The Form N-CEN dataset provides structured data from all Form N-CEN and N-CEN/A filings published on EDGAR since 2018. Each record represents one annual census filing by a registered investment company and includes filing metadata, registrant identification (CIK, LEI, name, address, phone, websites), service provider rosters (investment advisers, custodians, administrators, transfer agents, auditors, distributors, securities lending agents), chief compliance officer details, fund series and class identifiers, and the full range of operational disclosures reported in the filing — securities lending, derivatives usage, borrowing, swing pricing, ETF-specific data, money market fund data, and more. The dataset covers the entire population of registered investment companies filing under the Investment Company Act of 1940, distributed as .jsonl.gz files for bulk access.
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Each record represents one Form N-CEN or N-CEN/A filing submitted by a registered investment company to the SEC via EDGAR. Form N-CEN is the annual census report mandated under Rule 30a-1 of the Investment Company Act of 1940, replacing the legacy Form N-SAR effective June 1, 2018. The form collects structured operational, compliance, and service-provider data about the registrant (the fund family-level legal entity) and each of its individual series (funds) and classes (share classes).
The dataset covers all Form N-CEN filings published since September 2018, distributed as .jsonl.gz files organized one per month and keyed as YYYY/YYYY-MM.jsonl.gz. Each line in a decompressed container file is a standalone JSON object representing one filing record. Records are large — a typical record is 20,000-40,000+ characters due to deeply nested arrays of service providers, broker-dealers, and credit facility participants.
accessionNo) — the unique EDGAR submission identifier for the filing (e.g. "0000940400-25-014985"), usable to retrieve the full filing package from EDGAR.id) — an internal unique identifier for the record (MD5 hash).formType) — "N-CEN" for original filings or "N-CEN/A" for amendments.filedAt) — the date and time the filing was submitted to and accepted by EDGAR (e.g. "2025-12-29T11:55:58-05:00").periodOfReport) — the fiscal year-end date to which the annual report applies (e.g. "2024-12-31"). The reporting period covers the registrant's most recently completed fiscal year.fileNo) — the SEC file number assigned to the registrant's investment company registration, typically carrying an 811- prefix (e.g. "811-05719").entities) — an array of filer entity information including CIK, company name, IRS number, fiscal year end, state of incorporation, act, file number, and film number.generalInfo) — report ending period and whether the report period is less than 12 months.attachmentsTab) — boolean flags indicating whether specific exhibits are attached (legal proceedings, financial support provisions, IPA report on internal controls, change in accounting principles, exemptive order information).signature) — signer name, date, signature, and title.registrantInfo)registrantFullName) — the legal name of the registered investment company (the trust, corporation, or other legal entity that holds the registration).registrantCik) — Central Index Key, the SEC's unique numeric identifier for the registrant on EDGAR.registrantLei) — Legal Entity Identifier, the 20-character global identifier assigned under the ISO 17442 standard. Present when the registrant has obtained an LEI; not all registrants have one.registrantStreet1, registrantCity, registrantState, registrantZipCode, registrantCountry) — the registrant's principal office address including street, city, state, and ZIP code.registrantPhoneNumber) — the registrant's contact telephone number.websites) — one or more website URLs associated with the registrant.investmentCompFileNo) — the investment company file number.familyInvCompFullName) — the name of the investment company family (e.g. "BNY Mellon Family of Funds").registrantClassificationType) — the registration form type (e.g. "N-1A").totalSeries) — the number of series in the registrant.locationBooksRecords) — locations where books and records are kept, with office name, address, phone, and description of records held.isRegistrantFirstFiling, isRegistrantLastFiling) — whether this is the registrant's first or last N-CEN filing.directors) — board directors with name, CRD number, interested-person status, and associated file numbers.isPaymentDividend, paymentDividendSeries) — whether dividends were paid and which series paid them.isCoveredByInsurancePolicy, isPreviousLegalProceeding, isExemptionFromAct) — insurance coverage, legal proceedings, and exemptive order reliance flags.releaseNumbers) — SEC release numbers for exemptive orders relied upon.Form N-CEN requires disclosure of the registrant's key service providers:
