Form N-30B-2 Files Dataset

The Form N-30B-2 Files Dataset is the EDGAR collection of every Rule 30b2-1 transmission filing made on Form N-30B-2 — the regulatory hook by which a registered investment company places into the public file any periodic or interim report it has transmitted to security holders. A single record represents one complete EDGAR submission of Form N-30B-2, materialized as an accession folder containing a parsed metadata.json and the primary form HTML document(s) as filed. The active filer population is dominated by insurance-company separate accounts that fund variable annuity and variable life contracts, together with unit investment trusts and a residual tail of smaller direct-filing mutual-fund trusts whose shareholder reports never migrated to Form N-CSR. The dataset covers filings from January 1, 1994 forward and is distributed as monthly ZIP containers organized under a year/year-month path (form-n30b2-files/<YYYY>/<YYYY-MM>.zip).

Dataset APIs

Dataset Files

What This Dataset Contains

The dataset captures the complete EDGAR record of filings made under Form N-30B-2, the form used to satisfy Rule 30b2-1's requirement that any report mailed to security holders be filed with the Commission within ten days of transmission. Both modes of Rule 30b2-1 use are present in the dataset and are packaged identically, even though their body content differs substantially:

1. As a Rule 30b2-1(b) cover/transmittal letter by an insurance-company separate account (variable annuity, variable universal life, group variable contract). The letter certifies to the SEC that the underlying management investment companies whose portfolios fund the contracts have transmitted their shareholder reports, and incorporates those reports by reference rather than restating them.
2. As the shareholder report itself, filed directly by a registered open-end management investment company (typically a smaller mutual-fund trust). In this mode the body carries financial statements, the schedule of investments, performance data, management commentary on fund operations, and disclosures concerning fees, expenses, and investment objectives.

Both modes are filed under Section 30 of the Investment Company Act of 1940 (act = 40), use the 1940 Act registration prefix 811- for the registrant file number, and are submitted to EDGAR with form type N-30B-2. The dataset begins on January 1, 1994 — the start of EDGAR coverage — and is distributed as monthly ZIP containers holding TXT, JSON, HTML, and PDF files. Pre-EDGAR paper N-30B-2 filings made before the EDGAR phase-in (1993 to May 1996) sit in Commission archives and are not part of this dataset.

Content Structure of a Single Record

What one record represents

A single record in the Form N-30B-2 Files Dataset is one complete EDGAR submission of Form N-30B-2 — the filing made under Rule 30b2-1 of the Investment Company Act of 1940 by which a registered investment company (or, more commonly, an insurance-company separate accounts acting on behalf of variable annuity or variable life contractowners) places into the public file the periodic or interim report it has transmitted to security holders. Each record is materialized as a folder named with the 18-digit accession number with hyphens stripped — for example, accession 0001193125-25-170094 becomes folder 000119312525170094. The folder contains a parsed metadata.json describing the submission together with the primary Form N-30B-2 document(s) as filed. Records are grouped into monthly ZIP containers organized under a year/year-month path (form-n30b2-files/<YYYY>/<YYYY-MM>.zip), so each calendar-month bucket gathers every N-30B-2 filing whose effectiveness date falls within that month.

What the underlying filing is

Form N-30B-2 is a thin, fixed-purpose EDGAR filing. It is not itself a free-form prospectus or disclosure document; it is the regulatory hook by which a registrant satisfies Rule 30b2-1's requirement that any report mailed to security holders be filed with the Commission within ten days of transmission. As described above, the form is used in two structurally distinct ways — as a Rule 30b2-1(b) cover/transmittal letter by an insurance-company separate account, or as the shareholder report itself filed directly by a registered open-end management investment company — but both modes share the same EDGAR packaging, the same act value of 40, the same 811- registrant file-number prefix, and the same N-30B-2 form type.

Folder layout and file types inside one record

A record folder is small and predictable. It always contains exactly one metadata.json and one or more primary form documents whose EDGAR <TYPE> is N-30B-2. The on-disk primary documents are HTML files (extension .htm) wrapped in the EDGAR SGML document envelope. Filenames vary by the filer's filing agent: Donnelley Financial / RR Donnelley submissions follow the d<digits>dn30b2.htm pattern; Toppan Merrill uses tm<digits>d<n>_n30b2.htm; Workiva/Wdesk-generated filings produce names like a2025-07nx30b2sepacctsl.htm; smaller filers use ad-hoc names such as manor30b2.htm.

The file-types found in the dataset are TXT, JSON, HTML, and PDF, but inside a record folder only the JSON manifest and the HTML form documents are physically present. The complete-submission SGML .txt file and any GRAPHIC JPEG page-image attachments referenced by the original EDGAR submission are addressed by absolute sec.gov URLs inside metadata.json rather than bundled on disk — image files are explicitly excluded from the dataset copy. Because some filers (notably smaller direct-filing mutual-fund trusts) deliver their entire shareholder report as a sequence of scanned page-image JPEGs embedded via <IMG SRC> tags inside the HTML, the on-disk HTML for those records can be very short (under a kilobyte of wrapper plus image references) while the substantive report content lives only behind those URLs.

