The Form F-N Files Dataset is the EDGAR collection of Form F-N and Form F-N/A submissions — the SEC instrument by which a foreign bank, foreign insurance company, or qualifying holding company or finance-subsidiary affiliate appoints a U.S. agent for service of process in connection with a Securities Act-registered offering in the United States. Each record is one EDGAR accession: a metadata.json parsed from the EDGAR submission header plus the original Form F-N or F-N/A document(s) as filed, packaged inside the EDGAR SGML <DOCUMENT> envelope. The form is filed by foreign issuers excepted from "investment company" status by Rule 3a-6 under the Investment Company Act of 1940, under the operative trigger of Rule 489 of the Securities Act of 1933. EDGAR-collected F-N submissions in this dataset begin in April 2002 and continue through the present, delivered as monthly ZIP containers keyed YYYY/YYYY-MM.zip.
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The dataset captures every Form F-N and Form F-N/A submission accepted by EDGAR since April 2002. Form F-N is the SEC's "Appointment of Agent for Service of Process by Foreign Banks and Foreign Insurance Companies and Certain of Their Holding Companies and Finance Subsidiaries Making Public Offerings of Securities in the United States." It is a short legal instrument by which the foreign issuer (i) identifies itself, (ii) names a U.S. person as its agent to receive service of process for any SEC investigation or any civil suit arising out of an offering registered under the Securities Act, (iii) undertakes to maintain such an agent for at least six years after the issuer's last Securities Act or Exchange Act filing, and (iv) undertakes to make representatives available to respond to Commission staff inquiries about the registered securities. Form F-N/A is the amendment variant, structurally identical to F-N and used when the agent is replaced or the agent's name or address changes.
Inside the dataset's monthly ZIP containers, each accession is materialized as a single root folder named with the accession number stripped of dashes (for example, 000119312525093734/). That folder is the record. It always contains a metadata.json describing the EDGAR submission, plus the original document(s) of the submission as filed — typically a single HTML/HTM body for modern filings, or a plain-text body for early-2000s filings — all wrapped in EDGAR's standard SGML <DOCUMENT> envelope. Image files that may have been part of the original submission are excluded from the dataset copy; everything else from the EDGAR submission is preserved. Form F-N is a low-volume, narrowly used form, and recent monthly containers typically hold only a handful of accessions.
A record is composed of two layers stacked inside the accession folder:
Packaging-and-header layer — metadata.json, a single JSON object generated from the EDGAR submission header. It carries the form-type tag, the accession number, the effectiveness date, the EDGAR-receipt timestamp, the SEC URLs for the filing and its components, the per-document inventory, and the filer/subject entity records (CIK, SIC, jurisdiction, fiscal year end, file number, film number, tickers).
Submission-document layer — the actual F-N document(s) as transmitted to EDGAR. Each document is enclosed in EDGAR's SGML <DOCUMENT> ... </DOCUMENT> block with a small set of header tags (<TYPE>, <SEQUENCE>, <FILENAME>, <DESCRIPTION>) and a <TEXT> body. For modern filings the <TEXT> body is HTML (a single .htm file); for older filings it is plain ASCII inside the same wrapper. The body is the SEC-prescribed Form F-N, laid out as lettered paragraphs A through G followed by a certification clause and signature blocks for the Filer and the U.S. agent.
The complete-submission text file (<accession>.txt), which concatenates the SGML wrapper and all documents, is referenced from metadata.json via linkToTxt; the EDGAR filing-index page is referenced via linkToHtml; and the primary F-N HTML document is referenced via linkToFilingDetails.
