding two files: a metadata.json describing the EDGAR submission, and a PDF carrying the operative order text.
Form 8F-2 ORDR is not a registrant-prepared form. It is the Commission's terminal action in the deregistration workflow initiated by an applicant's filing of N-8F (or, historically, Form 40-8F) under Section 8(f) of the 1940 Act. The procedural sequence behind every record is the same: the fund winds up its affairs (typically through liquidation, merger into another fund, or distribution of substantially all of its assets); the applicant files an application for an order declaring that it has ceased to be an investment company; the Division of Investment Management publishes a notice of application and provides an opportunity for hearing; if no hearing is requested within the notice period, the Division — acting under delegated authority from the Commission — issues the 8F-2 ORDR finding that the applicant has ceased to be an investment company and that its registration under the Act shall immediately cease to be in effect.
Because the order is a Commission product rather than a filer-prepared form, the EDGAR submission carries the Commission's staff-submission identity at the accession level rather than the applicant's CIK. The applicant is identified inside the metadata entities array and inside the PDF caption, not by the accession's leading prefix.
The dataset is delivered as monthly ZIP archives under a year/year-month.zip convention. Each ZIP, when expanded, contains a folder for that month, and inside it one subdirectory per record. The subdirectory name is the EDGAR accession number with dashes stripped: an 18-digit string of the form CCCCCCCCCCYYNNNNNN (10-digit filer prefix, 2-digit calendar year, 6-digit per-year sequence). Splitting the folder name as 9999999997-YY-NNNNNN recovers the canonical dashed accession number. Because deregistration orders are issued infrequently relative to most EDGAR form types, monthly archives are sparse and some calendar months produce no archive at all.
A record directory contains exactly two files in the standard case: metadata.json (always present) and filename1.pdf (the order document, preserving EDGAR's literal filename). When an order references additional exhibits, those would appear as additional files in the same directory and as additional entries in the metadata's document list. Image files, when present in the original EDGAR submission, are excluded from the dataset by design.
metadata.json structureThe metadata file mirrors the EDGAR submission header for the accession and provides the structured handles needed to identify, link, and contextualize the order. Top-level fields include:
formType — the literal string "8F-2 ORDR".accessionNo — the dashed EDGAR accession number, e.g. "9999999997-16-016358".filedAt — an ISO-8601 timestamp with timezone offset capturing when the order submission was accepted by EDGAR, e.g. "2016-01-19T15:11:28-05:00".description — a human-readable label that typically combines the form code with the underlying application form, e.g. "Form 8F-2 ORDR - 40-8F-2 Order".linkToFilingDetails — a direct URL to the primary order PDF on sec.gov/Archives/edgar/....linkToTxt — a URL to the SGML-wrapped complete-submission text file.linkToHtml — a URL to the EDGAR filing index page for the accession.linkToXbrl — empty for this form type.id — an opaque hex record identifier.documentFormatFiles — an array describing each document in the EDGAR submission. Each entry carries sequence, size, documentUrl, and type. For 8F-2 ORDR submissions the array typically contains the order PDF (sequence "1", type "8F-2 ORDR") and the complete-submission text file.dataFiles — empty for this form type.seriesAndClassesContractsInformation — empty for this form type.entities — an array of EDGAR entities associated with the filing. The applicant entry (the fund being deregistered) carries companyName with a parenthetical role marker such as "(Filer)", a zero-padded 10-digit cik, the Investment Company Act file number in the 811-series (e.g. "811-08025"), irsNo, stateOfIncorporation, fiscalYearEnd in MMDD form, the statutory act code ("40" for the 1940 Act), an sic industry code with descriptive label, filmNo, the entity-level type ("8F-2 ORDR"), and a tickers array when known.Together these fields let an order be linked back to the applicant's prior 1940 Act filings, joined to other EDGAR records about the same fund, and ordered chronologically against other Commission actions.