A common multi-record pattern occurs when a single insurance-company filer simultaneously files near-identical N-30B-2 cover letters for several separate accounts in the same minute. This produces adjacent accession folders whose primary HTML filenames are siblings (tm<N>_n30b2.htm with d1, d2, d3 suffixes, or repeated d<N>dn30b2.htm names across different accession folders), each carrying its own metadata.json keyed to a distinct separate-account registrant.

The primary HTML document — SGML wrapper and body

Every primary form document opens with the standard EDGAR SGML wrapper that surrounds an inline HTML body:

• <DOCUMENT> opens the envelope.
• <TYPE>N-30B-2 declares the document type and is invariant for this dataset.
• <SEQUENCE>1 marks the primary document; sibling GRAPHIC entries that would carry higher sequence numbers are stripped from the dataset copy.
• <FILENAME> repeats the on-disk filename inside the folder.
• <DESCRIPTION> is sometimes present (N-30B-2) and sometimes omitted.
• <TEXT> opens the inline HTML payload; </TEXT></DOCUMENT> closes it at EOF.

Inside the <TEXT> block the body falls into three observable structural patterns:

1. Letter with a table of underlying funds. The most common pattern for separate-account filers. The body opens with a "VIA EDGAR" letterhead, an addressee block to the SEC at 100 F Street NE, a Re: line naming the registrant and its File No. 811-XXXXX, and one or two paragraphs reciting Rule 30b2-1 and Rule 30e-2 of the Investment Company Act of 1940. A bordered HTML <TABLE> then lists each underlying portfolio company (e.g., AB Trust, BlackRock Funds, Fidelity Advisor Series I, MFS Series Trust II, Pioneer Series Trust II) alongside its 1940 Act registration number and sometimes its CIK. A /s/ <signer> signature block with title and signing entity closes the letter. Markup is typically legacy uppercase HTML 4 with Times New Roman inline styles, <TABLE CELLSPACING CELLPADDING BORDER> attributes, and frequent   and smart-quote entities (“ / ”).
2. Letter only. The same structural letter but with a single-row Fund Company table or no table at all, typical of separate accounts whose contracts invest in only one underlying portfolio. Modern Workiva-generated filings of this kind use HTML5 div-based markup with font-family:'Arial',sans-serif;font-size:10pt inline styling and embed Workiva/Wdesk attribution comments.
3. Image-only shareholder-report shell. The HTML body is essentially a sequence of <IMG SRC="..._NN.jpg"> tags separated by <PAGE> markers. The actual shareholder report — financial statements, schedule of investments, performance discussion, expense tables — lives in the GRAPHIC JPEG files, which are referenced by URL in metadata.json but not present on disk. This pattern is concentrated among smaller direct-filing fund families.

Extractable content fields in the body

For letter-style records, the recoverable content includes the cover-letter date (e.g., "July 30, 2025"); the registrant's full name and 1940 Act file number (811-XXXXX); the insurance-company filer name acting on behalf of the separate account; one or more underlying management investment company (Portfolio / Fund companies) with their 811- registration numbers and occasionally CIKs; the signer's name, title (commonly "Senior Counsel" or "Assistant Vice President & Managing Associate General Counsel"), and signing entity; and boilerplate references to Rule 30b2-1 and Rule 30e-2 of the Investment Company Act of 1940.

For direct shareholder-report records — when the HTML carries substantive text rather than only image references — the body typically contains the fund's letter to shareholders or management discussion of fund performance; a schedule or portfolio of investments listing holdings and values; financial statements (statement of assets and liabilities, statement of operations, statement of changes in net assets, financial highlights); notes to the financial statements; expense and fee disclosures; and a recital of the fund's investment objectives and policies.

metadata.json anatomy

Each record folder contains exactly one metadata.json describing the EDGAR submission as a single JSON object.

Top-level scalars:

• formType — always "N-30B-2".
• accessionNo — the canonical hyphenated accession (e.g., "0001193125-25-170094").
• effectivenessDate — YYYY-MM-DD; for this form type it equals the filing date.
• filedAt — ISO 8601 timestamp with timezone offset (e.g., "2025-07-31T08:01:46-04:00").
• periodOfReport — YYYY-MM-DD reporting-period end. Values cluster at semi-annual dates (commonly 04-30 and 06-30) rather than at calendar year-end, reflecting the interim-report use of the form.
• description — the human-readable form label, consistently "Form N-30B-2 - Periodic and interim reports mailed to shareholders".
• linkToFilingDetails — absolute URL to the primary HTML document on www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/....
• linkToTxt — absolute URL to the complete-submission SGML .txt file.
• linkToHtml — absolute URL to the EDGAR filing-index HTML page (<accession>-index.htm).
• linkToXbrl — empty string; N-30B-2 carries no XBRL.
• id — opaque 32-character hex record identifier internal to the dataset.