metadata.json schemaThe metadata file is a flat JSON object describing one EDGAR submission. The fields are:
formType — either "F-N" (original appointment) or "F-N/A" (amendment).accessionNo — EDGAR accession number with dashes preserved (e.g. "0001193125-25-093734").effectivenessDate — the appointment's effective date in YYYY-MM-DD.filedAt — the EDGAR receipt timestamp in ISO-8601 with timezone offset.description — human-readable description of the form ("Form F-N - Designates a U.S. agent for service of process by foreign banks and foreign insurance companies").linkToFilingDetails — URL of the primary F-N document on sec.gov.linkToTxt — URL of the complete-submission text file containing the SGML wrapper plus all included documents.linkToHtml — URL of the EDGAR filing-index page (-index.htm).linkToXbrl — empty string for F-N filings; the form does not carry XBRL data.dataFiles — empty array for F-N filings.seriesAndClassesContractsInformation — empty array for F-N filings.id — a stable internal hex identifier for the record.documentFormatFiles — an array with one entry per document in the EDGAR submission. Each entry carries sequence (numeric string for body documents, a single space for the complete-submission wrapper entry), size (byte count as a string), documentUrl, description (e.g. "F-N", "Complete submission text file"), and type (the EDGAR document-type tag, e.g. "F-N", "F-N/A", or a single space for the wrapper).entities — an array of EDGAR header entities. For an F-N filing the same foreign issuer is typically present twice, once tagged (Filed by) and once tagged (Subject), reflecting that the issuer is registering on its own behalf. Each entity object carries:
cik — numeric CIK as a string.companyName — the legal name with the EDGAR (Filed by) or (Subject) role suffix.type — the EDGAR form-type tag for the role (e.g. "F-N").sic — SIC code and label (e.g. "6029 Commercial Banks, NEC").stateOfIncorporation — EDGAR jurisdiction code (e.g. "P7" for the Netherlands).fiscalYearEnd — month-and-day as MMDD.act — on the Subject entity, the act code ("33" = Securities Act of 1933).fileNo — on the Subject entity, the EDGAR file number of the related registration statement (e.g. "333-286734"); this is the registration the F-N is paired with.filmNo — on the Subject entity, the EDGAR film number of the related filing.tickers — array of all exchange tickers EDGAR associates with the CIK.The dual-entity pattern — the same legal name appearing as both (Filed by) and (Subject) — is a distinctive feature of F-N records, and it is the metadata-side counterpart to the Form F-N's substantive identity between "Filer" (paragraph A) and "Name of registrant" (paragraph C) when the foreign issuer registers on its own behalf. Securities Act-specific fields (act, fileNo, filmNo) appear only on the (Subject) entity; identification fields (cik, companyName, sic, stateOfIncorporation, fiscalYearEnd, tickers) appear on both.
The primary F-N document is delivered inside EDGAR's standard SGML <DOCUMENT> block. The header tags are minimal but stable across the entire 2002-present history of the dataset:
1
<DOCUMENT>
2
<TYPE>F-N
3
<SEQUENCE>1
4
<FILENAME>d942476dfn.htm
5
<DESCRIPTION>F-N
6
<TEXT>
7
... (HTML or plain-text body of the appointment) ...
8
</TEXT>
9
</DOCUMENT>
<TYPE> carries F-N or F-N/A; <SEQUENCE> is the document order in the submission (the F-N body is sequence 1); <FILENAME> is the on-disk filename inside the accession folder; <DESCRIPTION> is a short label EDGAR records for the document; and <TEXT> brackets the document payload. The complete-submission text file (<accession>.txt) wraps one or more such <DOCUMENT> blocks with a top-level <SEC-DOCUMENT> / <SEC-HEADER> envelope that EDGAR uses to convey the filer/subject metadata — the same metadata that metadata.json parses out and exposes as structured fields.
Inside <TEXT>, the body of Form F-N is the SEC-prescribed appointment-of-agent form. It is laid out as a series of lettered paragraphs A through G, followed by a certification clause and signature blocks for both the Filer and the U.S. agent.
A. Name of issuer or person filing ("Filer") — the legal name of the foreign issuer. This is the same name that appears under the (Filed by) entity in metadata.json.
B. Filing-type checkbox — one of two mutually exclusive boxes: "an original filing for the Filer" or "an amended filing for the Filer." This box is the document-body counterpart to formType in metadata.json: original filings carry F-N and check the first box; amendments carry F-N/A and check the second box.
C. Cross-reference to the registration statement — identifies the Securities Act registration that the F-N is being filed in connection with. The sub-fields are Name of registrant, Form type (most commonly F-3, F-1, F-4, or another foreign-issuer registration form), File Number (if known) (which mirrors the Subject entity's fileNo in metadata.json), Filed by, and Date Filed (often "Filed concurrently with Form F-N"). This paragraph anchors the F-N to the offering it is supporting and is the primary structural link between an F-N record and the broader registration-statement universe.
