The Form MA Files Dataset is a complete EDGAR collection of municipal-advisor registration applications and their amendments, covering Form MA and Form MA/A submissions from July 1, 2014 to the present. Each record is a single EDGAR submission identified by an 18-digit accession number, packaging the structured XML application, an EDGAR-rendered XHTML view, a JSON metadata sidecar, and any PDF Disclosure Reporting Page exhibits attached to the filing. Filers are municipal-advisor entities and sole-proprietor natural persons that, for compensation, advise municipal entities or obligated persons on municipal financial products or the issuance of municipal securities, or that solicit municipal entities on behalf of others. The dataset begins with the start of the permanent Form MA regime under Section 15B of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended by Section 975 of Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and is distributed as a ZIP container with monthly partitions and per-accession folders containing XML, JSON, and PDF files.
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The dataset is built from Form MA, the SEC's permanent application for municipal-advisor registration under Section 15B(a)(2) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, implemented by Rule 15Ba1-2 effective July 1, 2014, and from Form MA/A, the amendment counterpart used both for prompt material-change updates and for the annual updating amendment that registrants must file within 90 days of fiscal-year end. It superseded the interim Form MA-T regime that operated from October 2010 through June 30, 2014; coverage of this dataset deliberately starts on July 1, 2014 with the permanent regime, and Form MA-T filings are not included.
Substantively, the underlying application gathers registrant identification, place and form of organization, principal and additional office locations, websites, the Chief Compliance Officer and primary contact person, the types of municipal-advisory and solicitation activities the firm conducts, the types of clients it serves, the forms of compensation it accepts, its non-MA business lines, its foreign-financial-regulatory-authority (FFRA) registrants, its participation in municipal-advisory client transactions, a comprehensive battery of criminal, regulatory, and civil disciplinary disclosure questions, small-entity financial threshold flags, schedules of direct and indirect owners and control persons, and the execution signature of an authorized representative.
The dataset is distributed as a single ZIP container hierarchy. Within the archive, records are organized into monthly partition folders (YYYY-MM/); each accession-numbered folder inside a monthly partition holds the files that make up one record. Three file types appear inside the records: XML (the structured application and the EDGAR XHTML rendering), JSON (the publisher's metadata sidecar), and PDF (Disclosure Reporting Page exhibits and other supplements when present).
One record in the Form MA Files Dataset is a single complete EDGAR submission of a Form MA or Form MA/A filing, identified by its 18-digit zero-padded accession number. Each record materializes on disk as a folder named for that accession number, sitting inside a monthly partition folder (YYYY-MM/) within the dataset's ZIP container hierarchy. The record bundles the structured XML application that the filer prepared, an EDGAR-rendered XHTML rendition of that same application, a publisher-generated JSON metadata sidecar summarizing the EDGAR submission envelope, and any PDF Disclosure Reporting Page (DRP) attachments that accompany the submission. Each record corresponds to exactly one application event — either an initial registration on Form MA or an amendment on Form MA/A (annual update, material-change amendment, correction, or other update) — filed by one municipal-advisor entity or sole proprietor.
Every record materializes as the following files inside the accession-number folder, in this layout:
metadata.json — a flat JSON object describing the EDGAR submission envelope, the filer entity or entities, and the documents that were part of the original submission.primary_doc.xml — the canonical structured Form MA application as an <edgarSubmission> XML document, partitioned into a <headerData> block (submission/filer metadata) and a <formData> block (substantive application content).xslFormMA_X01/primary_doc.xml — an EDGAR-stylesheet-rendered XHTML view of the same application, produced against MA_print.css with checkbox and radio-button image references for visual fidelity to the paper-form layout.In practice the great majority of records consist solely of the three core XML/JSON files because most filings have no Y answers on the disciplinary disclosure questions and therefore no DRP exhibits. Image assets referenced from the rendered XHTML (the EDGAR checkbox and radio-button sprite images, and stylesheet-bundled imagery) are not part of the record bundle.