documentFormatFiles[] enumerates every document originally submitted to EDGAR. Each entry carries sequence (numeric string for ordered exhibits, or a single space for the catch-all "Complete submission text file" entry that appears last), size in bytes as a string, an absolute documentUrl on sec.gov, type (observed values: "N-30B-2" for the form HTML, "GRAPHIC" for .jpg page-image scans, and a single-space value for the complete-submission .txt), and an optional description. Only entries of type N-30B-2 are physically on disk inside the record folder; GRAPHIC and complete-submission entries are URL references only.

entities[] describes the filer (and any co-filers). Each entity carries companyName with a role parenthetical (consistently (Filer) for this form type), cik as a non-zero-padded numeric string, fileNo in 811-NNNNN format (the registrant's 1940 Act registration), irsNo as a 9-digit EIN (which may be "000000000" when not supplied), fiscalYearEnd in MMDD form (almost always "1231"), act set to "40" for the Investment Company Act of 1940, type repeating the form type, filmNo as EDGAR's 9-digit film number, and stateOfIncorporation as a two-letter state code where supplied.

seriesAndClassesContractsInformation[] carries the fund-series structure beneath the registrant — a critical block for separate-account filings where one registrant may umbrella dozens of contract classes. Each item carries series (formatted S + nine digits, e.g., "S000011986"), a name for the series, and a nested classesContracts[] array whose objects carry classContract (formatted C + nine digits), a name, and optionally a ticker (present for mutual-fund classes traded under a symbol, absent for variable-annuity and variable-life class entries). For large variable-life separate accounts this array can be very long, with dozens of contract generations spanning decades of product registrations under a single series.

dataFiles[] is consistently empty for this form type, reflecting the absence of structured data attachments on N-30B-2 submissions.

What is included vs. excluded

Included in each record folder: the parsed metadata.json and every document originally submitted to EDGAR whose <TYPE> is N-30B-2 — the primary HTML cover letter or shareholder-report HTML, with its SGML envelope preserved. Where filers attach supporting non-image documents, those would also be present, but in practice the primary HTML is the only non-image document filed for this form type.

Excluded from each record folder: image attachments (GRAPHIC documents, typically .jpg page-image scans of physically printed shareholder reports) and the complete-submission .txt file that EDGAR generates for each accession. Both are addressed in metadata.json via absolute sec.gov URLs so the original submission can be reconstructed on demand, but they are not bundled in the dataset. The practical consequence is that for filers who deliver their shareholder report as image scans, the substantive textual content of the report is not present in the dataset itself and must be reconstructed from the referenced JPEGs (e.g., via OCR) or sourced elsewhere.

Structural changes over time

The form's required content has been stable across the dataset's coverage from January 1994 to present: Rule 30b2-1 has continuously required the filing of any report mailed to security holders, and the form's role as a thin certification/transmittal vehicle has not changed materially. What has changed is the population of filers using the form. Following the SEC's adoption of Form N-CSR in 2003 — which became the structured vehicle for certified semi-annual and annual shareholder reports of management investment companies under Sections 30(a) and 30(b)(2) of the Investment Company Act, with Sarbanes-Oxley certifications — most direct fund-trust shareholder reports migrated to N-CSR. From that point forward, N-30B-2 has been dominated by insurance-company separate accounts using the Rule 30b2-1(b) cover-letter pattern to incorporate by reference the underlying portfolio funds' N-CSR reports, with a residual minority of direct mutual-fund filers continuing to file actual shareholder reports under N-30B-2. The dataset reflects this composition shift across its record history.

Data format evolution

The form has traveled through EDGAR's standard format generations. Early-1990s filings arrived as plain ASCII text inside the SGML document wrapper, with paragraph-flow letter content and page breaks indicated by <PAGE> separators. HTML adoption (post-1999, expanding through the early 2000s) introduced inline HTML bodies inside <TEXT> blocks, initially with legacy uppercase HTML 4 markup, <TABLE>-based layouts, Times New Roman inline styles, and pervasive   / smart-quote entities — a markup style still observable in present-day filings produced by older filing-agent toolchains. More recent filings produced through Workiva/Wdesk and similar platforms use HTML5 with div-based layout, modern CSS inline styling, and generator-attribution HTML comments. Image-based shareholder-report shells — HTML bodies consisting almost entirely of <IMG SRC> references to JPEG page scans — persist as a third lineage primarily among smaller direct fund-trust filers.