D. Foreign issuer information — the issuer's jurisdiction of incorporation in narrative form (e.g. "The Netherlands") and the principal place of business as a full street address with telephone number. This paragraph is the human-readable counterpart to the stateOfIncorporation jurisdiction code in metadata.json.
E. Appointment of U.S. agent for service of process — the operative grant. It states the name of the U.S. person serving as agent, the agent's U.S. street address, and telephone number, and provides that service may be effected on the agent for (a) any Commission investigation or administrative proceeding and (b) any civil suit or action in any court of competent U.S. jurisdiction arising out of or based on any offering made or purported to be made in connection with the securities registered on the cross-referenced registration statement. The agent's identity is the substantive payload of the form; in F-N/A filings paragraph E typically contains the new agent's identity and address.
F. Successor-agent undertaking — the Filer stipulates and agrees to appoint a successor agent and file an amended Form F-N (i.e. an F-N/A) if the agent is discharged or becomes unwilling or unable to accept service, at any time until six years have elapsed from the date of the Filer's last registration statement or report filed under the Securities Act of 1933 or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and to advise the Commission promptly of any change to the agent's name or address by amendment. This is the regulatory hook that creates the F-N/A flow.
G. Information undertaking — the Filer undertakes to make representatives available, in person or by telephone, to respond to inquiries from the Commission staff and to furnish information about the registered securities or transactions in them.
Following paragraph G, the document carries a certification block stating the city, country, and date of execution (for example, "City of: Amsterdam, Country of: The Netherlands, This 24th day of April, 2025"). The document then carries one or more signature lines for the Filer's authorized signatories — frequently two officers signing as "Authorized Signatory" — and a separate signature block for the U.S. agent acknowledging the appointment, signed by an officer of the agent entity (typically a General Counsel, Managing Director, or similar). Both sets of signatures are typically rendered as /s/ Name typed conformations rather than scanned images, so they are recoverable from the HTML or text body without OCR.
Each record includes (a) the parsed-and-normalized metadata.json describing the EDGAR submission header, the document inventory, and the dual filer/subject entities; (b) the primary F-N or F-N/A document file as transmitted to EDGAR, inside the standard SGML <DOCUMENT> wrapper, containing the lettered A-G appointment, the certification clause, and the typed signature blocks; and (c) any auxiliary text documents that were part of the same EDGAR submission (rare for F-N because the form is short and self-contained). The complete-submission text file and the EDGAR filing-index page are addressable through linkToTxt and linkToHtml in metadata.json.
Image files that may have been part of the EDGAR submission (signature images, letterhead graphics) are excluded from the dataset copy. The cross-referenced registration statement (the F-3, F-1, F-4, etc.) is a structurally separate EDGAR submission with its own accession number; it is not bundled into the F-N record, but it is identifiable through the fileNo on the Subject entity in metadata.json and through paragraph C of the form body. Form F-N filings carry no XBRL, so linkToXbrl is empty and dataFiles is an empty array; this is a property of the form, not an omission by the dataset.
The substantive content requirements of Form F-N have been stable throughout the dataset's coverage period. The form is governed by Rule 489 under the Securities Act, and its lettered A-G structure — identification of the foreign issuer, original-versus-amendment indicator, cross-reference to the related registration statement, jurisdiction and principal-place-of-business disclosure, appointment of the U.S. agent with the prescribed service-of-process language, the six-year successor-agent undertaking, and the information-availability undertaking — has been the framework throughout. F-N/A filings have always shared the same body structure as F-N originals; the only structural distinctions are the checkbox in paragraph B, the corresponding form-type tag, and the typical use of paragraph E to install the replacement agent.