metadata.json — submission envelopeA publisher-generated sidecar that exposes a flat, easy-to-index summary of the underlying EDGAR submission so consumers can filter records without parsing the XML. Its fields are:
formType — either "MA" (initial registration) or "MA/A" (amendment).accessionNo — the dashed 18-digit EDGAR accession number.description — the EDGAR form description, e.g. "Form MA - Municipal Advisor Registration for Business Entities", suffixed with [Amend] for MA/A.filedAt — the ISO-8601 acceptance timestamp with timezone.linkToFilingDetails, linkToHtml, linkToTxt — URLs to the rendered filing on sec.gov, the EDGAR submission index page, and the complete submission text bundle.linkToXbrl — empty string (Form MA is not an XBRL-tagged form).documentFormatFiles[] — one entry per document in the original EDGAR submission, each carrying sequence, size, documentUrl, optional description, and type. For Form MA filings this typically lists the styled XML, the screen-reader-accessible XML, and the complete submission .txt wrapper, plus any attached PDFs.dataFiles[] — empty for Form MA (no XBRL data files).seriesAndClassesContractsInformation[] — empty for Form MA (the form has no investment-company series/class concept).entities[] — one element per filing entity, each with cik (7-digit CIK of the municipal-advisor firm), companyName (suffixed with (Filer) for the filer role), type (mirroring formType), fileNo (typically the SEC 867-XXXXX MA-registration file number), filmNo, irsNo, stateOfIncorporation, fiscalYearEnd (MMDD), and act ("34" for the Securities Exchange Act).id — a 32-character hex identifier assigned by the dataset publisher.primary_doc.xml — structured applicationThe XML root is <edgarSubmission> with the mafiler namespace as default. It always contains exactly two children, <headerData> and <formData>.
<headerData> — submission and filer metadatasubmissionType — MA or MA/A, matching the form type.filerInfo.filer.filerId — the 10-digit CIK of the filer.filerInfo.filer.filerCcc — the EDGAR access code, redacted to XXXXXXXX in published data.filerInfo.contact.name, phoneNumber, and contactEmail — the human contact for SEC communications about the filing.filerInfo.notifications.internetNotificationAddress (optional, repeating) — additional email recipients for filing-acceptance notices.<formData> — the application bodyThe body is a richly nested element tree whose presence is heavily gated by Y/N control flags. The major content groupings, in approximate document order, are:
firmName and optional dbaName (legal name and any "doing-business-as" name), irsNum, and a registrations block holding maTregistration (the MAT/MSRB municipal-advisor file number, often of the form 866-XXXXX-NN) and baseRegistrations.maRegistration.fileNumber (the SEC 867-XXXXX MA file number).principalOfficeAddress (street, city, state, ZIP, phone, fax); a mailingAddressDifferent flag with a separate mailing-address block when set to Y; an optional repeating additionalOffices.additionalOffice[] block, each entry carrying an addDeleteAmend marker (newAdd, delete, amend) so amendments can express incremental office changes; primaryWebAddress plus any additional websites.cco block for the Chief Compliance Officer with a structured name (first/middle/last), optional contact address, phone, fax, and email; and a parallel contactPerson block of identical shape identifying the person responsible for fielding SEC inquiries.formOfOrganization.formOrgType.formOrgTypes is an empty self-closing element whose tag name selects one of the enumerated organizational types (LLC, Corporation, Partnership, SoleProprietor, Other, etc.). monthOfFiscalYearEnd carries the textual month name; organizedJurisdiction.stateOrCountry carries a US state code or country name; dateOfOrganization is encoded as MM-DD-YYYY. isPrcApplicant flags Public Reporting Company applicants.businessAffiliates.businessAffiliate[], each with affiliateName, hasApplicableRegistration, and an applicableRegistration block listing issuingAgencyName and jurisdiction for entities registered with foreign financial regulatory authorities.numberOfEmployees, employeesEngagedInMAA (employees engaged in municipal-advisory activity), maaEmployeesRegBD (also registered with a broker-dealer), maaRegIA (also registered as investment-adviser representatives); numberOfSolicitingFirms and clientsServedAsMA. Client-type composition is captured in typesOfClients.typesOfClients.clientTypes[] from a controlled vocabulary including Municipal Entities, Non-profit organizations, Corporations or other businesses, and Other, with a free-text typesOfClientsOther paired to the Other selection. Solicitation metrics use numberOfSolicitedME, numberOfSolicitedOP, and totalNumberOfSolicitedMEAndOP, with solicited-person types enumerated under