Form REVOKED Files Dataset

The Form REVOKED Files Dataset contains SEC administrative orders that involuntarily revoke a company's Exchange Act securities registration under Section 12(j) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 or suspend the effectiveness of a Securities Act registration statement via a stop order under Section 8 of the Securities Act of 1933. Each record represents one Commission order posted to EDGAR under the form type REVOKED, stored as a folder containing a metadata.json sidecar and the primary order document in PDF format. The SEC itself is the publishing party — these are not filer-initiated disclosures but formal enforcement orders targeting registrants that have failed to comply with reporting obligations or whose registration statements contain material deficiencies. The dataset covers orders from April 2012 to present, distributed as monthly ZIP archives.

Dataset APIs

Dataset Files

What This Dataset Contains

The Form REVOKED Files Dataset captures the complete population of Commission revocation and stop orders posted to EDGAR as discrete submissions under the REVOKED form type. The underlying documents are formal administrative orders — legal instruments that terminate a company's public registration — not voluntary filings by registrants. The vast majority arise under Section 12(j) of the Exchange Act, targeting issuers whose chronic failure to file periodic reports (10-Ks, 10-Qs) left public information about the company stale or nonexistent. A smaller number are stop orders under Section 8 of the Securities Act, addressing material misstatements or omissions in registration statements.

The dataset is distributed as monthly ZIP archives named YYYY-MM.zip. Each archive contains one sub-folder per accession number, and each sub-folder holds a metadata.json file and the primary order document as a PDF. Volume varies substantially across months — recent months typically hold one to twenty records, but earlier periods show large spikes from batch revocation proceedings (September 2013, for example, reflects 1,196 records from proceedings targeting hundreds of delinquent shell companies simultaneously). The dataset begins in April 2012, which reflects when the SEC began systematically posting revocation orders as discrete EDGAR submissions, not the start of the Commission's revocation authority.

Content Structure of a Single Record

A single record in the Form REVOKED Files Dataset is one Commission order, stored as a folder named by its accession number (dashes stripped) within a monthly ZIP archive. The folder contains a metadata.json sidecar and the primary document file — almost always a single PDF reproducing the full text of the Commission's order. The accession number carries the special CIK prefix 9999999997-, a reserved EDGAR identifier for Commission administrative proceedings rather than any individual filer's CIK.

A representative folder structure:

          1
          2025-08/
        

          2
            999999999725003341/
        

          3
              metadata.json
        

          4
              filename1.pdf
        

metadata.json — structured filing metadata

Every record folder contains a metadata.json file capturing the EDGAR submission header and index information. Its fields fall into several groups.

Core identifiers

• id — a unique hex string (e.g., "0390f03ebe937153b409a2648feca41d").
• accessionNo — the dash-separated EDGAR accession number (e.g., "9999999997-25-003341").
• formType — always "REVOKED".

Dates and description

• filedAt — filing timestamp in ISO 8601 format with UTC offset (e.g., "2025-08-13T06:56:14-04:00").
• description — a free-text summary typically structured as "Form REVOKED - Commission order revoking Exchange Act registration [Section 12(j)] - Item 20250813 Item 20250812". This string encodes the regulatory section invoked and date-stamped references. The bracketed section citation (e.g., [Section 12(j)]) and the Item YYYYMMDD tokens are parseable but not standardized in the way that Form 8-K Item numbers are.

URL links

• linkToFilingDetails — URL to the primary document (usually the PDF).
• linkToTxt — URL to the complete submission text file on EDGAR.
• linkToHtml — URL to the EDGAR filing index page.
• linkToXbrl — always an empty string; revocation orders carry no XBRL data.

Document manifest (documentFormatFiles)

An array listing documents in the submission. Each element has sequence (ordinal position, as a string), size (byte count, as a string), documentUrl, type (typically "REVOKED" for the primary document), and an optional description. A typical filing has two entries: the primary revocation-order PDF at sequence "1" and the complete submission text file (whose sequence and type fields are blank strings).

Entity information (entities)

An array of one or more objects identifying the registrant(s) subject to the order. Each entity object includes:

Items array

The items field contains date-based identifiers (e.g., "Item 20250813: ", "Item 20250812: "). These are EDGAR header date stamps, not the numbered Item types used in 8-K or Form 10-K filings. They typically correspond to dates referenced in the order, such as the order date and the revocation effective date.

Empty fields

dataFiles and seriesAndClassesContractsInformation are consistently empty arrays for REVOKED filings. No XBRL exhibits, data tags, or fund-related disclosures accompany these administrative orders.

Primary document — the Commission's revocation order (PDF)

The substantive content of each record is the administrative order itself, delivered as a PDF. File names follow no fixed convention and may be generic (e.g., filename1.pdf). The document is typically two to four pages of formal legal prose. Its internal structure follows a numbered-section template:

Heading block. The document opens with the agency identification ("UNITED STATES OF AMERICA / Before the SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION"), followed by the statute and release number (e.g., "SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 / Release No. 103683 / August 11, 2025") and the administrative proceeding file number.