The dataset spans April 2002 to the present. The EDGAR SGML envelope (<DOCUMENT>, <TYPE>, <SEQUENCE>, <FILENAME>, <DESCRIPTION>, <TEXT> ... </TEXT>) and the per-folder packaging (one accession folder, one metadata.json, the original submission documents) are stable across the entire history. What shifts over time is the body format inside <TEXT>: early-2000s filings were submitted as plain ASCII text bodies inside the SGML wrapper, while modern filings use HTML/HTM as the primary document format inside the same wrapper. The file types found in the dataset — TXT, JSON, HTML — reflect this: TXT covers both the SGML complete-submission wrappers throughout the history and the plain-text bodies of older filings; HTML covers the modern body format; JSON covers the per-record metadata.json. The metadata schema and folder layout do not change with the body-format transition, so records are uniformly addressable across the entire 2002-present range.
F-N vs F-N/A — the formType field, the (Subject) entity's type, the documentFormatFiles[].type and description, and the paragraph-B checkbox all move together; treat them as redundant signals of the same fact. Amendments (F-N/A) most commonly arise because the agent is being replaced or the agent's address is changing, so paragraph E is the most informative paragraph to compare across an F-N -> F-N/A chain for the same issuer.
Linking F-N to its registration statement — the fileNo on the Subject entity (e.g. 333-286734) is the EDGAR file number of the registration statement that the F-N supports, and it matches the "File Number (if known)" sub-field of paragraph C in the document body. This is the canonical join key between an F-N record and the broader registration-statement universe.
Filer/Subject duplication in entities — because the foreign issuer is typically both the (Filed by) and the (Subject) party, the entities array usually contains two records pointing at the same legal entity. Code that aggregates by CIK should deduplicate on cik and look to the (Subject) record for the registration-specific act/fileNo/filmNo triple.
Document inventory — documentFormatFiles typically contains two entries: the F-N (or F-N/A) primary document at sequence 1, and the complete-submission text file (<accession>.txt) carried with a single-space sequence and type. Only the primary document is materialized inside the accession folder; the wrapper is reachable via linkToTxt.
Signatures — signatures appear as typed /s/ Name conformations rather than scanned images. Both the Filer-side signatures (typically two officers as "Authorized Signatory") and the agent-side signature acknowledging the appointment appear in the body of the document.
Stability of structure across filers — because the form is short, regulatorily prescribed, and rarely revised, the lettered A-G layout is highly consistent across filers. The principal sources of variation are language and address formatting (the issuer is foreign), the choice of related registration form (F-3, F-1, F-4, etc.) named in paragraph C, and the identity of the U.S. agent (often a U.S. subsidiary or affiliate of the foreign issuer, or a specialized service-of-process agent firm).
Each record in the dataset originates as a single Form F-N (or its amendment, Form F-N/A) filed on EDGAR by a foreign issuer that is appointing a U.S. agent for service of process in connection with a Securities Act-registered offering in the United States. The filing is administrative: it records the appointment of the agent and the issuer's irrevocable undertaking to be bound by service made on that agent in any action arising out of, or based on, the registered offering. It is not a disclosure document about the issuer's business or financials.
Form F-N may be used only by foreign issuers that are excepted from the definition of "investment company" by Rule 3a-6 under the Investment Company Act of 1940. Rule 3a-6 covers four categories:
These four classes are the only permitted F-N filers. A foreign operating company outside Rule 3a-6 (for example, an ordinary foreign industrial or technology issuer) does not file F-N; it satisfies its agent-for-service obligation through the appointment provisions of its registration statement itself, or through Form F-X where applicable.
The legal filer of record is the foreign issuer whose securities are being registered. The U.S. agent named in the form is the appointee, not the filer; the agent does not sign as a registrant, and the EDGAR CIK on the record is the issuer's.
Two rules drive the F-N regime:
Form F-N is neither a registration statement nor a periodic or current report. It is a short, standardized appointment instrument whose existence is wholly derivative of an underlying Securities Act registration.
The trigger is a U.S. public offering of securities by the eligible foreign issuer that is registered under the Securities Act of 1933. Form F-N is filed in connection with that registration — typically alongside, or before effectiveness of, a registration statement on Form F-1, Form F-3, Form F-4, Form F-6, or another applicable Securities Act form used by the foreign issuer. The F-N cross-references the related registration statement so the appointment is tied to a specific offering.
Because the obligation is offering-driven, the F-N is event-based, not periodic. There is no annual or quarterly F-N filing. A new F-N is filed when a new registered offering creates a fresh appointment obligation; the same issuer may therefore have multiple F-N records on EDGAR, each tied to a different registration.