typesOfSolicitedPersons.solicitationPersonTypes.meOrOPCompensationTypes.compensationTypes and solicitationCompensationTypes.compensationTypes enumerate compensation modes (Hourly Charges, Fixed Fees, Contingent Fees, Not Applicable, etc.). An optional free-text receiveCompensationForMAAFromOtherClientsExplanation allows narrative disclosure when the firm receives MA-related compensation from non-client sources. The substantive activity scope is captured in engagedActivities.engagedActivityTypes.engagedActivityType[], drawn from a controlled vocabulary covering advice on the issuance of municipal securities, advice on the investment of municipal-securities proceeds, advice on municipal-entity investments, advice on guaranteed investment contracts, advice on the use of municipal derivatives, advice on the selection of underwriters or other professionals, and an Other value paired with eaTypeOtherDescription.otherActivities block flags non-MA business lines (accounting, banking/thrift, commodity-pool operator, insurance company, investment adviser, and others); each subtype carries activelyEngagedPrimaryBusiness.isActivelyEngaged and isPrimaryBusiness flags plus optional licensedJurisdictions. isEngagedInOtherNonMAABusiness summarizes the firm-level answer. fiaAssociatedPersonsTypes.fiaAPTypes[], totalFIAAssociatedPersons, and the repeating fiaAssociatedPersons.fiaAssociatedPerson[] block detail foreign-financial-institution-affiliated associated persons, each with legal name, primary business name, and control-relationship flags (isControlOrControlled, isUnderCommonControl, isRegisteredWithFFRA).participationInterestMACT is a fixed block of approximately thirteen Y/N flags covering Municipal Advisory Client Transactions: whether the firm or its affiliates buy from or sell to clients, exercise discretionary authority over client transactions, recommend a related broker-dealer, compensate persons for referrals, and other conflict-creating relationships.disclosureAnswers block aggregates the disciplinary-history battery in three sub-groups: criminalDisclosure (about four Y/N flags covering felony charges and convictions for the firm and associated persons), regulatoryDisclosure (approximately seventeen flags covering false-statement findings, regulatory orders, license denials, suspensions, complaints, and similar regulatory events), and civilDisclosure (about four flags covering injunctions, civil-violation findings, dismissals, and being named in civil proceedings). Any Y answer triggers attached Disclosure Reporting Pages (DRPs) that elaborate the underlying event; in the structured XML these surface as DRP sub-trees, and in many filings they also surface as PDF attachments alongside the XML.hasAnnualReceiptsLessThan7Million and isAffiliatedWithReceiptsMoreThan7Million operationalize the small-entity status test relevant to SBREFA-style regulatory analysis.scheduleA.persons.person[] enumerates direct owners; each person carries a structured name (first/middle/last) and a baseInformation block holding titleStatus, statusAcquired (MM-DD-YYYY), ownershipCode (one of A/B/C/D/E categorizing ownership ranges — less than 5%, 5-10%, 10-25%, 25-50%, 50% or more), isControPerson (the schema misspells the element with one l), and crdNumber (with 000000000 used as a sentinel for "no CRD assigned"). scheduleC.directPersons.person[] and scheduleC.indirectPersons.person[] repeat the same shape for nested control-relationship reporting, with each person wrapped in an additional baseInformation envelope to express layered ownership chains. Schedule B — indirect owners through intermediate entities — is gated by the hasScheduleB control flag and only materializes when applicable.maExecutionPage.signature carries the typed signature text, signerName, title, and date (MM-DD-YYYY) of the authorized individual signing the application on behalf of the firm.controls block. The final child of formData is a controls element with roughly twenty-two Y/N toggles — isSolePropietor (sic), hasNameChange, hasDBAName, hasMATReg, additionalOffices, hasMailingAddress, hasBooksRecords, isRegisteredFFRA, isAffiliatedOtherBus, receiveCompensationForMAAFromOtherClients, isSucceedingApplicant, isCPForApplicantPolicy, isPRCompanyUnder1215, hasScheduleB, isSection12Or15ReportingCompany, isOtherNonMAABuisinesssPrimary (sic), and similar — that drive whether the corresponding optional sections above must materialize in the document. Many sub-trees are absent unless their controlling flag is Y, so the schema must be treated as conditional rather than fixed.XML namespaces in active use are the default http://www.sec.gov/edgar/mafiler, http://www.sec.gov/edgar/common_ma (prefix com), and http://www.sec.gov/edgar/common (prefix com1). Shared types for names, addresses, signatures, and disclosure flags live in the two common namespaces and are reused across many fields.
