Form C-AR Files Dataset

The Form C-AR Files Dataset is a complete corpus of Regulation Crowdfunding annual reports filed on EDGAR under Rule 202 of Regulation Crowdfunding (17 CFR 227.202). One record is a single Form C-AR or Form C-AR/A submission for one issuer for one fiscal year, packaged as a self-contained folder containing the EDGAR submission envelope, the structured XML form payload, the SEC-rendered XHTML view, and one or more issuer-supplied PDF exhibits carrying the long-form narrative report and certified financial statements.

The filing population consists exclusively of non-Exchange Act-reporting U.S. issuers — typically Delaware C corporations, LLCs, and benefit corporations — that previously sold securities in a Reg CF offering under Section 4(a)(6) of the Securities Act of 1933 through funding portals such as StartEngine, Wefunder, Republic, Netcapital, Honeycomb Credit, or DealMaker. Each issuer must file Form C-AR within 120 calendar days of fiscal year-end and continues filing each year until one of the five Rule 202(b) termination conditions is met.

Coverage begins April 1, 2017 — the first fiscal-year-ends following the May 2016 effectiveness of Regulation Crowdfunding — and runs to the present. The dataset is distributed as monthly ZIP containers, organized by filing year and month, with file types spanning XML, PDF, JSON, HTML, and TXT. Form C-AR has been an XML-and-exhibit form since inception, so every record across the entire window carries a structured primary_doc.xml, an EDGAR XSLT-rendered XHTML view, and one or more EX-99 PDF exhibits.

Dataset APIs

Dataset Files

What This Dataset Contains

The dataset captures every Form C-AR and Form C-AR/A submission to EDGAR, the only annual report in the Title III Regulation Crowdfunding regime. The underlying form is mandated by Rule 202 of Regulation Crowdfunding for issuers that have completed a securities offering under Section 4(a)(6). It must be filed on EDGAR no later than 120 days after fiscal year-end and continues until one of the Rule 202(b) termination conditions is met (the issuer files Form C-TR, becomes an Exchange Act reporting company, repurchases all crowdfunded securities, liquidates, or has fewer than 300 holders of record and less than $10 million in assets). Form C-AR/A is the amendment variant, sharing the same XML schema and disclosure obligations with the form-type string carrying the /A suffix.

The filing is made under the Securities Act of 1933 (the entity-level act value is 33) and is associated with a Regulation Crowdfunding file number prefix of 020-. The form's underlying schema (http://www.sec.gov/edgar/formc) is shared with Form C, Form C-U, Form C-TR, and their amendment variants; the submissionType element distinguishes them. Form C-AR is a non-XBRL form: required financial line items are carried directly inside the XML form payload as named elements rather than as XBRL facts, and the EDGAR submission has no XBRL instance document or taxonomy reference.

Records are organized by filing date. The dataset is partitioned by year and month, and each accession is placed in a folder whose name is the 18-digit EDGAR accession number with the dashes stripped (for example, accession 0002070024-25-000010 becomes folder 000207002425000010).

Content Structure of a Single Record

One record is a single Form C-AR or Form C-AR/A submission to EDGAR, identified by its accession number and packaged as a self-contained folder. The record unit is the entire annual-report submission for one issuer for one fiscal year under Rule 202, not an individual exhibit, financial line item, or extracted disclosure section. Each record bundles four content layers: an EDGAR-level metadata envelope, the structured XML form payload, the SEC-rendered XHTML view of that payload, and one or more issuer-supplied PDF exhibits that carry the long-form narrative report and financial statements.

Files inside one record

Every accession folder follows the same four-class layout, with variation only in the count and naming of the exhibit PDFs:

• metadata.json — the EDGAR submission envelope: filer/entity resolution, accession-level identifiers, period of report, links back to the EDGAR-rendered views, and an ordered manifest of every document in the original submission.
• primary_doc.xml — the official Form C-AR XML payload. Root element <edgarSubmission> with http://www.sec.gov/edgar/formc as the default namespace and a com: companion namespace (http://www.sec.gov/edgar/common) for shared address and identifier types.
• xslC_X01/primary_doc.xml — the SEC-rendered XHTML 1.0 Strict view of the same form, produced by EDGAR's C_X01 XSLT stylesheet. Identical data to the raw XML, intended for human display rather than data extraction.
• One or more exhibit files — almost always PDFs of documentFormatFiles[].type EX-99. These hold the long-form narrative annual report, the financial statements certified by the principal executive officer, and any accompanying notes or schedules. Filers may submit a single combined PDF (typical names include formc-ar.pdf, form_car.pdf, or an issuer-named file) or split the financial statements into per-statement PDFs (separate balance sheet, profit-and-loss, cash flows, statement of equity, and financial-notes files).