investmentAdvisers) — names and SEC file numbers of the registered investment advisers managing the fund's portfolios, including both primary advisers and sub-advisers. A large fund complex may disclose dozens of sub-advisory relationships across its series.subAdvisers) — sub-adviser details including name, file number, CRD, and LEI.admins) — the entity providing fund administration services: NAV calculation, financial reporting, regulatory filing support, and fund accounting.transferAgents) — the entity maintaining shareholder records, processing purchases and redemptions, and distributing dividends and capital gains.custodians) — the bank or trust company holding the fund's portfolio securities and cash, with custody type. Most fund complexes use a single custodian across all series, but multi-custodian arrangements exist.principalUnderwriters) — the entity responsible for distributing the fund's shares to investors, typically a broker-dealer affiliate of the adviser. Includes name, file number, CRD, LEI, and affiliation status.publicAccountants) — the public accounting firm that audits the fund's financial statements, including PCAOB number and LEI. The form identifies both the current auditor and, if applicable, the predecessor auditor.securityLendings) — the entity managing the fund's securities lending program, if the fund engages in securities lending. Includes collateral manager details (collateralManagers).pricingServices) — third-party pricing vendors used for portfolio valuation.shareholderServicingAgents) — shareholder servicing agent details.Each service provider entry typically includes the provider's name, CRD number (for broker-dealers), SEC file number (for registered advisers), and LEI where applicable.
chiefComplianceOfficers) — the name, CRD number, address, phone, and employer information of the fund's chief compliance officer as required under Rule 38a-1 of the Investment Company Act. The CCO is responsible for administering the fund's compliance policies and procedures.managementInvestmentQuestionSeriesInfo)The managementInvestmentQuestionSeriesInfo array contains per-series operational details. Form N-CEN reports data at both the registrant (trust) level and the individual series (fund) and class (share class) level:
mgmtInvFundName) — the name of each fund series.mgmtInvSeriesId) — the EDGAR series identifier (e.g., "S000001911") for each fund within the registrant.mgmtInvLei) — Legal Entity Identifier for the fund.sharesOutstanding) — share classes with class name, class ID (e.g., "C000005028"), and ticker symbol.numAuthorizedClass) — the number of authorized share classes within the series.fundTypes) — fund type classifications (e.g., ["Underlying fund", "Index Fund"]).indexFundInfo) — for index funds, tracking data including return differences before/after expense and daily standard deviations.relyOnRules) — SEC rules the fund relies on.monthlyAvgNetAssets) — monthly average net assets (e.g. 3228547749).aggregateCommission) — total brokerage commissions paid.brokerDealers) — affiliated broker-dealer details with commission amounts.brokers) — non-affiliated brokers with gross commission amounts.principalTransactions) — principal transaction counterparties with total purchase/sale amounts.lineOfCredit, hasLineOfCredit) — credit facility details including size, institutions, shared credit participants, and usage.These identifiers enable linkage to other SEC filings and datasets at the fund-series and share-class level, including Form N-PORT holdings data and EDGAR's series and class database.
Form N-CEN collects extensive operational data about the fund family and its individual series. Key disclosure areas include:
Included: All structured data fields from every Form N-CEN and N-CEN/A filing on EDGAR since September 2018. This encompasses registrant identification, service provider rosters, compliance officer details, series and class identifiers, and the full range of operational disclosures reported in the filing. Filing metadata (accession number, form type, filed date, period of report) is included for each record.
Excluded: The dataset does not include the fund's portfolio holdings (reported on Form N-PORT), financial statements (reported in annual and semi-annual shareholder reports on Form N-CSR), prospectus disclosures (reported on Forms N-1A, N-2, or N-14), or the text of any exhibits attached to the N-CEN filing. The dataset captures the structured census data, not the narrative or financial content of other fund filings.
Registrant vs. series-level data: A single Form N-CEN filing covers the entire registrant (trust), which may sponsor dozens of individual fund series and hundreds of share classes. The record therefore contains both trust-level fields (registrant name, address, CCO) and repeating series-level and class-level sections. A registrant such as Vanguard Chester Funds or Fidelity Concord Street Trust with 30+ series produces one filing record with 30+ nested series sub-records, each containing its own service provider and operational disclosure data.