Form F-N/A is filed whenever any information in a previously filed Form F-N changes. Typical triggers include:
The appointment and undertaking must remain effective for six years after the registration of the offering to which the F-N relates, covering claims that may arise out of or be based on that offering. If a designated agent ceases to act during that period, the issuer must designate a successor and file a Form F-N/A reflecting the successor so that a U.S. agent is continuously available throughout the six-year tail. As a result, successor-agent F-N/A filings can appear in the dataset well after the underlying offering has closed.
Form F-N and F-N/A are filed electronically on EDGAR using the F-N and F-N/A submission types under the issuer's CIK and EDGAR access codes. Because the filer is by definition a foreign issuer, the submission is typically transmitted on EDGAR by the issuer's U.S. counsel or a filing agent acting on the issuer's behalf, but the legal filer of record remains the foreign issuer. The form is signed by an authorized officer or other duly authorized representative of the issuer; that signature certifies the appointment and the undertaking.
EDGAR-collected F-N submissions in this dataset begin in April 2002. Earlier paper-era F-N appointments are outside the EDGAR electronic record and are not included.
Form F-N belongs to a small family of administrative SEC filings that perfect a foreign issuer's consent to U.S. service of process. The useful comparisons are not periodic-disclosure forms but the other appointment-of-agent instruments, the foreign-issuer registration statements that F-N is administratively attached to, and a few adviser- and state-level analogs that researchers sometimes confuse with it.
F-X is the other SEC appointment-of-agent-for-service-of-process form and the single most likely point of confusion with F-N. The two forms are nearly identical in content — issuer identification, named U.S. agent, binding consent and undertaking — but differ on the legal hook and the eligible filer population:
For any question framed as "which foreign issuers have appointed a U.S. process agent," F-N alone systematically excludes the much larger MJDS and general FPI population; the F-N and F-X datasets together form the complete picture.
F-N is administrative and contains no offering disclosure. It cross-references a substantive Securities Act registration statement filed by the same foreign issuer:
A Rule 3a-6-eligible foreign bank or insurer filing any of these will typically attach an F-N to perfect the Rule 489 service-of-process requirement. Researchers seeking offering terms, financials, risk factors, or prospectus content must pull the underlying F-series filing; F-N supplies only the agent relationship and the cross-referenced file number.
F-10 is the Canadian MJDS registration statement. It is mentioned only to disambiguate: F-10 issuers are foreign but fall outside the Rule 3a-6 / Rule 489 regime, so they appoint their U.S. agent on F-X under Rule 483, not on F-N. Searches for Canadian cross-border offerings in the F-N dataset will return essentially nothing relevant; F-X is the correct source.
Form 20-F (FPI annual report) and Form 6-K (FPI current report) are the most frequently named "foreign forms" and are casually grouped with F-N, but the substantive overlap is nil:
Use 20-F or 6-K to learn what a foreign bank disclosed; use F-N to learn who can be served with U.S. process on its behalf under Rule 489.
Both Form ADV (SEC investment adviser registration) and U-2 (the NASAA Uniform Consent to Service of Process used in Blue Sky and broker-dealer/adviser filings) include a consent-to-service-of-process mechanism. They are conceptually parallel to F-N — each creates a domestic recipient for legal process on a non-resident — but they are not dataset substitutes:
A complete map of "who has appointed a U.S. agent for legal process in connection with U.S. securities activity" requires ADV, U-2, F-X, and F-N together; none substitutes for another.
The only intra-dataset distinction is between original F-N filings and F-N/A amendments. F-N/A updates a prior appointment — typically to substitute the U.S. agent, change the agent's address, refresh the undertaking, or correct issuer identifiers. Treat F-N/A as a state-change record against the F-N baseline; ignoring amendments will produce a stale view of who is currently authorized to receive service for a given foreign issuer.