Caption. A boxed or formatted caption names the respondent and states the order's title, identifying the regulatory basis — for example, "ORDER MAKING FINDINGS AND REVOKING REGISTRATION OF SECURITIES PURSUANT TO SECTION 12(j) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934."

Section I — Procedural introduction. Establishes the procedural posture: whether the Commission is acting on an Offer of Settlement under Rule 240(a) of the Rules of Practice, or on default after the respondent failed to answer the Order Instituting Proceedings (OIP). States when the proceeding was initiated and under what statutory authority.

Section II — Consent and scope (settlement cases). In orders based on a settlement offer, this section recites the respondent's consent terms: that the respondent neither admits nor denies findings except as to jurisdiction and subject matter. In default proceedings, this section may be absent or replaced by a procedural recitation of service and non-response.

Section III — Findings of fact. The substantive core of the order, containing numbered findings that detail:

• The registrant's identity, CIK number, state of incorporation, location, and the class of securities registered with the Commission (usually under Exchange Act Section 12(g)).
• The current trading status of the registrant's securities.
• The specific reporting failures: which periodic filings (annual reports on Form 10-K under Rule 13a-1, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q under Rule 13a-13, or both) the registrant failed to file, and the date of the last filing made.
• The duration of noncompliance, which often spans multiple years.

In stop-order proceedings under Section 8 of the Securities Act, the findings instead address deficiencies in a registration statement — material misstatements or omissions.

Section IV — Legal standard and disposition. Quotes or paraphrases the operative statutory text (Section 12(j) or Section 8), then states the Commission's conclusion that revocation (or suspension) is necessary and appropriate for the protection of investors. In contested proceedings, this section may include a multi-factor analysis under Gateway International Holdings, Inc. case law.

Operative order paragraph. States the formal disposition: that registration of each class of the respondent's securities is revoked pursuant to Section 12(j), with a specified effective date. A footnote commonly clarifies that the order applies to all classes of the respondent's securities registered under Section 12.

Signature block. An authority line ("For the Commission, by its Secretary, pursuant to delegated authority") followed by the name and title of the Secretary of the Commission.

Structural variation across orders

Not all REVOKED orders follow the four-section template exactly. Key variations include:

• Default proceedings typically include a recitation of service on the respondent, the respondent's failure to answer, and the deeming of OIP allegations as admitted. These orders tend to be shorter and more formulaic.
• Contested proceedings with substantive findings of fact, evidentiary citations, and extended legal analysis are far less common but produce longer, more detailed documents.
• ALJ-adopted orders reflect the Commission's adoption of an administrative law judge's initial decision and may include additional procedural history about the hearing process.
• Batch revocation orders name multiple respondents in a single proceeding. In such cases a single PDF may list dozens of entities, and the entities array in metadata.json contains multiple objects. These batch orders use a standardized template with minimal individualized findings. The early dataset period (2012–2013) contains particularly large batches.
• Settlement versus default orders differ in their procedural sections: settlement orders include an Offer of Settlement framework and explicit consent language; default orders include deeming language.

What the dataset includes

Each record folder contains:

• The metadata.json sidecar with EDGAR index metadata, entity identifiers, document manifest, and URL links.
• The primary Commission order document as a PDF file.
• The complete submission text file is referenced in the document manifest and accessible via URL, but is typically not present as a separate file in the folder.

What the dataset excludes

• Related proceedings. The dataset contains only the Form REVOKED filing itself. It does not include the preceding Order Instituting Proceedings (OIP), any interim orders, trading suspension orders under Section 12(k), or the registrant's delinquent periodic reports.
• Image files. Image files are excluded from the record folder, though these orders rarely contain embedded images.
• Post-revocation activity. The dataset does not track whether a revoked registrant later sought re-registration or whether successor entities were formed.

Interpretation and extraction notes

Accession-number CIK versus entity CIK. The accession number prefix 9999999997 is the Commission's administrative CIK, not the CIK of the affected registrant. The registrant's actual CIK appears in the entities array. Analysts linking REVOKED records to a registrant's filing history must use the entity-level cik field, not the accession-number prefix. The EDGAR filing path URL (visible in linkToFilingDetails) does contain the registrant's CIK as a path segment (e.g., /data/1003642/), which provides a cross-check.

Multiple entities. When a single revocation proceeding names multiple respondents, the entities array contains multiple objects, each with its own CIK, SIC code, state of incorporation, and file number. The PDF in such cases addresses all named respondents in a single document.

Description field parsing. The description string encodes the regulatory section in square brackets (e.g., [Section 12(j)]) and date-stamped Item YYYYMMDD tokens. The item dates typically correspond to the order date and the revocation effective date but are not formally specified and should be treated as approximate references.