xslFormMA_X01/primary_doc.xml — rendered XHTML viewDespite the .xml extension this document is XHTML 1.0 Strict produced by EDGAR's XSL stylesheet, with MA_print.css providing the form's visual layout. The rendered document follows the paper-form sequence:
Selections are surfaced through inline image references (box-checked.jpg/box-unchecked.jpg for checkboxes and radio-checked.jpg/radio-unchecked.jpg for radio buttons). The XHTML binds extra namespaces (common_drp, ma_common_drp, ma_drp) used to render Disclosure Reporting Pages when present. The rendered file is a presentation layer; the structured primary_doc.xml is the source of truth for downstream extraction.
When the underlying submission carries a Disclosure Reporting Page exhibit or other PDF supplement permitted by the form, those PDFs sit alongside the three core files in the same accession-number folder and are referenced from the documentFormatFiles[] array in metadata.json. PDFs are only present when the filer answered Y to one or more questions in the criminal, regulatory, or civil disclosure batteries (or, less commonly, when supplemental exhibits are warranted); records without disciplinary history contain no PDF.
The filerCcc access code in <headerData> is intentionally redacted to XXXXXXXX consistent with its non-public status. Image assets referenced from the rendered XHTML (the EDGAR checkbox/radio sprite images and any stylesheet-bundled imagery) are not part of the record bundle. Form MA-T — the temporary municipal-advisor registration form that operated from October 2010 to June 30, 2014 under interim SEC rules — is not part of this dataset; coverage starts on July 1, 2014 with the permanent Form MA regime. Form MA-I (the natural-person information form for individual associated persons of a registered municipal advisor) and Form MA-W (the withdrawal-from-registration form) are not part of this dataset; those municipal-advisor-family forms belong to separate datasets where applicable. There are no XBRL data files because Form MA is not an XBRL-tagged form.
<formData> body is heavily gated. A Y value in a controls flag (e.g. hasDBAName, additionalOffices, hasMailingAddress, hasScheduleB) is what causes the corresponding optional sub-tree to materialize; absence of a sub-tree generally means the answer was N or the section was inapplicable, not that data is missing. Consumers should treat the controls block as the authoritative index of what the firm chose to disclose.disclosureAnswers.criminalDisclosure, regulatoryDisclosure, or civilDisclosure trigger DRP sub-trees in the same XML and may also produce attached PDF exhibits. The XHTML rendering binds DRP namespaces (common_drp, ma_common_drp, ma_drp) to render those pages when present.typesOfClients, engagedActivities, solicitation-person types, compensation types) include an Other value paired with a free-text companion (typesOfClientsOther, eaTypeOtherDescription, etc.); downstream tooling that flattens these enumerations should join the companion text to preserve the disclosed meaning.crdNumber of 000000000 denotes "no CRD assigned" rather than a real CRD identifier and should be normalized to null. Date fields inside formData use MM-DD-YYYY format throughout, even though filedAt in metadata.json is ISO-8601.isControPerson (missing the second l) and isOtherNonMAABuisinesssPrimary, and the controls element isSolePropietor is also misspelled. Preserve the as-filed spellings when emitting field references rather than silently correcting them.formType in metadata.json and submissionType in the XML header. Within the body, addDeleteAmend markers on additional offices and similar repeating elements express incremental change semantics, and the controls.hasNameChange flag indicates a renamed entity.entities[].cik and headerData.filerInfo.filer.filerId is the EDGAR-assigned identifier (7 digits in entities[], 10 digits zero-padded in the XML header). The SEC 867-XXXXX file number in entities[].fileNo and formData.registrations.baseRegistrations.maRegistration.fileNumber is the persistent municipal-advisor registration identifier shared across MA and MA-I filings. The 866-XXXXX-NN MAT file number in formData.registrations.maTregistration is the MSRB-assigned identifier inherited from the pre-2014 Form MA-T regime.primary_doc.xml and xslFormMA_X01/primary_doc.xml express the same disclosures at different fidelities, machine-extraction work should consistently use the structured XML; the XHTML is best reserved for visual review or direct quotation.Each record is filed by a municipal advisor registering, or maintaining its registration, with the SEC. The filer is the municipal advisor itself — either an entity (corporation, LLC, partnership, trust, or other organization), or a sole-proprietor natural person acting as a municipal advisor in an individual capacity.