F-N is uniquely defined by the intersection of Rule 489 of the Securities Act and the Rule 3a-6 carve-out from investment-company status, and is the only appointment-of-agent dataset restricted to foreign banks, foreign insurance companies, and their holding and finance affiliates offering securities in the U.S. F-X is its near-twin for every other foreign-filer context; the F-1/F-3/F-4/F-6 registration statements carry the substantive offering disclosure that F-N merely references; 20-F and 6-K reach an overlapping issuer population for entirely different reporting purposes; and ADV and U-2 are parallel service-of-process instruments in adjacent regimes. F-N is the right and only source when the question is: for Rule 3a-6-eligible foreign banks and insurers offering securities in the U.S. under Rule 489, who is the appointed U.S. agent for service of process, and which registration statement is the appointment tied to?
Form F-N is the public registry of U.S. agents authorized to receive legal process on behalf of foreign banks, foreign insurers, and their holding or finance subsidiary entities that access U.S. capital markets. A small, well-defined set of professionals consults it, each focused on the same core fields: foreign issuer name and address, U.S. agent name and address, the file-number cross-reference to the underlying registration statement, the filed date, the F-N vs F-N/A flag, and the six-year successor-agent obligation that follows any termination.
Counsel pursuing securities-fraud, contract, ERISA, or judgment-enforcement actions against foreign banks and insurers use the dataset to identify the correct domestic service target. Serving the F-N agent in the United States avoids months of Hague Convention or letters rogatory delay. They verify the agent's exact legal name and street address, confirm the issuer's express undertaking, check the filed date, and confirm no later F-N/A has named a successor. Output: a service packet and an affidavit citing the controlling EDGAR filing.
General counsel and compliance staff at the filing banks, insurers, and finance subsidiaries monitor their own appointments to confirm the agent contract is active, the address is current, and any restructuring or agent change is reflected in a timely F-N/A. They also track the six-year successor obligation that survives any termination. Output: agent-renewal calendars and refreshed F-N/A filings.
Providers that appear repeatedly as the named U.S. agent use the dataset as both a market map and an operational ledger. Business-development teams track market share by agent name, identify foreign issuers whose appointments name a competitor, and flag stale F-Ns ripe for renewal. Operations teams reconcile internal client rosters against accepted EDGAR filings.
Lawyers structuring an offering by a foreign bank or insurer relying on the Rule 3a-6 exception confirm a valid F-N is on file before the registration statement goes effective. They check the cross-reference between the F-N's file number and the Securities Act registration, the issuer-name match across both documents, and whether an F-N/A is needed for a new shelf or new finance subsidiary. Output: a closing-checklist sign-off and supporting legal opinion.
Staff preparing administrative or civil actions against foreign issuers pull the controlling F-N or F-N/A to identify the agent of record before issuing subpoenas, Wells notices, or complaints. They rely on the agent name and address, the issuer's undertaking, the filed date, and the six-year survival of the appointment after any termination.
Onboarding and counterparty-credit teams treat the filer population as a curated list of foreign banks and insurers that have publicly offered securities into the United States and accepted U.S. legal exposure. They use the issuer name, foreign address, and registration-statement linkage to corroborate counterparty identity and U.S. regulatory footprint during account opening and periodic review.
Analysts covering foreign banking and insurance sectors use the time series of F-N and F-N/A filings, available from April 2002, as a long-run indicator of how actively issuers from a given jurisdiction tap U.S. public capital. Inputs are the foreign address field and the filed-date distribution.
Researchers in law, finance, and regulation study cross-border issuer access using issuer country, agent identity, filing date, and the F-N versus F-N/A flag. Common questions: jurisdictional concentration of filers, agent-market concentration among a few corporate-services firms, and the link between F-N filings and downstream registration activity.
Reporters covering cross-border banking and insurance use the dataset to map which foreign institutions have made themselves amenable to U.S. service of process, often as a starting point for enforcement, sanctions, or litigation stories. Issuer name, foreign address, and current agent appointment are the leverage points.
Engineering teams building agent-of-process databases, conflicts checks, and compliance-monitoring feeds ingest the dataset because it is small, bounded, and machine-tractable. The metadata plus TXT, JSON, and HTML submissions support consistent extraction of issuer name and foreign address, U.S. agent name and address, file number, filed date, and form-type flag, and a change-detection feed surfacing new F-N/A amendments.