The PDF (named filename1.pdf) is the SEC's formal order. It is short — typically two pages of plain text on Commission letterhead — and follows a near-template structure across the dataset. The content appears in the following order.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, BEFORE THE, [SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION](https://www.sec.gov/), then INVESTMENT COMPANY ACT OF 1940, followed by the release line Release No. <release-number> / <date> (for example Release No. 31960 / January 19, 2016). The release number is the canonical citation handle for the order under the 1940 Act release series.(811-8025)). The file number here matches entities[].fileNo in the metadata; note that the PDF caption may render the file number with a non-zero-padded sequence portion while the metadata uses the zero-padded 811-08025 form.ORDER UNDER SECTION 8(f) OF THE INVESTMENT COMPANY ACT OF 1940 DECLARING THAT APPLICANT HAS CEASED TO BE AN INVESTMENT COMPANY.IT IS ORDERED, under [section 8(f) of the Act](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/80a-8#f), that applicant's registration under the Act shall immediately cease to be in effect. This is the legally operative clause that terminates the applicant's registration under the 1940 Act.For the Commission, by the Division of Investment Management, under delegated authority. followed by the typed name and title of the signing officer — typically a Deputy Secretary of the Commission (for example Robert W. Errett, Deputy Secretary). The signature is typed; no graphical signature image is rendered.The variables that change between records are limited to the applicant's identity, address, and file number; the application and amendment dates; the cited notice-of-filing release number and date; the new order release number and date; and the signing officer.
Each record contains the structured metadata.json describing the EDGAR submission and the order PDF (filename1.pdf) carrying the full text of the Commission's order. When the underlying EDGAR submission references additional exhibits, those files would also appear in the record directory and would be enumerated in documentFormatFiles.
Several adjacent items lie outside an 8F-2 ORDR record:
dataFiles, seriesAndClassesContractsInformation) are therefore empty, and linkToXbrl is empty.Several characteristics matter when parsing or joining these records programmatically.
9999999997 — EDGAR's pseudo-CIK reserved for staff-generated and paper-submission filings made by the Commission itself. Every accession in the dataset shares this prefix, so it cannot be used to identify applicants or to disambiguate records. The applicant's actual CIK is found only inside metadata.json (under entities[].cik) and embedded in the documentUrl paths. Joining records to applicant identity requires reading the metadata; it cannot be done from the accession-folder name alone.9999999997-YY-NNNNNN. The 2-digit YY is the EDGAR-assignment year, which usually but not always equals the year component of the containing monthly archive.filename1.pdf regardless of issuer, date, or release number. Identifying the applicant or the release requires reading the PDF text or the metadata; the filename carries no semantic content.IT IS ORDERED sentence.entities[].fileNo, also embedded in the PDF caption as (811-...)) is generally a more stable and direct key than the applicant's CIK, because some applicants change CIKs across reorganizations while retaining their 811-series file number until deregistration takes effect. Be aware of zero-padding differences between the metadata representation and the PDF caption representation when matching.Release No. printed in the header is the Commission's own canonical citation for the order under the 1940 Act release series and is the right key for cross-referencing the order from external legal or regulatory sources.Every record in the Form 8F-2 ORDR dataset is an order issued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, not a filing made by a registrant. The named investment company is the subject of the order (the applicant whose deregistration is being granted); the issuer is the Commission, acting through the Division of Investment Management under delegated authority pursuant to 17 CFR 200.30-5.
EDGAR catalogues these Commission-issued orders under the form-type code 8F-2 ORDR and associates each submission with the applicant's CIK and 1940 Act file number, which can create the misleading impression that the investment company "filed" the document. It did not. Treating the SEC as the issuing party, and the named fund as the underlying applicant, is the threshold distinction for working with this dataset.
Each order is the third and terminal step of a three-stage administrative chain. All three steps appear on EDGAR; only the third is captured here.
N-8F application — filed by the investment company. A registered investment company seeking to deregister submits an application under Section 8(f) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 on Form N-8F, in the form prescribed by Rule 8f-1 (17 CFR 270.8f-1). The applicant must show that it has ceased to be an investment company within the meaning of the Act (typically through liquidation, merger, or distribution of substantially all assets).
8F-NTC notice — issued by the Commission. The Commission publishes a notice summarizing the application, inviting any interested person to request a hearing, and stating a deadline (customarily about 25 days out).
8F-2 ORDR order — issued by the Commission. If no hearing is requested by the deadline and the Section 8(f) standard is met, the Commission issues the order granting the application. This is the document captured in this dataset.
The N-8F application and the 8F-NTC notice are separate EDGAR submission types and are not in this dataset.
The subjects are always registered investment companies under the 1940 Act that have substantively wound up. Typical applicant categories include:
Section 8(f) deregistration applies at the level of the registered investment company itself. For multi-series trusts, an order is not issued until all series of the trust have been wound up; termination of a single series does not, on its own, produce an 8F-2 ORDR.
The order issues when two conditions converge:
The order is the dispositive legal event that ends the entity's status as a registered investment company. Until it is entered, the company remains subject to 1940 Act registration and reporting obligations regardless of whether it still holds assets.