A municipal advisor, under Section 15B(e)(4) of the Exchange Act (as added by Section 975 of Dodd-Frank), is a person that, for compensation:
The implementing rule is Rule 15Ba1-2 under the Exchange Act. It is unlawful to act as a municipal advisor without being registered.
Typical filers include independent muni advisory firms, financial advisors to conduit borrowers, swap/GIC and bond-proceeds investment advisors within the muni advisor definition, third-party solicitors, and sole-proprietor advisors.
Statutory exclusions (these persons do not file Form MA for the excluded activity): registered broker-dealers acting as underwriters of a particular issuance, registered investment advisers acting as such, banks providing traditional banking products, attorneys providing legal services, engineers providing engineering advice, public officials and employees of municipal entities acting in their official capacity, and swap dealers acting in the relevant CFTC-regulated capacity. A firm that conducts both excluded and non-excluded activities must still register and disclose the scope of its municipal advisory work.
Form MA is a registration application, not a periodic operating report. The cadence is initial filing, annual amendment, and event-driven amendment.
There is no quarterly Form MA obligation.
Form MA sits within a tight cluster of municipal-advisor filings (MA-I, MA-W, MA-NR, the retired MA-T) and shares structural DNA with two larger SEC professional-registration regimes (Form ADV, Form BD). It also has MSRB- and EMMA-side neighbors that describe the same market from different actors' perspectives. The most useful comparisons fall into three groups.
MA-I is the natural-person counterpart to the entity-level Form MA. Each individual engaging in municipal advisory activity on the firm's behalf has an MA-I covering identification, employment history, other business activities, and detailed disciplinary disclosures (criminal, regulatory, civil judicial, customer complaint, termination, financial, civil litigation). MA-I filings are keyed to a registered MA filer and updated on change. MA tells you which firm is registered and what it does; MA-I tells you who personally provides the advice and what their background is. The two are complementary, not substitutable.
MA-W terminates an MA registration. It is short and event-driven, typically containing only the reason for withdrawal, final contact information, and a representation that required disclosures are current. Where MA initiates and MA/A maintains, MA-W ends. Researchers tracking exits, deregistration patterns, or enforcement-driven withdrawals must pair MA/MA/A with MA-W; the MA dataset alone will misstate the active population over time.
Form MA-NR is a narrow legal attachment providing irrevocable consent and power of attorney to the SEC for service of process on non-resident registrants, general partners, or managing agents. It carries no business, activity, or disciplinary content and is only meaningful as a companion to an MA or MA-I filing. Far smaller in volume and analytic value than the substantive MA disclosures.
MA-T was the temporary registration form between October 2010 and the September 30, 2014 transition to the permanent MA/MA-I regime. It captured a much smaller field set under different rules. The MA Files dataset deliberately begins July 2014 and excludes MA-T. Anyone needing continuous coverage from the Dodd-Frank mandate forward must splice MA-T history with MA/MA/A and accept that the two are not field-comparable.
ADV is the structural sibling of MA: SEC-administered, periodic amendment cycle tied to fiscal year end, dual entity/individual structure, and similar disclosure architecture (organization, ownership, control persons, disciplinary history, advisory activities). The populations and statutory bases differ: Form ADV registers investment advisers under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 with respect to securities broadly; MA registers municipal advisors under Section 15B of the Exchange Act with respect to municipal financial products and the issuance of municipal securities. ADV is also far larger in volume and includes Form ADV Part 2 narrative brochures and Form CRS, neither of which has an MA equivalent. Dual registration occurs but the filings are legally distinct and ADV cannot substitute for MA when the question is municipal advisory activity.
BD shares MA's disclosure architecture (identifying information, ownership, control affiliates, DRPs) but covers securities effecting and dealing, not municipal advisory activity. The boundary between BD and MA activity for firms registered on both is policed by SEC Rule 15Ba1-1 and MSRB rules. Critically, Form BD is filed through CRD/Web CRD rather than EDGAR, which is one reason MA is structurally distinct: it is among the few professional-registration regimes the SEC routes through EDGAR.