Interpretation notes

• Because the dataset excludes GRAPHIC image attachments, records whose primary HTML is an image-scan shell will have essentially no textual report content on disk. Downstream text-mining workflows should detect this case by checking for sparse HTML bodies dominated by <IMG SRC> tags and fall back to the URLs in documentFormatFiles[] if the underlying report is required.
• periodOfReport does not necessarily equal the fund's fiscal year-end (fiscalYearEnd, almost always "1231"). The former is the end of the reporting period covered by the transmitted report (often a semi-annual mid-year date); the latter is the registrant's annual accounting cutoff.
• Multiple adjacent accession folders frequently carry near-identical primary HTML for sibling separate accounts of the same insurance company, filed within the same minute. These should be treated as distinct records — each has its own accession, registrant, and entities[] block — but their letter bodies will be largely interchangeable.
• The entities[], seriesAndClassesContractsInformation[], and documentFormatFiles[] arrays inside metadata.json are the authoritative structured projection of the SGML submission header; downstream parsers should prefer these over re-parsing the SGML wrapper from the HTML files.
• For records that retain the SGML wrapper inside the on-disk HTML (the standard case), permissive parsing is required: bodies use uppercase tags, unclosed <P> elements, <PAGE> separators interleaved with HTML content, and a mix of HTML 4 and HTML5 conventions across filers and eras. Splitting on <TEXT>...</TEXT> recovers the inline HTML body cleanly before downstream HTML parsing.
• The dataset captures the cover/transmittal layer of shareholder reporting; the substantive financial content of underlying funds' reports — when incorporated by reference under Rule 30b2-1(b) — is not in these records and must be retrieved from the corresponding N-CSR / N-CSRS filings of the named underlying portfolio companies.

Who Files or Publishes This Dataset, and When

Who files the record

Form N-30B-2 is filed by registered investment companies under the Investment Company Act of 1940. The filer is the registrant itself, identified by its 1940 Act file number (811-) and CIK. Advisers, principal underwriters, transfer agents, and insurance-company sponsors who prepare or mail the underlying report are not the filers.

Historically the form was used across the principal 1940 Act registrant classes:

• Open-end management companies (mutual funds), including series trusts where each series files on its own fiscal cycle.
• Closed-end management companies, including interval and tender-offer funds.
• Unit investment trusts (UITs), including sponsor-organized series UITs and insurance-company separate accounts organized as UITs that fund variable annuity and variable life contracts.
• Insurance-company separate accounts registered as management investment companies (e.g., on Form N-3), filing in their own capacity rather than through the insurer's general account.

In modern practice, after the post-Sarbanes-Oxley shift of management-company shareholder reports onto Form N-CSR / N-CSRS, the active N-30B-2 filer population is narrower:

• variable-annuity and variable-life separate accounts transmitting contract-owner reports;
• UITs filing shareholder reports under Rule 30e-2;
• a small tail of residual users for interim or supplemental shareholder communications containing financial statements that do not fit the N-CSR annual/semi-annual structure.

Excluded from the filer population: operating companies (10-K/10-Q), BDCs reporting under the Exchange Act, unregistered foreign funds, private funds relying on Section 3(c)(1) or Section 3(c)(7), and investment advisers (Form ADV, Form PF).

When the record is created or required

The triggering event is the transmission of a periodic or interim report containing financial statements to a class of the registrant's security holders. The filing is event-driven in form but periodic in substance because the underlying transmissions follow a fixed cadence.

Authority and timing:

• Section 30(b) of the 1940 Act requires registered investment companies to file periodic information and shareholder communications with the Commission.
• Rule 30b2-1 implements that requirement: every periodic or interim report containing financial statements that is transmitted to security holders must be filed with the Commission on Form N-30B-2 no later than 10 days after transmission.
• Rule 30e-1 sets the content and cadence of shareholder reports for management investment companies: an annual report (with audited financials and MDFP) and a semi-annual report, each transmitted within 60 days after the close of the relevant fiscal period.
• Rule 30e-2 imposes the analogous semi-annual and annual shareholder-report obligation on UITs invested substantially in a single registered management company (the typical insurance-UIT structure).
• Rule 30e-3 lets eligible funds satisfy the transmission obligation by posting reports on a website and mailing a notice; this changes what counts as "transmission" for the Rule 30b2-1 10-day clock but does not eliminate the N-30B-2 filing itself.

In practice, an N-30B-2 typically lands on EDGAR within roughly 70 days of fiscal period end (60 days to shareholders plus the 10-day rule). Interim or special communications containing financial statements (e.g., reorganization-related reports) generate additional N-30B-2 filings on the same 10-day rule, so the dataset is not strictly two-per-year per registrant.

A reader of an N-30B-2 record should distinguish three dates: the period-of-report (fiscal period end), the transmission date (which starts the 10-day clock), and the EDGAR acceptance date.

Important distinctions

• Filer is the registrant, not the contract or underlying fund. For variable insurance products, the filer is the registered separate account (UIT or management), not the insurance company's general account and not the underlying mutual fund (which files its own shareholder reports).
• Series and classes. Each series in a series trust is treated as the relevant investment company for shareholder-report purposes; multiple classes within a series are normally covered by a single report and a single N-30B-2.
• Amendments. Corrected reports are filed as N-30B-2/A.
• Pre-EDGAR. Paper N-30B-2 filings made before EDGAR phase-in (1993 to May 1996) sit in Commission archives and are not part of the EDGAR dataset, which begins January 1, 1994.
• Not a substitute for Commission-facing reports. N-30B-2 does not satisfy Form N-CEN (annual census, Rule 30a-1) or Form N-PORT (monthly portfolio reporting, Rule 30b1-9). Those run in parallel.