Amendments restate the full filing: An N-CEN/A replaces the entire prior N-CEN for the same registrant and period. Both original and amended filings appear in the dataset. Users building longitudinal panels should deduplicate by keeping the latest filing (by filed date) per registrant-period combination.
Fiscal year variation: Unlike forms tied to fixed calendar quarters, N-CEN is filed for the registrant's fiscal year-end, which varies across registrants. Common fiscal year-ends include October 31, December 31, January 31, March 31, June 30, and July 31. Filings are distributed across the calendar year rather than clustering around a single deadline.
Transition from Form N-SAR: Form N-CEN replaced Form N-SAR effective June 1, 2018. Filings before that date were submitted on Form N-SAR, which had a different structure and field set. The N-CEN dataset begins at the transition point; historical data under the N-SAR regime requires a separate dataset and field mapping.
Form N-CEN is filed by registered investment companies — entities registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940. The filing entity is the registrant, the legal entity (trust, corporation, or limited partnership) that holds the SEC registration, not the individual fund series or share class. A single registrant may sponsor many underlying fund series and share classes, all reported within one N-CEN filing.
The filing population includes:
Open-End Management Investment Companies (Mutual Funds) — the largest segment of N-CEN filers. This category encompasses traditional mutual funds organized as series trusts, where one registrant trust may house dozens of individual fund series spanning equity, fixed income, balanced, allocation, money market, and specialty strategies. Each trust files one N-CEN annually covering all of its series.
Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) — ETFs registered as open-end management investment companies or unit investment trusts file Form N-CEN. ETF-specific sections of the form collect data on authorized participants, creation and redemption activity, custom baskets, and premium/discount behavior. Many ETF sponsors organize their funds under a single series trust, producing one N-CEN filing per trust.
Closed-End Management Investment Companies — closed-end funds registered under the 1940 Act file Form N-CEN. These are typically standalone registrants (one fund per registration) rather than series trusts. Closed-end fund sections capture leverage details, managed distribution plans, tender offers, and secondary market trading data.
Unit Investment Trusts (UITs) — UITs registered under the Investment Company Act file a version of Form N-CEN. UITs are passively managed portfolios with a fixed termination date, so their operational disclosure profile differs from actively managed funds.
Business Development Companies (BDCs) — BDCs that have elected to be regulated as investment companies under Section 54 of the 1940 Act file Form N-CEN.
Variable Insurance Product Separate Accounts — insurance company separate accounts registered as investment companies file Form N-CEN, with additional sections identifying the sponsoring insurance company and the variable annuity or variable life insurance contracts funded by the separate account.
Every registered investment company must file Form N-CEN within 75 days after the end of its fiscal year. There is no asset-size threshold or event trigger — all registered investment companies file regardless of size. The most common fiscal year-ends among fund registrants are October 31 and December 31, but filings arrive throughout the year as registrants use varied fiscal year-end dates. Amendments (N-CEN/A) may be filed at any time to correct or update a previously filed N-CEN, and each amendment restates the entire filing.
Approximately 3,000 to 4,000 registrants file Form N-CEN annually, collectively covering over 10,000 individual fund series and tens of thousands of share classes.
Form N-PORT is the closest companion filing. Both were created in the 2016 reporting modernization rulemaking and both are filed by registered investment companies. They capture fundamentally different data:
Use N-PORT for portfolio analysis, asset allocation research, and security-level exposure mapping. Use N-CEN for service provider mapping, organizational structure analysis, and compliance practice benchmarking.
Form N-SAR was the semi-annual report filed by registered investment companies before Form N-CEN replaced it effective June 1, 2018. N-SAR used a legacy fixed-format structure with numbered items (Item 1 through Item 77), was filed semi-annually rather than annually, and collected less granular data. N-CEN added new disclosure categories including securities lending financials, swing pricing, ETF-specific data, and expanded derivatives and borrowing disclosures. N-SAR data ends around mid-2018; N-CEN data begins in 2018. There is no overlap period.
Form N-CSR is the filing through which registered investment companies submit annual and semi-annual shareholder reports containing audited financial statements, management discussion of fund performance, and portfolio of investments. N-CSR contains financial and narrative content; N-CEN contains structured operational and organizational census data with no financial statements or performance narrative.