There is no periodic schedule. Each order is event-driven and tied to one applicant's deregistration proceeding. Records arise sporadically as funds liquidate, merge, or terminate across the industry, and the typical interval from N-8F filing to 8F-2 ORDR runs roughly one to three months, dominated by the post-notice waiting period.
8F-2 ORDR. The N-8F application and the 8F-NTC notice are separate EDGAR records; reconstructing a full deregistration history requires all three.The 8F-2 ORDR dataset captures one specific artifact: the SEC's final order under Section 8(f) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 declaring that a registered investment company has ceased to be one. Several adjacent EDGAR record types share lifecycle, terminology, or filer population, but none are substitutes. Three axes separate them: who authored the document (Commission vs. registrant), which statute governs (1940 Act vs. 1934 Act), and where it sits in the wind-up sequence (application, notice, order, or final periodic report).
Form N-8F (the application). Filed by the company under Rule 8f-1, N-8F is the upstream request that initiates the Section 8(f) process. It contains the registrant's narrative: fund history, how assets were disposed of (sale, merger, liquidation, distribution), remaining shareholders and liabilities, and the statutory basis asserted. 8F-2 ORDR is the Commission's response to that application, not the application itself. Use N-8F for the registrant's wind-up facts; use 8F-2 ORDR for the formal grant.
8F-NTC (Notice of Application). Issued by the Commission between N-8F and 8F-2 ORDR, the notice summarizes the pending application and opens a window for hearing requests. It signals that an order is contemplated; the 8F-2 ORDR confirms the order was entered and registration is terminated. Authorial voice is identical (Commission), but lifecycle role and legal effect differ: notice vs. final order. Pairing the two datasets yields the procedural interval between publication and grant.
Form 15 and Form 15-15D (Exchange Act deregistration). Both share the word "deregistration" with 8F-2 ORDR but operate under a different statute. Form 15 and 15-15D are registrant-filed notices under Sections 12(g) and 15(d) of the 1934 Act terminating Exchange Act reporting (10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, proxies). 8F-2 ORDR is a Commission-issued order under the 1940 Act terminating investment-company status itself. A winding-down fund may produce both, but Form 15 datasets contain no Section 8(f) orders and 8F-2 ORDR records do not affect Exchange Act reporting status.
Final N-CEN and N-PX filings. These are the registrant's last periodic reports — annual census and proxy-voting record — submitted while registration is still in effect. They are structured (XML/XBRL) operational disclosures, not legal instruments. The 8F-2 ORDR ends the registration under which those reports were filed; the final N-CEN and N-PX close out reporting obligations under it. Different authorial voice, different content type, complementary lifecycle role.
Other EDGAR "ORDR" form codes (e.g., 24F-2 ORDR). The "ORDR" suffix marks any Commission-issued order responding to a particular class of application. 24F-2 ORDR concerns Rule 24f-2 registration-fee matters; other variants cover exemptive relief and unrelated petitions. Same authorial voice and same statute family, but each ORDR code is scoped to a distinct application type. Only 8F-2 ORDR captures Section 8(f) deregistration orders.
8F-2 ORDR is distinguished on three axes simultaneously:
Use 8F-2 ORDR only when the research question concerns the moment a registered investment company formally ceases to exist as such. For any earlier step, parallel Exchange Act action, or final operational disclosure, reach for the adjacent dataset instead.
The Form 8F-2 ORDR dataset serves a narrow set of professionals who key off the order PDF and a few specific metadata fields: applicant CIK, file number, SIC code, state of incorporation, accession number, filing date, and the effective date stated in the order. Each record is small in volume terms but legally operative, which is why distinct professions have built workflows around it.
1940 Act counsel use the order PDF as the authoritative proof that a deregistration application was granted. They extract the statutory recitals, any conditions imposed, and the effective date for closing memos and trustee resolutions. The corpus also functions as a precedent bank: counsel mine prior orders for accepted language when drafting new Form N-8F applications. Pairing each ORDR filing date with the related N-8F filing date (matched on CIK and file number) produces realistic staff-processing timelines for client wind-down planning.
These operations teams treat the effective date as the hard cutoff for the final NAV strike, residual reconciliations, the final liquidating distribution, and termination of N-CEN and other Section 30 reporting. Transfer agents close shareholder records and initiate CUSIP retirement off the same date. CIK and file number propagate the deregistration to series-level identifiers in administration platforms.