How This Dataset Differs From Similar Datasets or Filings

Form N-30B-2 is the EDGAR transmission record for periodic and interim reports mailed to security holders under Rule 30b2-1. Several other registered investment company (RIC) forms cover adjacent content (financials, holdings, proxy votes, operational metadata), and the post-2003 reallocation of duties among them is the key source of confusion. The comparisons below isolate exactly what separates N-30B-2 from each neighbor.

Form N-CSR and N-CSRS (Certified Shareholder Reports)

N-CSR (annual) and N-CSRS (semi-annual) are the certified shareholder-report forms filed by most open-end and closed-end management investment companies. They carry audited or unaudited financial statements, the schedule of investments, Sarbanes-Oxley Section 302 principal officer and CFO certifications, code-of-ethics disclosures, and the full report text transmitted to shareholders.

Overlap: the underlying shareholder-report content (financial statements, portfolio listing, fee tables, management discussion) is the same kind of material that appears inside N-30B-2 submissions.

Distinctions:

• Filer scope: since 2003, N-CSR/N-CSRS captures the certified shareholder reports of management investment companies. N-30B-2 now serves filer populations outside the N-CSR regime, principally variable-annuity and variable-life insurance separate accounts and certain unit investment trusts (UITs).
• Certification: N-CSR/N-CSRS require Section 302 officer certifications and code-of-ethics attestations; N-30B-2 does not.
• Structure: N-CSR/N-CSRS use defined item-level structure and (since 2024 tagging amendments) XBRL elements. N-30B-2 is typically an unstructured PDF or HTML attachment of the report as mailed.

Form N-30D (Historical Predecessor)

Form N-30D was the pre-2003 form for semi-annual and annual shareholder reports of registered investment companies. It was superseded by N-CSR/N-CSRS in 2003.

Distinctions:

• N-30D is the correct comparator for pre-2003 fund shareholder reports as a whole.
• N-30B-2 is not a successor to N-30D for management companies; the successor is N-CSR/N-CSRS. N-30B-2 is the surviving Rule 30b2-1 transmission filing for the narrower filer populations (separate accounts, UITs) that fall outside the N-CSR regime.

Form N-Q and Form N-PORT (Portfolio Holdings)

Form N-Q collected quarterly portfolio holdings for management investment companies from 2004 until its 2019 rescission. N-PORT now collects monthly portfolio holdings, with the third month of each fiscal quarter made public on a 60-day lag.

Overlap: the schedule of investments inside an N-30B-2 report contains portfolio holdings.

Distinctions:

• Content type: N-PORT (XML) and N-Q are structured, position-level holdings filings with valuation and risk metrics. N-30B-2 holdings appear as a static schedule embedded in a narrative report.
• Frequency: N-PORT is monthly; N-30B-2 follows the semi-annual/annual shareholder-report cadence (plus interim reports).
• Use: N-PORT is the source for systematic holdings analytics. N-30B-2 is the source for what was actually communicated to shareholders, including narrative context and fee tables.

Form N-PX (Proxy Voting Records)

Form N-PX is the annual filing in which registered funds (and, after 2022 amendments, certain institutional investment managers under Section 14A) report proxy votes on portfolio securities for the 12 months ending June 30.

Distinctions:

• Content type: N-PX is a structured per-meeting, per-proposal vote record. It contains no financial statements, holdings schedules, expense ratios, or narrative.
• Relationship: complementary to N-30B-2, never substitutable. The two cover disjoint subject matter for an overlapping filer base.

Form N-CEN (Annual Fund Census)

N-CEN is the annual structured XML census filed by registered investment companies, replacing Form N-SAR in 2018. It reports auditors, custodians, transfer agents, share-class identifiers, and summary operational data.

Distinctions:

• Content type: N-CEN is operational and counterparty metadata in XML, not a shareholder-facing document. No financials, holdings, or management discussion.
• Audience: N-CEN is filed for the SEC; N-30B-2 is the EDGAR record of what was sent to investors.

Boundary Summary

N-30B-2 is defined by three features that no neighboring form shares simultaneously: (1) it is a Rule 30b2-1 transmission record of the document actually mailed to security holders; (2) its active filer base today is dominated by variable-annuity/variable-life separate accounts and UITs that sit outside the N-CSR/N-CSRS regime; and (3) it is unstructured narrative-and-financial content without Section 302 certification or XBRL tagging. Audited fund financials with certifications belong to N-CSR/N-CSRS; pre-2003 shareholder reports belong to N-30D; structured holdings belong to N-PORT (and historically N-SAR for some purposes, with N-Q for quarterly holdings); proxy votes belong to N-PX; operational census data belongs to N-CEN. N-30B-2 occupies the narrow remaining slot: the as-mailed shareholder communication for filer types that the post-2003 framework left outside N-CSR.