Litigators and SEC staff use Form F-N to serve process; in-house legal teams use it to keep their own appointments current; agent-services firms use it as a market map and reconciliation source; capital-markets counsel use it for offering-closing verification; and onboarding, country-risk, research, journalism, and legal-tech teams use it as a curated directory of foreign financial issuers in the U.S. market. In every case the same fields — issuer identity and foreign address, U.S. agent name and address, registration-statement file number, filed date, F-N versus F-N/A status, and the six-year successor-agent obligation — drive the work.
The Form F-N dataset supports a narrow but high-stakes set of workflows around foreign-bank and foreign-insurer access to U.S. public markets. The use cases below describe what practitioners actually do with the records, which fields they touch, and what they produce.
Litigation counsel pursuing a securities-fraud, contract, or judgment-enforcement action against a foreign bank or insurer uses the dataset to identify the correct U.S. service target instead of going through the Hague Convention. The workflow pulls every F-N and F-N/A for the issuer's CIK, sorts by filedAt to find the controlling appointment, then extracts paragraph E of the form body (agent legal name, U.S. street address, telephone) and paragraph F (the six-year successor undertaking). Output: a service packet, a process-server cover sheet, and an affidavit of service that cites the EDGAR accession and linkToFilingDetails URL of the controlling F-N or F-N/A.
Underwriters' counsel structuring a Rule 3a-6 foreign-bank or foreign-insurer offering must confirm a valid F-N is on file before the F-1, F-3, F-4, or F-6 goes effective. The workflow joins the registration statement's EDGAR file number to the fileNo on the F-N's (Subject) entity, checks issuer-name agreement between paragraph A of the F-N and the registration cover page, verifies paragraph C points back at the same registration form type, and confirms paragraph E names a current U.S. agent. Output: a signed closing-checklist line item and the supporting legal opinion citing the F-N accession.
Registered-agent firms, in-house legal teams, and litigators run a change-detection feed against the dataset to catch every new F-N/A as it lands. The pipeline filters incoming monthly ZIPs for formType == "F-N/A", diffs paragraph E (agent name and address) against the prior F-N or F-N/A for the same CIK, and flags substitutions, address moves, and refresh-only amendments. Output: an alert stream feeding agent-of-record databases, conflicts systems, and litigation-readiness dashboards so that no service is ever sent to a superseded agent.
KYC, counterparty-risk, country-risk, and journalism teams construct a curated registry of Rule 3a-6 foreign financial issuers that have accepted U.S. legal exposure. The build groups records by CIK, takes the latest F-N or F-N/A per issuer, and pulls issuer legal name, SIC label, stateOfIncorporation jurisdiction code (cross-walked to the country in paragraph D), principal-place-of-business address, tickers, and U.S. agent identity. Output: a queryable directory keyed by issuer and jurisdiction, used for onboarding diligence, sanctions-screening corroboration, and sector coverage of which countries' banks and insurers actually tap U.S. public capital.
General counsel and compliance staff at a filing foreign bank, insurer, or finance subsidiary use the dataset as the authoritative record of the firm's own appointments and as the trigger calendar for paragraph F's six-year successor-agent obligation. The workflow tracks the issuer's last Securities Act or Exchange Act filing date, computes the six-year horizon, reconciles the agent named in paragraph E against the active service-of-process contract, and confirms any agent substitution, address change, or restructuring has been reflected in a timely F-N/A. Output: an internal agent-renewal calendar, a remediation ticket where the EDGAR record and the live contract diverge, and a draft F-N/A when a refresh or substitution is required.
Capital-markets researchers and legal-tech teams use the F-N as a join bridge between the appointment-of-agent universe and the substantive offering documents. The join takes the fileNo from each F-N's (Subject) entity (mirrored in paragraph C) and matches it against the EDGAR registration-statement corpus to assemble F-N to F-1/F-3/F-4/F-6 pairs. Output: an analytical table linking each Rule 489 appointment to the offering form type, registration file number, and filing date, used to study agent-market concentration, jurisdictional patterns of U.S. issuance, and the lead-time between F-N appointment and registration effectiveness.