In practice every record contains a metadata.json, exactly two XML files (the structured primary_doc.xml and the XSLT-rendered XHTML at xslC_X01/primary_doc.xml, which is HTML by content despite the .xml extension), and one or more EX-99 PDFs. Image attachments and the complete .txt SGML submission wrapper that EDGAR assembles for the filing are not packaged on disk; the wrapper's EDGAR location is reachable through metadata.json.linkToTxt.

metadata.json envelope

metadata.json is the catalog and entity-resolution layer for the record. Its top-level fields:

• formType — C-AR for an original annual report, C-AR/A for an amendment. Together with headerData/submissionType inside the XML, this is the authoritative amendment indicator.
• accessionNo — the EDGAR accession number with dashes (the folder name strips them).
• description — the EDGAR-supplied human description, typically Form C-AR - Annual Report.
• filedAt — ISO 8601 timestamp of acceptance, including the EDGAR time-zone offset.
• periodOfReport — fiscal year-end being reported, in YYYY-MM-DD form.
• linkToFilingDetails, linkToHtml, linkToTxt — URLs to the EDGAR-rendered XHTML view, the EDGAR filing-index page, and the complete .txt submission wrapper.
• linkToXbrl — present but empty for Form C-AR.
• id — internal record identifier.
• seriesAndClassesContractsInformation and dataFiles — present in the schema but always empty for C-AR.
• documentFormatFiles[] — ordered manifest of every file in the original EDGAR submission. Each entry carries sequence, size, documentUrl, type, and an optional description. Sequence 1 is the primary document (the rendered XHTML and the raw XML share that sequence); subsequent sequences are the EX-99 exhibits in submission order; the trailing entry with blank sequence and type points to the complete-submission .txt wrapper on EDGAR.
• entities[] — EDGAR-resolved entities associated with the filing, normally a single Filer. Each entry carries companyName (suffixed with the role, e.g. (Filer)), cik, irsNo, fileNo (with the 020- Regulation Crowdfunding prefix), filmNo, act (33), type (the form-type string), stateOfIncorporation, fiscalYearEnd in MMDD form, and sic when EDGAR has classified the filer.

primary_doc.xml structure

The XML payload is the canonical structured representation of the form. The root <edgarSubmission> has two top-level branches: <headerData> for the submission envelope and <formData> for the substantive disclosure content.

headerData

• submissionType — repeats the form type (C-AR or C-AR/A).
• filerInfo.filer.filerCredentials.filerCik — the filer's CIK, zero-padded.
• filerInfo.filer.filerCredentials.filerCcc — masked as XXXXXXXX in the public XML and should be ignored.
• filerInfo.period — fiscal year-end being reported, formatted as MM-DD-YYYY (mirrors metadata.periodOfReport).
• filerInfo.liveTestFlag — typically LIVE.
• filerInfo.flags — booleans inherited from the EDGAR filer interface: confirmingCopyFlag, returnCopyFlag, overrideInternetFlag.

formData — issuerInformation

The issuerInformation.issuerInfo block carries the issuer-identification disclosures required by Rule 201(a)–(b):

• nameOfIssuer — issuer's legal name.
• legalStatus.legalStatusForm — entity form (Corporation, Limited Liability Company, etc.).
• legalStatus.jurisdictionOrganization — two-letter U.S. state or country code of formation.
• legalStatus.dateIncorporation — date of formation in MM-DD-YYYY.
• issuerAddress (in the com: common namespace) — street1, optional street2, city, stateOrCountry, and zipCode for the principal place of business.
• issuerWebsite — issuer URL.

issuerInformation.isCoIssuer is a sibling Y/N flag indicating whether a co-issuer is also represented in the filing.

formData — annualReportDisclosureRequirements

This is the structured Rule 202 financial snapshot and the dataset's most analytically dense block. Each financial line item appears as a paired set of named elements, one for the most recent fiscal year and one for the prior fiscal year, allowing year-over-year comparison without parsing the exhibit PDFs. The pairing convention uses MostRecentFiscalYear and PriorFiscalYear suffixes on element names. Fields include:

• currentEmployees — full-time-equivalent headcount as a decimal (single value, not paired).
• totalAssetMostRecentFiscalYear / totalAssetPriorFiscalYear — total assets in USD.
• cashEquiMostRecentFiscalYear / cashEquiPriorFiscalYear — cash and cash equivalents.
• actReceivedMostRecentFiscalYear / actReceivedPriorFiscalYear — accounts receivable.
• shortTermDebtMostRecentFiscalYear / shortTermDebtPriorFiscalYear and longTermDebtMostRecentFiscalYear / longTermDebtPriorFiscalYear — short- and long-term liabilities.
• revenueMostRecentFiscalYear / revenuePriorFiscalYear — top-line revenue.
• costGoodsSoldMostRecentFiscalYear / costGoodsSoldPriorFiscalYear — cost of goods sold.
• taxPaidMostRecentFiscalYear / taxPaidPriorFiscalYear — taxes paid.
• netIncomeMostRecentFiscalYear / netIncomePriorFiscalYear — net income or loss.

Numeric values are decimal strings in USD with two decimal places, including negatives for losses. These fields are the structured equivalent of figures presented in narrative or tabular form inside the EX-99 PDF financial statements; they are a snapshot, not a substitute for the GAAP-statement-granularity statements themselves.

formData — signatureInfo

The signature block carries the certifications required by Rule 202 and the form's general signature instructions:

• issuerSignature — a triple of issuer (the entity name), issuerSignature (the printed name of the person signing on behalf of the issuer), and issuerTitle (the signer's title, typically Chief Executive Officer).
• signaturePersons.signaturePerson[] — one entry per individual signatory, each with personSignature (printed name), personTitle, and signatureDate in MM-DD-YYYY form. The list typically spans the principal executive officer, the principal financial and accounting officer, and the directors signing in their personal capacity, as required by the form's general signature instructions.