Who Uses This Dataset

Form N-30B-2 records the transmission of periodic shareholder reports under Rule 30b2-1, and different professions key on different fields: identifiers and dates for transmission proof, the full report body for financial and narrative content.

Fund compliance officers

In-house compliance staff at fund complexes use the dataset to evidence timely delivery of shareholder reports. They pull cik, fileNumber (811-), seriesId, classId, periodOfReport, filedAt, and accessionNo to confirm each report was furnished within the required window after fiscal half-year end. Output: board reporting packages, Rule 38a-1 program reviews, and deficiency-letter responses tied to specific accession numbers.

Fund counsel and investment-management lawyers

In-house fund counsel and outside Investment Company Act specialists use the dataset to reconstruct transmission history for N-1A/N-2 amendments, mergers, reorganizations, and liquidations. They pull accessionNo, documentFormatFiles (transmittal letters and report exhibits), periodOfReport, and seriesId/classId to verify that disclosures referenced in registration statements match what shareholders received. Output: closing sets, legal opinions, and exhibit binders for regulatory inquiries.

Separate-account administrators for variable insurance products

Administrators of variable annuity and variable life separate accounts use the dataset to track transmission for each contract series. They pull the 811 fileNumber for the separate account, the linked cik, contract-level seriesId, and bundled report bodies in documentFormatFiles. Output: contract-owner communication audit trails and reconciliations between separate-account filings and underlying portfolio filings.

Fund accounting and treasury operations

Fund accounting teams cross-check internal NAV and expense records against the schedule of investments, statement of operations, and financial highlights inside the filed report. They pull documentFormatFiles for the report body plus periodOfReport and seriesId/classId to align comparatives. Output: restated prior-period tables, auditor support files, and comparative figures for new fiscal-year reports.

Investment-company examiners and regulatory supervisors

Examination staff build complex-level histories of shareholder communications across years and series. They pull cik, fileNumber, seriesId, filedAt, and periodOfReport to map filing cadence, then mine the report body for fair-valuation, illiquid-asset, derivatives, and fee-waiver disclosures. Output: pre-exam workpapers, sweep-exam datasets, and longitudinal disclosure-practice reviews.

Third-party fund administrators and transfer agents

Outsourced administrators that prepare and dispatch shareholder reports for multiple fund families use the dataset to audit their own work product and benchmark peer practice. They pull documentFormatFiles for full report bodies, periodOfReport for cycle timing, and seriesId/classId for fund-by-fund coverage. Output: production QA reports and comparative dispatch-timing metrics.

Forensic accountants and litigation support analysts

Teams supporting Section 36(b) excessive-fee cases and fund-governance disputes assemble the contemporaneous disclosure record shareholders actually received. They pull accessionNo, periodOfReport, and documentFormatFiles to extract fee tables, expense ratios, board-approval references, and performance presentations from each filed report. Output: damages models, comparator-fund exhibits, and deposition binders.

Data vendors and fund-analytics engineering teams

Engineering teams at fund-data vendors and brokerage research platforms ingest the dataset to extend coverage into the historical N-30B-2 corpus, which precedes consistent N-CSR/N-PORT coverage. They pull cik, seriesId, classId, fileNumber, periodOfReport, and documentFormatFiles to stitch fund-level time series of holdings, performance, and fees. Output: backfilled holdings histories and fee-history features in commercial fund-research products.

Identifier-normalization and reference-data teams

Reference-data engineers reconcile series (S-codes), class (C-codes), 811 file numbers, and CIK relationships across decades. They pull cik, fileNumber, seriesId, classId, and header metadata to build crosswalks between historical and current share-class structures. Output: master fund identifier tables and survivorship-bias-adjusted rollups.

Academic researchers in fund disclosure

Researchers studying disclosure readability, fee structures, and portfolio transparency use the dataset as a primary corpus reaching back to 1994. They pull documentFormatFiles for narrative sections, periodOfReport for time alignment, and seriesId/classId for fund-level grouping. Output: longitudinal studies of shareholder-report language, length, and content, and event studies linking disclosure changes to flows.

Financial journalists and trade-press analysts

Reporters covering the fund industry source historical shareholder communications, particularly for funds that have merged, liquidated, or rebranded. They pull cik, accessionNo, periodOfReport, and documentFormatFiles to surface shareholder letters, footnote disclosures, and affiliated-party transactions. Output: investigative pieces on fund governance, fee creep, and disclosure practices, citing primary-source filings.

LLM and RAG engineers for investment-management workflows

Teams building retrieval-augmented systems use the dataset to extend corpora into historical shareholder reports not covered by structured fund data. They pull documentFormatFiles (HTML/PDF bodies) plus cik, seriesId, periodOfReport, and accessionNo as retrieval keys. Output: embeddings and indexes for fund-specific Q&A, summarization of historical commentary, and disclosure-language comparison across funds and periods.