Wind-up teams use the order as the federal milestone that must precede state-level dissolution of the underlying statutory trust or corporation. The state-of-incorporation field routes each terminated entity to the correct certificate-of-cancellation or articles-of-dissolution workflow, and the order PDF goes into the corporate minute book to support trustee discharge and release of indemnification reserves.
Compliance teams maintain the firm's authoritative list of which entities remain registered under the 1940 Act. They ingest the PDF and metadata into entity-master systems, retire fund-level monitoring (board calendars, access-person designations, Rule 38a-1 testing scope), and retain the accession number plus effective date as the audit trail examiners ask for when a fund disappears from filing schedules.
Reference-data teams use the order as a government-sourced trigger to flag securities and entities as deregistered with a defensible source date. CIK, file number, and SIC drive matching against existing records; the effective date populates the canonical end-of-life field downstream subscribers expect. Order text disambiguates funds sharing names within the same complex.
Tax specialists anchor the close of the fund's final tax year, the timing of the final Form 1120-RIC, and shareholder reporting on liquidating distributions to the order's effective date. Tax memoranda cite the accession number and effective date as the controlling authority for when 1940 Act registration, and therefore RIC eligibility, ended.
These professionals need the precise termination date to scope fiduciary duties, statutory liability windows, and the pre- versus post-deregistration claim boundary. The order PDF is filed as an exhibit; CIK and file number support rapid retrieval of the rest of the fund's EDGAR history when reconstructing wind-down timelines.
Academics build clean fund-mortality and survivorship panels using statutory end dates rather than commercial-database disappearances, which conflate share-class closures with full deregistration. Pairing ORDR and N-8F dates on the same CIK supports research on SEC processing latency by fund type and sponsor.
The following workflows reflect how practitioners actually consume Form 8F-2 ORDR records — pairing the order PDF, the 811-series file number, the applicant CIK, and the order release date with adjacent EDGAR filings and downstream operational systems.
Academics and quantitative researchers iterate the monthly archives, extract entities[].cik and entities[].fileNo from each metadata.json, and parse the release date from the PDF header to populate a survivorship-bias-free panel of registered investment companies. The resulting end-date field replaces commercial-database disappearance flags, which conflate share-class closures with full 1940 Act deregistration. Joining on CIK against N-8F application accessions yields per-fund SEC processing latency, segmentable by sponsor, SIC, and state of incorporation.
Fund administrators load the release date from the order PDF as the hard cutoff for the final NAV strike, the final liquidating distribution, and the termination of N-CEN and other Section 30 reporting obligations. The 811-series file number propagates to series- and class-level identifiers inside administration platforms so that downstream tasks — CUSIP retirement at the transfer agent, board-meeting calendar pruning, Rule 38a-1 testing scope changes — fire automatically once the order is ingested.
1940 Act counsel grep across the order PDFs for recital phrasing tied to specific wind-up paths — sale of assets, merger into an affiliated fund, in-kind distribution — and use the matched orders as drafting precedent for new Form N-8F applications. The release number printed in each PDF header becomes the citation key in client memos, and the metadata's linkToHtml resolves to the EDGAR index for retrieving the underlying application.
Pairing 8F-2 ORDR records with 8F-NTC notices on the cited notice-of-filing release number (extracted from the order recitals) produces the interval between publication of the notice of application and entry of the final order. The resulting distribution, segmented by year and signing officer, supports staff-processing benchmarks that fund sponsors use when planning wind-down communications and trustee meeting cadence.
Asset-manager compliance teams ingest each new accession into the firm's entity-master, matching on CIK and 811-series file number to flip the registered-under-1940-Act flag to false as of the order release date. The accession number and PDF are retained as the audit-trail artifact examiners request when a fund drops off filing schedules, and access-person designations, code-of-ethics scoping, and board-meeting calendars tied to the retired entity are deactivated in the same workflow.
Reference-data analysts treat each new 8F-2 ORDR as a government-sourced end-of-life signal for the applicant's securities. CIK, file number, and SIC drive deterministic matching against vendor entity records; the order release date populates the canonical termination field expected by downstream subscribers. The PDF caption disambiguates funds that share marketing names within the same complex by anchoring on the legal name, mailing address, and 811 number.
Corporate wind-up teams attach the order PDF to the corporate minute book and route each terminated entity to the correct state certificate-of-cancellation workflow using the stateOfIncorporation field in the metadata. Litigation counsel, receivers, and bankruptcy trustees file the same PDF as an exhibit and use the release date to scope the pre- versus post-deregistration claim boundary, with the CIK supporting rapid retrieval of the fund's full EDGAR history.