Form CRS is a retail-investor-facing plain-English summary filed by advisers (as Form ADV Part 3) and broker-dealers. Municipal advisors do not file CRS because their clients are municipal entities and obligated persons, not retail customers. CRS is mentioned only to rule it out: it is a different disclosure tool for a different audience and is not comparable to or substitutable for MA.
A-12 is the MSRB's parallel registration form. Every Form MA registrant must also register with the MSRB on A-12 and pay MSRB fees. A-12 is administrative (contact, designated officer, fee information) and carries no substantive activity or disciplinary content. It describes the same firms as MA but for a different regulator. A-12 data is held by the MSRB, not EDGAR, and is not in this dataset.
MSRB Form G-32 (filed by underwriters and surfaced on EMMA) and EMMA's broader holdings (official statements, continuing disclosures, trade data) are deal- and issuer-centric. They describe the securities being issued and the underwriters distributing them, not the advisors registered to counsel issuers. A municipal advisor named on MA may also appear in EMMA documents as financial advisor on specific deals, but MA answers "who is registered to advise" while EMMA/Form G-32 answers "what deals happened and how were they structured." Complementary inputs for advisor-to-deal linkage; not substitutes.
Form MA Files is distinctive on five axes simultaneously: (1) SEC entity-level municipal-advisor registration, (2) routed through EDGAR rather than CRD/IARD, (3) limited to MA and MA/A (no MA-I, MA-W, or MA-NR), (4) covering only the permanent post-2014 regime (no MA-T), and (5) bounded to municipal advisory activity rather than the broader ADV or BD populations. Pair it with MA-I for personnel, MA-W for exits, A-12 for MSRB identifiers, and EMMA/G-32 for deal activity. None of those adjacent datasets reproduces Form MA, and Form MA does not reproduce them.
Form MA filings are read by a narrow set of professionals working on municipal advisor registration, vetting, oversight, and litigation. Each role focuses on a different slice of the same record.
Chief compliance officers at registered MAs use the dataset to manage their own filing history and benchmark against peers. They confirm Form MA/A annual updates were filed within the 90-day post-fiscal-year-end window, reconcile Schedule A control persons against current cap tables, and verify disciplinary disclosures. They also study how comparably sized firms describe themselves on the activities checklist and disclose affiliations with broker-dealers, investment advisers, or swap dealers.
State and local issuer staff vet candidates responding to financial advisory RFPs. They confirm registration via CIK, file number, and MAT number, match the activities checklist to the scope being procured, and review disciplinary items for regulatory, criminal, civil, or SRO actions against the firm or its associated persons. Schedule A clarifies who controls the firm and who would staff the engagement.
Underwriting desks confirm any party representing an issuer is properly registered, which underpins MSRB Rule G-17 fair-dealing analysis and Rule G-23 role-separation review. Bond and disclosure counsel use registration status to draft representations, scope engagement letters, and document IRMA-exemption availability. Workflow centers on matching counterparties to CIK/file/MAT numbers and pulling the latest MA/A to confirm the registration is current.
Exam teams use the dataset as a population frame and a record of self-disclosed information to test in the field. They cross-check Schedule A, disciplinary items, and disclosed activities against books, records, and supervisory procedures. Policy and enforcement staff analyze population-level patterns, such as broker-dealer affiliation rates or churn in the registrant base, to inform rule-making and risk-based exam scoping.
Litigators handling fiduciary-duty, pay-to-play, and municipal securities disputes mine the disciplinary history sections of MA and MA/A for prior orders, convictions, judgments, and customer complaints. They tie Schedule A identities to other registrations and prior employment, and use specific filings as evidence of what a firm represented to the SEC on a given date.
Screening vendors ingest the dataset to populate registration lookups, disciplinary flags, and entity-resolution graphs. CIK, file number, MAT number, legal name, address, and Schedule A persons drive identity matching across Form ADV, Form BD, sanctions, and litigation sources for principal-screening and ongoing-monitoring products.