Synthesis

Compliance, legal, and regulatory users key on identifiers (cik, fileNumber, seriesId, classId) and dates (filedAt, periodOfReport) to prove or examine transmission. Accountants, researchers, journalists, and litigation analysts mine documentFormatFiles for the financial statements, holdings, fee tables, and narrative inside each report. Data engineers and LLM teams use the dataset as connective tissue between historical and current fund reference data.

Specific Use Cases

Each use case below names the target user, the specific question being answered, the fields and content pulled from the record, and the resulting workflow output.

1. Proving the 10-day Rule 30b2-1 transmission window for variable-annuity separate accounts

Compliance officers at insurance-company separate accounts need to demonstrate that every shareholder report mailed under a variable annuity or variable life contract was filed with the SEC within ten days of transmission. They pull effectivenessDate, filedAt, periodOfReport, the registrant fileNo (811-), and the seriesAndClassesContractsInformation[] block to attribute each filing to a specific separate-account series and its contract classes. Output: a per-separate-account transmission ledger feeding Rule 38a-1 program reviews, board compliance packages, and SEC deficiency responses tied to specific accession numbers.

2. Reconstructing the underlying-fund reference map for an insurance separate account

Fund counsel and product administrators need to know which underlying management investment companies a given variable contract series invests in at a point in time. They parse the bordered fund-company <TABLE> inside the letter body of the primary HTML (registrant name, File No. 811-XXXXX, occasional CIK) together with the filer entities[] and seriesAndClassesContractsInformation[] to build the separate-account-to-portfolio-fund crosswalk. Output: an underlying-portfolio map used to pull the matching N-CSR/N-CSRS filings incorporated by reference under Rule 30b2-1(b), and to validate fund menus described in the contract's Form N-4 or Form N-6 registration.

3. Filer-cluster detection for sibling separate-account filings

Reference-data engineers handling identifier normalization need to detect the common pattern where a single insurance filer drops near-identical Rule 30b2-1(b) cover letters for many separate accounts in the same minute. They group records on filedAt truncated to the minute plus filer CIK, then diff the per-record entities[] and fileNo to confirm distinct registrants. Output: a deduplicated registrant-level filing index that preserves each accession but collapses sibling filings into a single submission event for downstream reporting cadence dashboards.

4. Building a UIT and direct-filer shareholder-report corpus

LLM/RAG engineers and academic researchers want a clean text corpus of as-mailed shareholder reports for filer populations that sit outside the N-CSR regime (UITs and smaller direct-filing fund trusts). They filter records where the primary HTML body is substantive (not a <IMG SRC> shell), strip the SGML wrapper by splitting on <TEXT>...</TEXT>, and key retrieval on cik, series, classContract, ticker, and periodOfReport. Output: embeddings, summarization indexes, and longitudinal readability/fee-disclosure studies covering 1994 forward.

5. OCR fallback routing for image-scan shareholder reports

Fund-analytics ingestion engineers need to recover financial statements and the schedule of investments from records whose on-disk HTML is essentially <IMG SRC="..._NN.jpg"> references — common among smaller direct fund-trust filers. They detect the image-shell case from a sparse HTML body, then iterate the documentFormatFiles[] entries whose type is GRAPHIC to fetch each JPEG page-scan URL on sec.gov for OCR. Output: a reconstructed text layer that backfills holdings, expense ratios, and financial-highlights data into vendor fund time series for periods predating consistent N-PORT coverage.

6. Semi-annual cadence and period-end clustering analysis

Examination staff and fund administrators studying interim-report timing across an entire complex pull periodOfReport, effectivenessDate, and entities[].fiscalYearEnd across every accession for a given CIK. They confirm the typical 04-30 and 06-30 clustering of semi-annual interim periods against the registrant's 1231 fiscal year-end. Output: a per-registrant cadence chart used in pre-exam workpapers and in cycle-timing benchmarking for outsourced administrators.

7. Forensic reconstruction of the contemporaneous shareholder disclosure record

Litigation-support analysts working Section 36(b) excessive-fee matters and fund-governance disputes need the exact document a shareholder received at a given date. They pull accessionNo, linkToFilingDetails, periodOfReport, the body of the primary HTML, and — when the report is incorporated by reference — the registrant list inside the cover-letter <TABLE> to chain through to the named underlying portfolio's N-CSR. Output: deposition exhibits, comparator-fund fee-table extracts, and damages-model inputs anchored to specific accession numbers and signature blocks.

8. Series and class identifier crosswalk across decades

Data vendors building survivorship-bias-adjusted fund universes use seriesAndClassesContractsInformation[] to harvest every S000XXXXXXX series and C000XXXXXXX class under each registrant, capturing ticker where present (mutual-fund classes) and absent (variable contract classes). They join to cik, fileNo, and stateOfIncorporation from entities[] to track contract generations under one separate-account series over time. Output: a master fund identifier table linking historical class IDs, current tickers, and 811 registrations for use in reference-data products and longitudinal flow studies.