EX-99 exhibits

The narrative and financial-statement substance of the annual report lives in the EX-99 exhibit files, almost always PDFs. Typical contents:

• description of the issuer's business, products and services, and material developments since the prior period (Rule 201(c), (e)–(g));
• discussion of financial condition, results of operations, and liquidity (Rule 201(s));
• financial statements for the two most recent fiscal years certified by the principal executive officer in accordance with Rule 201(t) — balance sheets, statements of operations, statements of cash flows, statements of stockholders' or members' equity, and accompanying notes;
• disclosures regarding directors, officers, and 20%+ beneficial ownership owners (Rule 201(d));
• related-party transaction disclosures (Rule 201(r));
• outstanding securities, capitalization, and any material indebtedness (Rule 201(m)–(o));
• any other Rule 201 disclosures that update or supplement the issuer's most recent Form C or Form C-U.

Filers either bundle all of this content into a single combined PDF or split the financial statements into one PDF per statement with separate exhibits for the narrative report and notes. Filer-chosen filenames vary widely and should not be relied on for content classification; the documentFormatFiles[].type of EX-99 and the manifest description are the authoritative classifiers.

How the files relate

• metadata.json is the catalog. It lists every file in the EDGAR submission via documentFormatFiles[] and points linkToFilingDetails at the human-rendered XHTML.
• primary_doc.xml is the structured representation a parser should consume. It carries every required Rule 202 financial line item with two-year comparatives, the issuer-identification fields, and the full signature roster.
• xslC_X01/primary_doc.xml is the EDGAR XSLT rendering of the same XML. It uses XHTML 1.0 Strict with embedded display-formatting namespaces. Use it for human display, not for data extraction; parsing the XHTML when the equivalent fields are available in the raw XML is wasteful and lossy.
• The EX-99 PDFs hold the long-form narrative report, the audited or reviewed financial statements with full notes, and the principal-executive-officer certification mandated by Rule 201(t).

Included content

A record contains everything needed to reconstruct the EDGAR submission for analysis: the structured XML form, the XHTML rendering, all narrative and financial-statement exhibits, and a metadata envelope that resolves entities and links each on-disk file back to its EDGAR URL. Because the structured XML carries every required Rule 202 financial line item with two-year comparatives and the full signature roster, basic financial and governance analysis can proceed without parsing the exhibit PDFs.

Excluded or separate content

• Image files referenced by the original submission are not packaged. Issuer logos and scanned signatures embedded inside PDFs travel with the PDFs, but standalone .jpg or .png attachments are excluded.
• The complete .txt SGML submission wrapper assembled by EDGAR is not stored on disk; its EDGAR URL is preserved in metadata.json.linkToTxt.
• Form C-AR has no XBRL instance, taxonomy, or schema files; linkToXbrl is present but empty, and there are no associated XBRL artifacts to exclude in the first place.

Amendments (Form C-AR/A)

Amendments are not packaged differently from originals. A C-AR/A record sits in the same year/month folder structure as any other accession, has the same file inventory, and uses the same XML schema. The amendment status is recorded in two places: metadata.json.formType and primary_doc.xml/headerData/submissionType, both carrying the string C-AR/A. The documentFormatFiles[].type and the per-entity type field mirror that string. The folder name does not encode the amendment marker, so formType is the authoritative discriminator. Amendments do not carry a structured back-reference to the prior accession inside the XML; the relationship between an original and its amendment must be reconstructed from the issuer's CIK plus the periodOfReport, optionally cross-checked against narrative cross-references inside the EX-99 exhibits.

Format conventions across the dataset

Form C-AR has been an XML-and-exhibit form since inception; it has never had an ASCII-only era. Every record in the dataset, from April 2017 forward, contains a structured primary_doc.xml, an xslC_X01 XHTML rendering, and one or more PDF exhibits, with no transition through legacy text-only filing formats. Because the form does not carry XBRL, there is no transition from standalone XBRL to inline XBRL within this dataset; financial line items are encoded directly as XML elements throughout. The 2020 Regulation Crowdfunding amendments (Release No. 33-10884, effective March 15, 2021) raised the offering ceiling and adjusted certain financial-disclosure thresholds for initial offerings, but they did not materially restructure the Rule 202 annual-report content; the paired MostRecentFiscalYear/PriorFiscalYear financial fields and the Rule 201 narrative obligations carry over unchanged. Cross-period comparability of the structured XML fields is preserved across the entire dataset window. Filer-side variation is concentrated in exhibit packaging: combined-PDF versus per-statement PDF style, and filer-chosen filenames.

Interpretation notes

• The structured XML and the XHTML rendering carry the same data; the XML is canonical for extraction, the XHTML is canonical for display.
• The MostRecentFiscalYear/PriorFiscalYear pairing means each record carries two years of comparative financials inside the XML, but the meaning of "prior" depends on filerInfo.period. Time-series construction should anchor on periodOfReport rather than on filing date.
• filerCcc is always masked in the public XML and is not data.
• The EX-99 exhibits hold the certified financial statements with full notes; the XML financial fields are a snapshot and do not include the full balance sheet, income statement, or cash-flow line-item detail at GAAP-statement granularity.
• Inside entities[], the companyName value is suffixed with the entity role (e.g., (Filer)) and must be stripped before joining to issuer-name fields inside primary_doc.xml.
• Reg CF file numbers carry the 020- prefix and are issuer-level rather than offering-level; multiple Form C, Form C-U, and Form C-AR filings from the same issuer share the same fileNo.
• For amendment chains, the absence of a structured back-reference means consumers should match (cik, periodOfReport) to pair a C-AR/A with its corresponding C-AR, treating the most recent accession as the operative annual report for that fiscal year.
• Filer-chosen exhibit filenames are not a reliable content classifier. Use documentFormatFiles[].type == "EX-99" together with the manifest description to identify narrative versus per-statement PDFs.