Researchers studying the post-Dodd-Frank MA market analyze entry/exit patterns, geographic clustering, the activities checklist as a market-segmentation variable, and disciplinary-disclosure rates as a quality proxy. MA/A filings provide a longitudinal record for panel analysis of firm structure and business-line changes.
Reporters covering municipal corruption, pay-to-play, and advisor conflicts use the dataset to identify firms active in a jurisdiction, trace control persons through Schedule A, and surface disciplinary disclosures tied to firms that won public engagements. Late or missing annual updates and post-enforcement withdrawals are recurring story angles.
Engineering teams parse the XML to normalize CIK, MAT, file number, fiscal year end, addresses, control-person identities, and activities flags into queryable tables, then join with Form ADV, Form BD, and MSRB Form A-12 lookups. PDF and JSON artifacts back downstream review interfaces.
Teams building retrieval-augmented compliance and legal assistants index MA and MA/A filings to answer who is registered, what activities they disclose, whether disciplinary events exist, and how disclosures have changed. The mix of structured XML, JSON metadata, and PDFs supports grounded answers with citations to specific items.
The records support a small number of concrete workflows in issuer procurement, compliance, oversight, litigation, and data engineering. Each use case below ties to specific fields in primary_doc.xml, metadata.json, or attached DRP PDFs.
Issuer finance offices and procurement teams confirm that an RFP respondent is a currently registered municipal advisor before scoring proposals. The workflow joins the firm's legal name and 867-XXXXX file number to entities[].fileNo and formData.registrations.baseRegistrations.maRegistration.fileNumber, pulls the latest MA/A for that CIK, and checks engagedActivities.engagedActivityType[] against the scope being procured (for example, advice on issuance versus advice on the investment of proceeds). Schedule A persons and the CCO block surface who controls the firm and who would handle compliance during the engagement.
Compliance and KYC teams build a registrant-wide screen of disciplinary exposure by extracting the disclosureAnswers.criminalDisclosure, regulatoryDisclosure, and civilDisclosure Y/N batteries across the full filer population, then pulling DRP PDFs for any firm with a Y answer. The output feeds onboarding flags, enhanced-diligence queues, and ongoing-monitoring deltas when an MA/A flips a previously N answer to Y.
Compliance leads and SEC exam staff monitor the 90-day post-fiscal-year-end annual-update obligation by pairing entities[].fiscalYearEnd (MMDD) with the latest filedAt timestamp on each filer's most recent MA/A. Filers whose most recent amendment lags fiscal-year end by more than 90 days surface as candidates for follow-up, and the same view feeds journalism workflows tracking late or missing updates.
Data engineers and background-check vendors build entity-resolution graphs by normalizing scheduleA.persons.person[] and scheduleC.directPersons/indirectPersons into person nodes keyed on crdNumber (treating 000000000 as null) plus structured name and ownershipCode. The graph joins to Form ADV, Form BD, and MSRB A-12 to expose shared principals, undisclosed common control, and pay-to-play patterns across registrations.
Researchers and product strategists segment the post-Dodd-Frank MA market by cross-tabulating engagedActivities.engagedActivityType[], typesOfClients.clientTypes[], and meOrOPCompensationTypes.compensationTypes against firm size proxies (numberOfEmployees, employeesEngagedInMAA, hasAnnualReceiptsLessThan7Million) and formOfOrganization type. The result is a panel of firm-level business-model fingerprints suitable for entry/exit analysis and peer-group construction.
Underwriter compliance and bond/disclosure counsel use the Item 7 participationInterestMACT flags and the otherActivities block (broker-dealer, investment-adviser, commodity-pool-operator, insurance, banking affiliations) to evaluate Rule G-17 and G-23 exposure when an MA appears across the table on a deal. The fiaAssociatedPersons roster and businessAffiliates block surface foreign-financial-regulatory-authority registrations relevant to cross-border conflict checks.
RegTech and RAG builders index the structured primary_doc.xml, the metadata.json envelope, and any DRP PDFs to answer queries such as "is this firm registered," "what activities does it disclose," and "have its disciplinary answers changed since last year." The conditional controls block serves as the authoritative index of which optional sub-trees materialized, letting retrieval cite specific items rather than hallucinating absent sections.