Form N-1A is the registration statement and prospectus for open-end management investment companies, describing investment objectives, strategies, risks, fees, and distribution arrangements. N-1A describes what the fund intends to do; N-CEN describes what the fund actually did operationally during the reporting year and which entities serviced it.
Form ADV describes the adviser entity (ownership, client base, total AUM, fees, disciplinary history); N-CEN describes the fund entity and its service providers, including the adviser. Together they map the adviser-to-fund relationship from both directions.
Form 13F is a quarterly holdings report filed by institutional investment managers with over $100 million in Section 13(f) securities. 13F is manager-level, quarterly, and limited to exchange-listed equities. N-CEN is fund-level, annual, and covers operational data with no portfolio holdings. The datasets address entirely different analytical needs.
Form N-CEN is the only SEC filing that provides a comprehensive, structured, annual census of fund operations across the entire registered investment company industry. No other filing combines service provider rosters, compliance officer identification, organizational structure, operational practice disclosures, and series/class identifiers in a single machine-readable format.
Institutional investors conducting operational due diligence use N-CEN data to verify the service provider ecosystem around a target fund. Before allocating capital, due diligence teams confirm the identity of the fund's custodian, administrator, auditor, transfer agent, and sub-advisers. The structured format enables systematic comparison across fund families, flagging unusual arrangements such as funds using non-Big Four auditors, self-custody, or affiliated transfer agents.
Chief compliance officers and compliance teams use N-CEN data to benchmark their operational disclosures against peers, monitoring competitors' securities lending activity, derivatives usage, swing pricing adoption, and reliance on exemptive orders. They also cross-reference filed data against internal records to verify filing accuracy and prepare for SEC examinations.
Sales and relationship management teams at custodian banks, fund administrators, transfer agents, and audit firms use N-CEN data to map the competitive landscape — identifying prospects using a competitor, tracking market share, and targeting funds approaching contract renewal.
Lawyers specializing in 1940 Act regulation use N-CEN data for compliance analysis, fund structuring, and transaction support. When advising on fund mergers, reorganizations, or new launches, attorneys reference N-CEN filings to understand the existing service provider and organizational structure of the fund complex.
SEC Division of Examinations staff use N-CEN data to identify examination targets and prepare for inspections. The structured data enables screening for risk indicators: funds without Big Four auditors, high concentrations of affiliated service providers, unusual borrowing activity, or reliance on exemptive relief.
Finance academics use N-CEN data to construct variables measuring operational complexity, service provider concentration, governance quality, and organizational structure for studies of the mutual fund industry.
Data vendors building investment company databases use N-CEN as a primary structured source for fund metadata — series and class identifiers, adviser relationships, and service provider rosters feed fund profile databases, entity linkage systems, and classification taxonomies.
ETF-focused analysts use N-CEN's ETF-specific disclosures to study authorized participant relationships, custom basket usage, creation/redemption patterns, and premium/discount behavior — data not available from any other structured SEC filing.
Extract investment adviser, custodian, administrator, transfer agent, and auditor fields from every N-CEN filing to build a comprehensive service provider market map. Calculate market share by provider across the entire registered fund population, segmented by fund type (open-end, closed-end, ETF, money market), AUM tier, and strategy. Identify provider concentration — which custodian banks dominate among the largest fund complexes, which administrators serve the most series, and which audit firms have gained or lost fund clients year over year.
Build an automated due diligence screening tool that ingests N-CEN data to profile any fund family's operational infrastructure. For a given registrant CIK, extract the full roster of service providers, CCO identity, securities lending participation, derivatives usage, borrowing activity, and reliance on exemptive orders. Compare the target fund's profile against peer-group norms and flag deviations such as non-Big Four auditors for large complexes, affiliated custodians or transfer agents, or unusually high borrowing.
Filter N-CEN records for the securities lending disclosure section to identify which fund families and individual series engage in securities lending. Aggregate gross lending income, agent fees, and net lending revenue at the registrant level and across the industry. Track year-over-year changes to identify funds entering or exiting lending programs, shifts in lending agent market share, and trends in the split of lending revenue between funds and agents.