Who Files or Publishes This Dataset, and When

Who files

The filer is the issuer itself, never the funding portals or broker-dealer intermediary. Specifically, Form C-AR is filed by a non-Exchange Act-reporting U.S. issuer that previously sold securities in a Regulation Crowdfunding ("Reg CF") offering under Section 4(a)(6) of the Securities Act of 1933, conducted through a registered intermediary. Once that offering closes, the issuer becomes subject to an annual reporting obligation under Rule 202 of Regulation Crowdfunding (17 CFR 227.202).

Typical filers are small, early-stage companies organized under U.S. state law — most commonly Delaware C corporations, LLCs, and benefit corporations — that raised capital on portals such as StartEngine, Wefunder, Republic, Netcapital, Honeycomb Credit, or DealMaker. To have been Reg CF-eligible in the first place under Rule 100(b) (17 CFR 227.100(b)), each filer must be a U.S. issuer that is not subject to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Exchange Act, not an investment company, not a blank-check company, and not disqualified under the Rule 503 bad-actor provisions. Foreign issuers, Exchange Act registrants, investment companies, and disqualified issuers therefore do not appear in the Form C-AR population.

Triggering event

The obligation is triggered by the issuer's first closing (sale of securities) in a Reg CF offering authorized under Title III of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 (JOBS Act, Pub. L. No. 112-106) and implemented by the SEC in Regulation Crowdfunding (Release No. 33-9974, adopted October 30, 2015; effective May 16, 2016). Once the issuer has sold any securities in reliance on Section 4(a)(6) of the Securities Act, Rule 202(a) imposes the annual reporting duty by operation of law, independent of any further fundraising. An issuer that filed a Form C but never closed an offering does not incur the obligation.

The reporting is periodic and fiscal-year-driven, not transaction-driven. It continues each fiscal year until terminated under Rule 202(b), regardless of whether the issuer raises further capital or experiences corporate events.

Deadline

Under Rule 202(a), Form C-AR must be filed on EDGAR within 120 calendar days after the end of the issuer's fiscal year. The deadline is uniform — there is no scaling by issuer size, revenue, or investor count, and no accelerated-filer concept. The report must include financial statements certified by the issuer's principal executive officer and the issuer-level disclosures specified in Rule 201 of Regulation Crowdfunding (17 CFR 227.201), excluding offering-specific items (target amount, deadline, intermediary information) that appear only in Form C.

Termination of the obligation under Rule 202(b)

Rule 202(b) provides an exhaustive list of five termination conditions. The annual reporting obligation ends when the issuer:

1. becomes subject to the reporting requirements of Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act;
2. has filed at least one Reg CF annual report and has fewer than 300 holders of record;
3. has filed at least three Reg CF annual reports and has total assets not exceeding $10 million;
4. has had all securities issued in reliance on Section 4(a)(6) repurchased by the issuer or another party, such that none remain outstanding; or
5. liquidates or dissolves in accordance with state law.

When any of conditions (1)–(4) is met, the issuer files Form C-TR (Termination of Reporting) on EDGAR to signal the end of its Rule 202 obligation. Condition (5) typically results in cessation of filings as the entity ceases to exist under state law, though Form C-TR may also be filed.

Form C-AR/A amendments

Form C-AR/A is the amendment form for a previously filed Form C-AR. Common reasons include correcting financial statement figures, restating the principal executive officer's certification, supplementing Rule 201 disclosures (related-party transactions, ownership and capital structure, risk factors), or fixing EDGAR submission errors. Rule 202 sets no fixed amendment deadline; amendments are filed when the issuer identifies a need to correct or supplement. Each Form C-AR/A is a standalone EDGAR submission with its own accession number.

The Form C / C-U / C-AR / C-TR lifecycle

Form C-AR is one stage of a single Reg CF disclosure lifecycle for a given issuer:

• Form C — initial offering statement filed before sales begin under Section 4(a)(6); contains offering terms plus the full Rule 201 issuer disclosures.
• Form C/A — amendment to a pending Form C (used for material changes during the offering).
• Form C-U — progress update filed during or shortly after the offering window, reporting amounts raised relative to the target (required at the 50% and 100% milestones, and within five business days of the offering deadline).
• Form C-AR — annual report filed under Rule 202(a), 120 days after fiscal year-end, covering the issuer-level subset of Rule 201 plus certified financial statements.
• Form C-AR/A — amendment to a previously filed Form C-AR.
• Form C-TR — termination of the Rule 202 obligation upon satisfying any of conditions (1)–(4) (and optionally (5)) of Rule 202(b).

The Form C-AR filer is the same legal entity as the original Form C issuer; the obligation is not assignable except through ordinary corporate succession (merger, conversion) under state law.