Dataset Index JSON API: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-ma-files.json
This endpoint returns the dataset's metadata and the full list of container files available for download. The response includes the dataset name, description, last update timestamp, earliest sample date (2014-07-01), total record and byte counts, covered form types (MA, MA/A), container format (ZIP), and contained file types (XML, JSON, PDF). Each entry in the containers array describes one archive file with its key, size, record count, last-updated timestamp, and direct download URL. This endpoint does not require an API key and can be polled to detect which containers were modified in the most recent refresh, so downstream pipelines can re-download only the containers that changed.
Example response:
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{
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"datasetId": "1f13365b-9ae0-6968-a800-acb17e1a9667",
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"datasetDownloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-ma-files.zip",
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"name": "Form MA Files Dataset",
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"updatedAt": "2026-05-08T02:52:50.377Z",
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"earliestSampleDate": "2014-07-01",
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"totalRecords": 7483,
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"totalSize": 235471121,
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"formTypes": ["MA", "MA/A"],
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"containerFormat": "ZIP",
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"fileTypes": ["XML", "JSON", "PDF"],
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"containers": [
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{
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"downloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-ma-files/2026/2026-05.zip",
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"key": "2026/2026-05.zip",
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"size": 13818783,
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"records": 154,
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"updatedAt": "2026-05-08T02:52:50.377Z"
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}
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]
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}
Download Entire Dataset: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-ma-files.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY
Downloads the complete dataset as a single ZIP archive containing every Form MA and Form MA/A filing from July 2014 to the latest refresh. This endpoint requires an API key.
Download Single Container: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-ma-files/2026/2026-05.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY
Downloads one monthly container instead of the full archive, which is useful for incremental updates or backfilling a specific period. Replace the year and month path segments with any container key returned by the index API. This endpoint requires an API key.
The dataset covers Form MA (initial municipal-advisor registration application) and Form MA/A (amendment, including the annual updating amendment and prompt material-change amendments). Related municipal-advisor-family forms — MA-I, MA-W, MA-NR, MA-S, and the retired MA-T — are not included.
Each record is one complete EDGAR submission of a Form MA or Form MA/A filing, identified by its 18-digit accession number. It bundles the structured primary_doc.xml, a metadata.json sidecar describing the EDGAR submission envelope, an EDGAR-rendered XHTML view at xslFormMA_X01/primary_doc.xml, and any PDF Disclosure Reporting Page exhibits attached to the submission.
Entities and sole-proprietor natural persons that, for compensation, advise municipal entities or obligated persons on municipal financial products or the issuance of municipal securities, or that solicit municipal entities on behalf of unaffiliated brokers, dealers, advisors, or investment advisers, must register with the SEC on Form MA under Section 15B of the Exchange Act and Rule 15Ba1-2. Statutory exclusions cover registered broker-dealers acting as underwriters, registered investment advisers acting as such, banks providing traditional banking products, attorneys, engineers, public officials acting in their official capacity, and CFTC-regulated swap dealers.
Form MA is a registration application, not a periodic operating report. After the initial Form MA, registrants must file a Form MA/A annual updating amendment within 90 days of fiscal-year end, plus prompt amendments whenever previously filed information becomes materially inaccurate (for example, on changes in name, principal office, legal form, ownership or control, or disciplinary events).
Coverage starts on July 1, 2014, the effective date of Rule 15Ba1-2 and the start of the permanent Form MA regime, and runs to the latest refresh. The earlier temporary Form MA-T regime (October 2010 through June 30, 2014) is not part of this dataset.
The dataset is distributed as a ZIP container hierarchy organized by monthly partition folder (YYYY-MM/); each accession-numbered folder inside a monthly partition contains the files for one record. File types inside the records are XML (the structured application and the EDGAR XHTML rendering), JSON (the publisher's metadata sidecar), and PDF (Disclosure Reporting Page exhibits and other supplements when present). There are no XBRL data files, because Form MA is not an XBRL-tagged form.
Form ADV registers investment advisers under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, and Form BD registers broker-dealers; both differ from Form MA in statutory basis and population. Form BD is filed through CRD/Web CRD rather than EDGAR, while Form MA is one of the few professional-registration regimes the SEC routes through EDGAR. Dual registration occurs, but ADV and BD do not substitute for Form MA when the question is municipal-advisory activity under Section 15B of the Exchange Act.