Dataset Index JSON API: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-fn-files.json
This endpoint returns dataset-level metadata (name, description, last updated timestamp, earliest sample date, total records and total size, covered form types F-N and F-N/A, container format, and file types) along with the full list of monthly ZIP containers. Each container entry includes its key, size, record count, last updated timestamp, and a direct download URL. Poll this endpoint to detect which monthly containers were refreshed in the latest update run and download only the changed archives. No API key is required to call this endpoint.
Example response:
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{
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"datasetId": "1f13365b-9ae0-69c0-9310-e28686ce352f",
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"datasetDownloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-fn-files.zip",
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"name": "Form F-N Files Dataset",
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"updatedAt": "2026-04-15T12:18:13.616Z",
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"earliestSampleDate": "2002-04-01",
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"totalRecords": 527,
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"totalSize": 2310870,
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"formTypes": ["F-N", "F-N/A"],
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"containerFormat": "ZIP",
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"fileTypes": ["TXT", "JSON", "HTML"],
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"containers": [
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{
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"downloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-fn-files/2026/2026-04.zip",
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"key": "2026/2026-04.zip",
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"size": 18432,
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"records": 3,
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"updatedAt": "2026-04-15T12:18:13.616Z"
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}
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]
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}
Download Entire Dataset: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-fn-files.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY
Downloads the complete archive of all F-N and F-N/A filings since April 2002 in a single ZIP file. Requires a valid sec-api.io API key passed via the token query parameter.
Download Single Container: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-fn-files/2026/2026-04.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY
Downloads one monthly container ZIP listed in the index. Each monthly ZIP contains one folder per accession number, holding a metadata.json file alongside the original EDGAR documents (TXT and HTML; image files are excluded). Requires a valid sec-api.io API key.
The Form F-N Files Dataset covers SEC Form F-N, the "Appointment of Agent for Service of Process by Foreign Banks and Foreign Insurance Companies and Certain of Their Holding Companies and Finance Subsidiaries Making Public Offerings of Securities in the United States," and its amendment variant Form F-N/A. The form is filed under Rule 489 of the Securities Act of 1933.
One record is a single EDGAR accession — one Form F-N or Form F-N/A submission. Inside the dataset's monthly ZIP containers, each accession appears as a folder named with the accession number stripped of dashes, containing a metadata.json parsed from the EDGAR submission header plus the original F-N document(s) wrapped in EDGAR's SGML <DOCUMENT> envelope.
Only foreign issuers that qualify for the Rule 3a-6 carve-out from "investment company" status under the Investment Company Act of 1940 file Form F-N. That population covers foreign banks, foreign insurance companies, and their qualifying holding companies and finance subsidiaries when they register a public securities offering under the Securities Act. Other foreign issuers appoint their U.S. agent on Form F-X under Rule 483, not F-N.
Form F-N is event-based, not periodic. It is filed in connection with a Securities Act registration statement (typically an F-1, F-3, F-4, or F-6) when an eligible foreign issuer registers a U.S. public offering. Form F-N/A is filed afterward whenever the agent identity, the agent's address, or other required information changes — and the appointment must remain effective for six years after the related registration.
Both forms appoint a U.S. agent for service of process, but F-N is restricted to the Rule 3a-6 population (foreign banks, foreign insurers, and their qualifying affiliates) filing under Rule 489 of the Securities Act, while F-X covers everyone else — Canadian MJDS issuers, ordinary foreign private issuers, foreign indenture trustees, and other non-U.S. filers — under Rule 483 and parallel Exchange Act and Trust Indenture Act provisions. The F-N and F-X datasets together form the complete picture of foreign-issuer service-of-process appointments on EDGAR.
The dataset spans April 2002, when EDGAR began collecting F-N submissions electronically, through the present. Earlier paper-era F-N appointments are not included. The file types found in the dataset are TXT (SGML complete-submission wrappers throughout the history and plain-text bodies of older filings), HTML (the modern body format), and JSON (the per-record metadata.json), all delivered as monthly ZIP containers keyed YYYY/YYYY-MM.zip.
No. Form F-N is administrative. It carries no financial statements, MD&A, risk factors, or business descriptions. The substantive disclosure for the offering lives in the related Securities Act registration statement (F-1, F-3, F-4, F-6, or another applicable F-series form), which is identifiable through the fileNo on the F-N's (Subject) entity in metadata.json and through paragraph C of the form body.