EDGAR mechanics

All Form C-AR and Form C-AR/A submissions are filed electronically on EDGAR. The EDGAR submission types are literally C-AR and C-AR/A. Reg CF filers are assigned file numbers in the 020- series (e.g., 020-XXXXXX), distinct from the 000- series used for Exchange Act registrants and the 024- series used for Regulation A issuers. A single 020- file number links an issuer's Form C, any Form C/A and Form C-U updates, its sequence of Form C-AR and Form C-AR/A filings, and its eventual Form C-TR. Regulation Crowdfunding has been EDGAR-only since inception in May 2016; Form C-AR has never existed in paper form. The earliest Form C-AR filings appeared on EDGAR in spring 2017, consistent with the dataset's earliest sample of April 1, 2017 (the first fiscal-year-ends following the May 2016 effectiveness of Reg CF).

Important distinctions

• Form C filed but no closing. An issuer that filed Form C but sold no securities under Section 4(a)(6) does not incur the Rule 202 obligation and does not file Form C-AR.
• Subsequent Exchange Act registration. An issuer that later registers under the Exchange Act (e.g., completes an IPO and files Form 10) terminates Form C-AR filing under Rule 202(b)(1) and thereafter reports on Form 10-K.
• Concurrent Regulation A activity. Reg A annual reporting is on Form 1-K under the 024- file-number series; a Reg A filing does not substitute for a Form C-AR. An issuer with both regimes runs them in parallel until Rule 202(b) terminates the Reg CF obligation (or Exchange Act registration supersedes both).
• Officer signature versus filer. The principal executive officer signs and certifies the financial statements, but the filing entity is the issuer. The officer is not a "reporting person" in the Section 16 sense.
• Delinquency consequence. Failure to file Form C-AR on time disqualifies the issuer from conducting future Reg CF offerings under Rule 503 while the delinquency persists — the principal enforcement lever behind the 120-day deadline.

How This Dataset Differs From Similar Datasets or Filings

Form C-AR is the only annual report in the Regulation Crowdfunding family created under Title III of the JOBS Act and Section 4(a)(6) of the Securities Act. The most useful comparisons are: the other Reg CF "Form C" filings (C, C-U, C-TR), the Reg A Tier 2 annual report (Form 1-K), the Exchange Act annual report (Form 10-K), and Form D, which sits beside Reg CF as a parallel exempt-offering notice. Researchers most often confuse Form C-AR with Form C itself or with Form 1-K.

Form C — Reg CF offering statement

Form C is the offering statement filed before an issuer can solicit investors under Reg CF. It covers offering terms, target amount, deadline, intermediary (funding portal or broker-dealer), use of proceeds, capital structure, risk factors, and offering-stage financial statements (certified, reviewed, or audited depending on the size and history of prior Reg CF raises).

Key differences: Form C is offering-triggered and filed once per offering; Form C-AR is calendar-driven and filed each fiscal year under Rule 202 until the issuer terminates reporting. Form C is forward-looking (terms of a securities offering); Form C-AR is backward-looking (last fiscal year's results and updated company status).

When to use which: use Form C for capital-raising activity, offering terms, and intermediary distribution; use Form C-AR for post-raise issuer continuity, financial trajectory, and survivorship.

Form C-U — progress update

Form C-U is a short, milestone-triggered update reporting amounts raised at the thresholds defined in Rule 203(a)(3), including the close of the offering window.

Key differences: Form C-U is a thin proceeds disclosure tied to specific offering milestones; Form C-AR is a substantive annual disclosure with financial statements and operational status.

When to use which: use Form C-U to track how much was actually raised in a given Reg CF offering; use Form C-AR to track what the issuer did with the money and how it performed afterward.

Form C-TR — termination of reporting

Form C-TR ends the issuer's ongoing Reg CF reporting obligation. It is filed when an issuer qualifies to stop filing Form C-AR under Rule 202(b) — for example, after filing the required number of annual reports, dropping below the holder-of-record or asset thresholds, becoming an Exchange Act registrant, repurchasing all crowdfunded securities, or liquidating.

Key differences: Form C-TR is a one-time, short, terminating filing with no financial statements or business description; Form C-AR is a recurring substantive disclosure. Form C-TR closes the C-AR series for a given issuer.

When to use which: use Form C-TR to identify when Reg CF reporting ended for an issuer and to define the right-censoring boundary of any Form C-AR longitudinal panel; use Form C-AR for the disclosure content itself.

Form 1-K — Reg A Tier 2 annual report

Form 1-K is the annual report required of issuers that completed a qualified Regulation A Tier 2 offering. It includes audited financial statements, MD&A-style discussion, business and risk-factor disclosure, and information about directors, officers, and significant employees.

Key differences: Form 1-K serves a different exemption tier. Reg A Tier 2 permits up to USD 75 million per 12-month period; Reg CF is capped at USD 5 million. Form 1-K requires audited financials in every annual filing; Form C-AR's financial-statement requirement is scaled by offering history (CEO-certified, independently reviewed, or audited) and is not required at all once the issuer qualifies to terminate. Form 1-K is also longer and more narrative, closer in shape to a 10-K.

When to use which: use Form 1-K for ongoing disclosure of Reg A Tier 2 issuers; use Form C-AR for ongoing disclosure of Reg CF issuers. The populations are largely disjoint at the issuer level.