The Form 8F-2 ORDR Files Dataset can be accessed in three ways: through a JSON metadata index, as a single full-dataset archive, or as individual monthly container files.
Dataset Index JSON API: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-8f2-ordr-files.json
This endpoint returns dataset-level metadata along with the full list of container files available for download. It includes the dataset name, description, last updated timestamp, earliest sample date, total record and size counters, covered form types, container format (ZIP), and the file types contained within each archive (PDF and JSON). The containers array lists every monthly ZIP file with its key, size, record count, last updated timestamp, and direct download URL. This makes it possible to monitor daily which containers were updated in the most recent refresh run and selectively download only those that changed. This endpoint does not require an API key.
Example response:
1
{
2
"datasetId": "1f13365b-9ae0-6a85-bb08-12b3754e92a1",
3
"datasetDownloadUrl": "https:/api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-8f2-ordr-files.zip",
4
"name": "Form 8F-2 ORDR Files Dataset",
5
"updatedAt": "2026-04-16T08:59:32.264Z",
6
"earliestSampleDate": "2010-05-01",
7
"totalRecords": 5,
8
"totalSize": 202524,
9
"formTypes": ["8F-2 ORDR"],
10
"containerFormat": "ZIP",
11
"fileTypes": ["PDF", "JSON"],
12
"containers": [
13
{
14
"downloadUrl": "https:/api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-8f2-ordr-files/2016/2016-01.zip",
15
"key": "2016/2016-01.zip",
16
"size": 41205,
17
"records": 1,
18
"updatedAt": "2026-04-16T08:59:32.264Z"
19
}
20
]
21
}
Download Entire Dataset: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-8f2-ordr-files.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY
This endpoint returns a single ZIP archive containing every container in the dataset across all years. Use this for a one-shot bulk download covering filings from the earliest sample date (2010-05-01) onward. This endpoint requires an API key.
Download Single Container: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-8f2-ordr-files/2016/2016-01.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY
Each container is a monthly ZIP archive identified by a YYYY/YYYY-MM.zip key. Downloading individual containers is the recommended approach for incremental updates or when only a specific time range is needed. This endpoint requires an API key.
The dataset covers EDGAR submissions catalogued under the form-type code 8F-2 ORDR. Each record is a Commission-issued order under Section 8(f) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 declaring that a named registered investment company has ceased to be an investment company and that its registration under the Act shall immediately cease to be in effect.
The SEC issues the order. The Division of Investment Management acts under delegated authority pursuant to 17 CFR 200.30-5, and the order is signed by Division staff (typically a Deputy Secretary). The named investment company is the subject of the order — the applicant whose deregistration is being granted — not the issuer. EDGAR associates each submission with the applicant's CIK and 1940 Act file number, but the accession-level filer is always the Commission's pseudo-CIK 9999999997.
One record represents a single SEC-issued deregistration order pertaining to one applicant fund or company. Physically, each record is an accession-named directory containing two files: a metadata.json mirroring the EDGAR submission header and a filename1.pdf carrying the operative order text. Records are not aggregated by month, by applicant family, or by release.
Two conditions must converge: the applicant has substantively wound up (sold, merged, liquidated, or distributed substantially all assets and provided for known liabilities), and the post-notice hearing window opened by the prior 8F-NTC notice has expired with no qualifying hearing request pending. The order is the terminal step of a three-stage chain — N-8F application, 8F-NTC notice, 8F-2 ORDR order — only the third of which is captured here.
The dataset covers EDGAR submissions from May 2010 forward. There is no periodic schedule; each order is event-driven and tied to one applicant's deregistration proceeding. Monthly archives are sparse, and some calendar months produce no archive at all because no 8F-2 ORDR was issued.
Form 15 and 15-15D are registrant-filed notices under Sections 12(g) and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that terminate Exchange Act reporting (10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, proxies). 8F-2 ORDR is a Commission-issued order under the 1940 Act that terminates investment-company status itself. The two regimes operate under different statutes, have different authors, and produce no overlap in dataset content.
The dataset is delivered as monthly ZIP archives following a year/year-month.zip convention. Each record directory inside the archive contains a metadata.json and the order PDF. The archives can be retrieved through a dataset-index JSON API, as a single full-dataset ZIP, or as individual monthly containers.