Extract ETF-specific N-CEN fields to build a database of authorized participant relationships across all ETF registrants. Identify which APs serve which ETF families, measure AP concentration, and track changes over time. Cross-reference custom basket disclosure fields to identify which ETF sponsors have adopted custom basket policies and how adoption has evolved since Rule 6c-11.
Compare the series and class identifiers reported in consecutive N-CEN filings for the same registrant to detect structural changes. A series present in year one but absent in year two signals a liquidation or merger. A new series indicates a fund launch. Changes in adviser, custodian, or registrant name across filings signal organizational restructurings. Build an event log of structural changes across the industry.
Filter N-CEN filings for the swing pricing disclosure field to measure industry-wide adoption rates. Identify which fund complexes have implemented swing pricing, segment adopters by fund type and AUM, and track adoption trends year over year. Cross-reference with fund flow data to assess whether swing pricing correlates with reduced dilution during elevated redemptions.
Build a risk-scoring model using N-CEN fields to prioritize SEC examination targets or internal compliance reviews. Weight indicators such as reliance on exemptive orders, affiliated service provider arrangements, borrowing and credit facility usage, derivatives activity, and fund-of-funds structures. Combine with filing timeliness to flag funds that file late or frequently amend. Rank registrants by composite risk score.
Download the complete dataset archive containing all Form N-CEN filing records from 2018 to the present:
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https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-ncen.zip
The full archive contains structured JSONL records covering every N-CEN and N-CEN/A filing since the form's introduction.
The dataset is organized into container files in .jsonl.gz (gzip-compressed JSON Lines) format. Download individual containers using the pattern:
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https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-ncen/{container-file-name}.jsonl.gz
Each container file holds N-CEN records for a specific time period. Each line in the decompressed JSONL file is a standalone JSON object representing one Form N-CEN filing record.
Retrieve metadata about all available containers from the dataset index API:
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https://api.sec-api.io/datasets/form-ncen.json
The index API returns a JSON object with dataset-level metadata and a list of all available container files with their download URLs, file sizes, record counts, and last-updated timestamps. Use this endpoint to identify which containers have been updated since your last download for incremental synchronization. No API key is required for this endpoint.
All download endpoints require authentication. Include your API key as a query parameter (?token=YOUR_API_KEY) with each download request. The Dataset Index JSON API does not require authentication.
The dataset is updated regularly as new N-CEN filings are published on EDGAR. New records are typically available within a short period after the source filing appears on EDGAR.
Form N-CEN is the annual census report filed by registered investment companies with the SEC. It collects structured data on the fund's organizational structure, service providers, compliance officers, series and class identifiers, and operational practices such as securities lending, derivatives usage, borrowing, and swing pricing. It replaced Form N-SAR effective June 1, 2018.
One record represents one Form N-CEN or N-CEN/A filing. The filing covers a single registrant (trust or other legal entity) for its most recently completed fiscal year. A single record may contain data for multiple fund series and share classes nested within the registrant.
Form N-PORT is the monthly portfolio holdings report — it shows what securities the fund holds. Form N-CEN is the annual operational census — it shows how the fund is organized, who services it, and what operational practices it follows. They are complementary: N-PORT for portfolio analysis, N-CEN for operational and organizational analysis.
Form N-CEN is due 75 days after the registrant's fiscal year-end, and fund registrants use a variety of fiscal year-end dates (October 31, December 31, March 31, and others). This distributes filings across the calendar year.
Both original and amended filings appear in the dataset. An amendment restates the entire filing. For longitudinal analysis, deduplicate by keeping the latest filing (by filed date) for each registrant CIK and period of report combination.
All registered investment companies: open-end mutual funds, ETFs, closed-end funds, unit investment trusts, business development companies, and insurance company separate accounts registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940.
No. Portfolio holdings are reported on Form N-PORT, not Form N-CEN. This dataset covers operational, organizational, and service provider data.
The registrant is the legal entity (trust or corporation) registered with the SEC. A single registrant may sponsor many individual fund series (e.g., an equity fund, a bond fund, a money market fund) and each series may have multiple share classes. One N-CEN filing covers the entire registrant and all of its series and classes.
No. Form N-CEN was introduced effective June 1, 2018. Data before that date was filed on Form N-SAR, which had a different structure and is not part of this dataset.