Form 10-K — Exchange Act annual report

Form 10-K is the annual report filed by Exchange Act reporting companies under Section 13 or 15(d). It carries audited GAAP financials, MD&A, internal-controls attestations, executive compensation, governance, and extensive risk-factor disclosure, with full XBRL tagging.

Key differences: Form 10-K filers are public reporting companies; Form C-AR filers are private companies that have raised capital through Reg CF and are not Exchange Act registrants. Disclosure depth, audit scope, internal-controls regime, and tagging obligations for 10-K vastly exceed those for C-AR. A Reg CF issuer that becomes an Exchange Act registrant terminates Reg CF reporting (Form C-TR) and begins filing Form 10-K.

When to use which: use Form 10-K for established public companies; use Form C-AR for the much smaller, earlier-stage private issuer population that raised capital via crowdfunding. The two are not substitutes — they describe disjoint segments of the issuer universe.

Form D — Reg D private placement notice

Form D is the notice filing for offerings exempt under Regulation D (Rules 504, 506(b), 506(c)). It is short and structured, covering issuer identity, offering size, type of securities, and basic offering information.

Key differences: Form D is a one-time notice (with limited amendment triggers), not an annual report; Reg D imposes no ongoing reporting obligation, so there is no Reg D analog to Form C-AR. Form D fields are narrow and tabular; Form C-AR is a multi-document filing with narrative disclosures and financial statements.

When to use which: use Form D to identify Reg D capital-raising activity at the offering level; use Form C-AR to study post-offering issuer condition under Reg CF. Many issuers use both regimes, but the filings are not interchangeable.

Boundary summary

Form C-AR is the only annual report in the Title III Reg CF regime — the unique source for ongoing post-offering financial and operational disclosure from Reg CF issuers. It is distinguished from:

• Form C and Form C-U, which cover the offering itself and its progress, not the year-after status
• Form C-TR, which closes the C-AR series rather than supplying disclosure
• Form 1-K, which plays the same conceptual role for Reg A Tier 2 issuers but under a different exemption with mandatory audited financials
• Form 10-K, which serves Exchange Act registrants under a far heavier disclosure regime
• Form D, which is an offering notice for Reg D with no continuing-reporting counterpart

For research on ongoing financial condition, survivorship, or year-over-year performance of Reg CF issuers, this dataset is the correct and only direct source.

Who Uses This Dataset

Form C-AR is the only structured post-offering window into Reg CF issuers — small private companies that raised from non-accredited investors. Each professional group below works on different parts of the record: primary_doc.xml identity and signature blocks, the annualReportDisclosureRequirements schedule (officers, directors, 20% holders, indebtedness, prior offerings), metadata.json envelope fields, and EX-99 PDF exhibits carrying the certified financials and Rule 201 narrative.

Funding portal compliance and surveillance

Compliance staff at funding portals and Reg CF broker-dealer intermediaries reconcile entities[] (CIK, EIN, jurisdiction) in metadata.json against their internal book of hosted offerings, then track Rule 202 filing cadence, late filings, missing years, and termination events. The annualReportDisclosureRequirements block and EX-99 certified financials feed issuer-health dashboards and gate decisions on hosting follow-on raises.

Reg CF investors and secondary-market operators

Retail participants and operators of nascent Reg CF secondary venues read C-AR as the primary post-investment disclosure. They focus on EX-99 financials (revenue, net loss, cash, going-concern language), the description-of-business and material-changes narrative, prior-offerings disclosure for dilution, and the signatureInfo block to confirm officer continuity. The cross-year panel supports survivorship and burn analysis.

Academic researchers in entrepreneurial finance

Researchers studying crowdfunding survival, JOBS Act Title III outcomes, and small-business dynamics build longitudinal panels by joining primary_doc.xml fields (jurisdiction, fiscal year end, officers, directors, 20% owners) to financial line items extracted from EX-99 exhibits, then matching to original Form C offerings. Outputs include survival rates, revenue and headcount trajectories, and links between offering structure (SAFE, convertible, equity, revenue share) and downstream financial condition.

Policy analysts and financial journalists

Analysts at policy research organizations and reporters covering retail capital formation aggregate filings to measure ongoing reporting rates, Rule 202(b) terminations, and the active-issuer mix by state, industry, and offering size. The Rule 201 narrative — material risks, related-party transactions, business updates — supplies qualitative material for case studies on troubled or failed Reg CF issuers.

Securities lawyers and disclosure counsel

Counsel advising issuers, portals, and intermediaries benchmark drafting against peer C-AR filings: indebtedness schedules, related-party transactions, prior exempt offerings, and carried-over risk factors. They study C-AR/A amendments to understand what triggers restatement, use the signature block to verify the chain of officer certifications, and advise on Rule 202(b) termination conditions.

Forensic accountants and litigation support

Expert witnesses in Reg CF fraud, misrepresentation, and fiduciary-duty disputes treat the EX-99 certified financials as primary evidence. Year-over-year balance sheet, income statement, and cash-flow comparisons — paired with changes in officers, directors, and 20% holders in primary_doc.xml — support solvency, going-concern, and insider-transfer analyses. The principal executive officer's certification is itself load-bearing in misrepresentation claims.