Dataset Access

The Form N-30B-2 Files Dataset is accessible through a JSON index API, a full archive download, and per-container downloads. Filings span January 1994 to the present and are organized into monthly ZIP containers holding TXT, JSON, HTML, and PDF files.

Dataset Index JSON API: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-n30b2-files.json

This endpoint returns dataset metadata (name, description, last update timestamp, earliest sample date, total record count, total size, covered form types, container format, and file types), the full dataset download URL, and the list of all individual container files with per-container size, record count, updated timestamp, and download URL. Poll this endpoint to detect which monthly containers changed during the most recent refresh and to drive incremental downloads on a day-by-day basis. No API key is required to access the index.

          1
          {
        

          2
            "datasetId": "1f13365b-9ae0-6921-86eb-9baaa9f3a3df",
        

          3
            "datasetDownloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-n30b2-files.zip",
        

          4
            "name": "Form N-30B-2 Files Dataset",
        

          5
            "updatedAt": "2026-05-09T02:53:06.244Z",
        

          6
            "earliestSampleDate": "1994-01-01",
        

          7
            "totalRecords": 14196,
        

          8
            "totalSize": 259897732,
        

          9
            "formTypes": ["N-30B-2"],
        

          10
            "containerFormat": "ZIP",
        

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

          12
            "containers": [
        

          13
              {
        

          14
                "downloadUrl": "https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-n30b2-files/2026/2026-03.zip",
        

          15
                "key": "2026/2026-03.zip",
        

          16
                "size": 13818783,
        

          17
                "records": 154,
        

          18
                "updatedAt": "2026-05-09T02:53:06.244Z"
        

          19
              }
        

          20
            ]
        

          21
          }
        

Download Entire Dataset: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-n30b2-files.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY

Downloads the complete archive of all Form N-30B-2 filings (form type N-30B-2) from January 1994 to the present as a single ZIP file. An SEC API key is required.

Download Single Container: https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-n30b2-files/2026/2026-03.zip?token=YOUR_API_KEY

Downloads one monthly container ZIP containing the metadata file and original EDGAR documents (TXT, JSON, HTML, PDF) for filings submitted in that month. Use the downloadUrl from any entry in the index containers array to retrieve a specific period. An SEC API key is required.

Frequently Asked Questions

What form does this dataset cover?

The dataset covers Form N-30B-2, the EDGAR filing made under Rule 30b2-1 of the Investment Company Act of 1940 to file with the Commission any periodic or interim report that has been transmitted to security holders. Each submission carries form type N-30B-2, the act value 40, and a registrant file number with the 811- prefix.

What does one record in the Form N-30B-2 Files Dataset represent?

One record is one complete EDGAR submission of Form N-30B-2, stored as an accession-numbered folder containing exactly one metadata.json describing the submission and one or more primary HTML form documents preserved inside their EDGAR SGML wrapper. Image (GRAPHIC) attachments and the complete-submission .txt file are referenced by absolute sec.gov URLs inside metadata.json rather than bundled on disk.

Who is required to file Form N-30B-2?

The filer is the registered investment company itself, identified by its 811- file number and CIK. In modern practice the active filer population is dominated by variable-annuity and variable-life insurance separate accounts, unit investment trusts filing under Rule 30e-2, and a small tail of residual users for interim shareholder communications that do not fit the N-CSR annual/semi-annual structure.

When must a Form N-30B-2 filing be made?

Rule 30b2-1 requires that every periodic or interim report containing financial statements transmitted to security holders be filed with the Commission no later than 10 days after transmission. Because Rule 30e-1 and Rule 30e-2 require management companies and UITs to transmit reports within 60 days after fiscal-period end, an N-30B-2 typically lands on EDGAR within roughly 70 days of fiscal period end.

How does this dataset differ from Form N-CSR and N-CSRS?

Form N-CSR (annual) and N-CSRS (semi-annual) carry the certified shareholder reports of management investment companies and include Sarbanes-Oxley Section 302 officer certifications, code-of-ethics disclosures, and item-level structure with inline XBRL tagging. N-30B-2 has none of those structural features and now covers the filer populations the N-CSR regime left behind — principally variable-product separate accounts, UITs, and interim communications.

What time period does the dataset cover and what file format is it distributed in?

The dataset covers filings from January 1, 1994 forward — the start of EDGAR coverage — and is distributed as monthly ZIP containers under a year/year-month path (form-n30b2-files/<YYYY>/<YYYY-MM>.zip). Inside each container, records hold TXT, JSON, HTML, and PDF file types, with each accession folder containing the parsed metadata.json and the primary N-30B-2 HTML document(s).

Why are some on-disk HTML bodies almost empty?

Some smaller direct-filing fund trusts deliver their entire shareholder report as a sequence of scanned page-image JPEGs embedded via <IMG SRC> tags inside the HTML. Because the dataset deliberately excludes GRAPHIC image attachments, the on-disk HTML for those records is essentially a shell of image references, and the substantive report content lives only behind the JPEG URLs listed in documentFormatFiles[] — accessible for OCR but not bundled in the dataset.