Private-market data product teams

Engineers building startup-intelligence and private-company datasets ingest C-AR to enrich profiles of small issuers absent from venture databases. They extract structured fields from primary_doc.xml (legal name, jurisdiction, EIN, fiscal year, principal address, officer and director rosters, beneficial owners) and parse EX-99 attachments for revenue, headcount, and cap-stack figures. Presence or absence of a current-year C-AR acts as an operational-continuity flag in data-quality pipelines.

Small-business credit underwriters

Underwriters extending vendor financing, working-capital lines, or revenue-based financing to early-stage borrowers use C-AR as one of the few officer-certified third-party records available. They size and price exposure off the EX-99 income statement, balance sheet, indebtedness schedule (creditors, terms, maturities), and going-concern language, and read prior-offerings and convertible disclosures to map the capital stack ahead of new debt.

Securities regulators and state examiners

Federal and state regulators and coordinated examiner groups monitor filing compliance against the universe of prior Form C filers, flag late or missing C-ARs, and detect inconsistencies between C and C-AR (officer changes, jurisdictional changes, undisclosed related-party transactions). The signature, certification, and beneficial-ownership disclosures support targeted inquiries into specific issuers and repeat actors.

LLM and RAG developers for private-market retrieval

Teams building retrieval systems over private capital markets index the mix of structured XML metadata and unstructured PDF/HTML/TXT exhibits by issuer, year, and disclosure topic (business description, risk factors, related-party transactions, financial condition). Downstream uses include issuer Q&A, year-over-year change detection, and automated line-item extraction from heterogeneous EX-99 formats.

Specific Use Cases

Most use cases revolve around tracking what happens after the crowdfunding raise closes. The workflows below tie directly to the structured XML financial fields, the metadata.json envelope, the EX-99 Rule 201 narrative exhibits, and the signatureInfo block.

Reg CF issuer survivorship panels

Academic researchers and policy analysts build longitudinal panels of Reg CF issuers by joining each metadata.json.entities[].cik and fileNo (the 020- prefix) back to the original Form C offering, then walking forward through every C-AR periodOfReport. Right-censoring is set at the matching Form C-TR or at the last observed C-AR. The output is a per-cohort survival curve keyed on offering vintage, jurisdiction, and SIC, with the annualReportDisclosureRequirements revenue and net-income pairs as the financial trajectory.

Post-raise burn-rate and runway scoring

Funding-portal compliance teams and secondary-market operators score issuer health from the paired XML fields without parsing PDFs. Cash burn is computed from cashEquiMostRecentFiscalYear minus cashEquiPriorFiscalYear against netIncomeMostRecentFiscalYear; leverage from shortTermDebt plus longTermDebt over totalAsset; runway from cash divided by trailing burn. Issuers crossing thresholds gate decisions on hosting follow-on Reg CF raises or listing on a secondary venue.

Going-concern and solvency evidence in disputes

Forensic accountants in Reg CF misrepresentation and fiduciary-duty matters anchor on the EX-99 certified financial statements and Rule 201(s) management discussion, paired with the signatureInfo.issuerSignature and signaturePersons.signaturePerson[] block as the principal-executive-officer certification of record. Year-over-year deltas in the structured revenue, netIncome, and totalAsset pairs triangulate against the certified statements; signature dates establish the certification timeline for misrepresentation claims.

Comparative platform performance benchmarking

Policy analysts and intermediary research teams group issuers by the originating funding portal (resolved from the Form C intermediaryName and matched to the C-AR via CIK) and aggregate the C-AR revenue, netIncome, and currentEmployees fields by cohort year. The output is a portal-level league table of post-raise revenue growth, headcount retention, and ongoing-reporting compliance rates, which feeds intermediary due diligence and Title III policy commentary.

Amendment-chain reconstruction for restatement analysis

Securities counsel and data engineers pair each C-AR/A with its underlying C-AR by matching (cik, periodOfReport) across the dataset, since the XML carries no structured back-reference. Diffs across the paired annualReportDisclosureRequirements blocks isolate which line items were restated; cross-referenced EX-99 narrative reveals the trigger (auditor-driven adjustment, missed related-party disclosure under Rule 201(r), prior-offerings correction under Rule 201(m)). The signature block on each amendment establishes who re-certified.

Officer and beneficial-owner change detection

Regulators, underwriters, and data product teams diff signatureInfo.signaturePersons.signaturePerson[] and the EX-99 Rule 201(d) directors-and-officers and 20%-holder disclosures across consecutive C-AR years for the same CIK. Departures of the principal executive officer between certifications, undisclosed changes in 20%-plus owners, and shifts in legalStatus.jurisdictionOrganization are flagged for examiner follow-up or credit-file review.

Private-issuer enrichment for startup-intelligence products

Private-market data engineers ingest each primary_doc.xml to extract nameOfIssuer, legalStatus.legalStatusForm, legalStatus.jurisdictionOrganization, dateIncorporation, issuerAddress, issuerWebsite, currentEmployees, and the SIC carried in metadata.json.entities[].sic to enrich profiles of small issuers absent from venture databases. Presence of a current-year C-AR for a given CIK serves as an operational-continuity flag in data-quality pipelines; absence past the 120-day Rule 202 deadline marks the record stale.

RAG indexing of Rule 201 narrative exhibits

LLM and retrieval teams index the EX-99 PDFs by issuer, fiscal year, and Rule 201 topic (business description under 201(c), related-party transactions under 201(r), indebtedness under Rule 201(o), MD&A under 201(s)) using documentFormatFiles[].type == "EX-99" plus the manifest description rather than filer-chosen filenames. Downstream applications include issuer Q&A grounded in certified disclosures, automated extraction of cap-stack and convertible terms, and year-over-year change detection across narrative sections.

Dataset Access

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

This endpoint returns dataset metadata and a list of all available container files. The response includes the dataset ID, name, description, last updated timestamp, earliest sample date (2017-04-01), total record count, total size in bytes, covered form types (C-AR and C-AR/A), container format, file types, and a containers array listing each monthly ZIP archive with its download URL, key, size, record count, and last updated timestamp. Use this endpoint to monitor which monthly containers were updated in the most recent refresh run, and decide which containers to re-download on a daily basis. This endpoint does not require an API key.

Example response:

          1
          {
        

          2
            "datasetId": "1f13365b-9ae0-6953-8061-6f75ef4daf29",
        

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

          4
            "name": "Form C-AR Files Dataset",
        

          5
            "updatedAt": "2026-05-07T02:51:19.000Z",
        

          6
            "earliestSampleDate": "2017-04-01",
        

          7
            "totalRecords": 22189,
        

          8
            "totalSize": 44420783727,
        

          9
            "formTypes": ["C-AR", "C-AR/A"],
        

          10
            "containerFormat": "ZIP",
        

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

          12
            "containers": [
        

          13
              {
        

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

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

          16
                "size": 138187830,
        

          17
                "records": 142,
        

          18
                "updatedAt": "2026-05-07T02:51:19.000Z"
        

          19
              }
        

          20
            ]
        

          21
          }
        

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

Downloads the full dataset as a single ZIP archive containing every Form C-AR and C-AR/A filing from April 2017 to the present. This endpoint requires an API key.

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

Downloads one monthly container ZIP instead of the full dataset. Each container groups all Form C-AR filings submitted in a given month, with download URLs and file sizes available from the containers array of the dataset index JSON. This endpoint requires an API key.

Frequently Asked Questions

What forms does this dataset cover?

The dataset covers Form C-AR (the original Regulation Crowdfunding annual report filed under Rule 202) and Form C-AR/A (its amendment variant). Both share the same XML schema and disclosure obligations; the form-type string and headerData/submissionType element distinguish amendments from originals.

What does one record in this dataset represent?

One record is a single Form C-AR or Form C-AR/A submission to EDGAR for one issuer for one fiscal year, identified by its accession number and packaged as a self-contained folder. Each record contains a metadata.json envelope, a structured primary_doc.xml, an XSLT-rendered XHTML view at xslC_X01/primary_doc.xml, and one or more EX-99 PDF exhibits.

Who is required to file Form C-AR?

Form C-AR is filed by the issuer itself — never by a funding portal or broker-dealer intermediary. The filer must be a non-Exchange Act-reporting U.S. issuer that previously closed a Regulation Crowdfunding offering under Section 4(a)(6) of the Securities Act. The annual reporting duty arises under Rule 202(a) once any securities are sold in a Reg CF offering, and continues each fiscal year until one of the five Rule 202(b) termination conditions is met.

When must Form C-AR be filed?

Rule 202(a) requires Form C-AR to be filed on EDGAR within 120 calendar days after the issuer's fiscal year-end. The deadline is uniform across all issuers — there is no scaling by size, revenue, or investor count. Failure to file on time disqualifies the issuer from conducting future Reg CF offerings under Rule 503 while the delinquency persists.

What time period does the dataset cover?

The dataset begins on April 1, 2017 — the earliest fiscal-year-ends following the May 2016 effectiveness of Regulation Crowdfunding — and runs through the present. Form C-AR has been an XML-and-exhibit form since inception, so every record across the entire window contains the same structural layout with no legacy text-only era.

What file format is the dataset distributed in?

The dataset is distributed as monthly ZIP containers, organized by year and month. Within each container, accessions are placed in folders named with the 18-digit EDGAR accession number with dashes stripped. File types inside each record include XML (the structured primary_doc.xml payload), HTML (the XSLT-rendered XHTML view), JSON (the metadata.json envelope), and PDF (the EX-99 exhibits carrying narrative and financial statements).

How does Form C-AR differ from Form 1-K and Form 10-K?

Form C-AR is the annual report for Regulation Crowdfunding issuers (capped at USD 5 million per 12-month period); Form 1-K is the annual report for Regulation A Tier 2 issuers (capped at USD 75 million) and requires audited financial statements every year; Form 10-K is the annual report for Exchange Act reporting companies with full GAAP audits, MD&A, internal-controls attestations, and XBRL tagging. The three populations are largely disjoint at the issuer level — a Reg CF issuer that becomes an Exchange Act registrant terminates Reg CF reporting via Form C-TR and begins filing Form 10-K.

Does Form C-AR carry XBRL data?

No. Form C-AR is a non-XBRL form. Required financial line items — total assets, cash and equivalents, accounts receivable, short- and long-term debt, revenue, cost of goods sold, taxes paid, net income — are encoded directly inside the XML form payload as paired MostRecentFiscalYear and PriorFiscalYear named elements, not as XBRL facts. The linkToXbrl field in metadata.json is present but always empty.