PDF text extraction. The primary documents are text-based PDFs (not scanned images), so text extraction is generally reliable. However, formatting artifacts — headers, footers, page numbers, mid-paragraph line breaks, and the boxed caption layout — require cleanup. The content is almost entirely narrative legal prose with no embedded tables. Footnotes appear at page bottom with superscript reference numbers.

Document format consistency. Throughout the entire dataset period (April 2012 to present), the primary document format has been PDF. Unlike registrant-initiated filings that evolved from ASCII to HTML to inline XBRL, Commission administrative orders have been issued as PDFs consistently. The metadata.json sidecar structure has likewise remained stable.

Incorporation by reference. Revocation orders do not incorporate content by reference. Each order is self-contained, stating its own findings and legal basis. However, orders routinely cite prior Commission releases, OIPs, and ALJ initial decisions by release or file number.

Amendments. Amended Form REVOKED filings are uncommon. When they occur, they appear as separate accession-number folders in the dataset with distinct accession numbers.

Who Files or Publishes This Dataset, and When

The SEC itself is the author of every record in the Form REVOKED Files Dataset. These are Commission orders, not filings submitted by a registrant. The SEC posts each order to EDGAR under the form type REVOKED, indexed against the CIK of the affected company. The company named in the order is the subject, not the filer — making Form REVOKED unusual among EDGAR form types, where the CIK on the filing typically belongs to the entity that submitted it.

Who is affected

The registrants named in these orders are companies that previously had securities registered under the Exchange Act or that filed registration statements under the Securities Act. Common profiles include:

• Delinquent domestic issuers — companies with equity registered under Section 12(b) or 12(g) of the Exchange Act that stopped filing periodic reports (10-K, 10-Q, 8-K) for extended periods, often years.
• Shell companies and dormant issuers — entities with nominal Exchange Act registrations that ceased all reporting activity. The Commission has conducted periodic batch sweeps targeting these filers.
• Foreign private issuers — companies registered under the Exchange Act (typically on Form 20-F) that fell out of compliance. Less common but present in the dataset.
• Securities Act registrants — issuers whose registration statements under the Securities Act of 1933 were found materially defective, leading to a Section 8 stop order. These are a small minority of records.

The dataset does not cover investment companies registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, which follow separate deregistration procedures.

Triggering events

Each record is created when the Commission enters an administrative order. The upstream causes are:

• Prolonged reporting delinquency (most common). The Division of Enforcement identifies issuers that have failed to file required periodic reports for an extended period, initiates proceedings under Section 12(j) of the Exchange Act, and obtains a revocation order — often by default when the issuer does not respond.
• Material misstatements in a registration statement. Under Section 8 of the Securities Act, the Commission issues a stop order when a registration statement contains untrue statements of material fact or material omissions.
• Other Exchange Act violations. Occasionally, a Section 12(j) revocation rests on noncompliance with provisions beyond periodic reporting, such as proxy or beneficial-ownership rules.

Both types of orders follow adversarial administrative proceedings initiated by the Commission's Division of Enforcement. Proceedings may be contested or may proceed by default.

Timing and cadence

Form REVOKED records are entirely event-driven. There is no periodic schedule.

• The Commission has broad discretion on when to bring proceedings; an issuer may be delinquent for years before action is taken.
• Batch processing is common — the Commission frequently revokes registrations in groups, producing clusters of records on a single EDGAR filing date.
• The EDGAR posting date reflects when the order is entered or becomes effective.
• Orders are not amended. If the Commission later modifies or vacates an order, that would be a separate action.

How This Dataset Differs From Similar Datasets or Filings

Several nearby SEC datasets and filing types cover adjacent stages of deregistration, enforcement, or market exit. The Form REVOKED Files Dataset is the only structured EDGAR dataset that records Commission-ordered terminations of registration at per-registrant granularity, each tied to a CIK and accession number.

Form 15 / Form 15-12G (voluntary deregistration)

The most frequently confused counterpart. Both end a company's Exchange Act reporting obligations, but the mechanism is opposite. Form 15 is filed voluntarily by the registrant when it meets eligibility criteria (e.g., falling below holder-of-record thresholds). Form REVOKED is an involuntary Commission order imposed for prolonged noncompliance. Form 15 filers are typically functioning companies choosing to go dark; Form REVOKED targets are overwhelmingly delinquent or defunct issuers. A complete study of deregistration requires both, but they are not substitutes.

Form 25 (exchange-initiated delisting and deregistration)

Filed by a national securities exchange (NYSE, Nasdaq) to remove a security from listing, often withdrawing Exchange Act registration in the process. The key difference is the actor and the trigger: Form 25 reflects an exchange enforcing its own listing standards (share price, market cap, governance); Form REVOKED reflects the Commission enforcing statutory reporting obligations. A company delisted via Form 25 may retain its SEC registration. A company subject to Form REVOKED has lost registration entirely.

Administrative Proceedings releases (AAERs and litigation releases)

AAERs often describe the same misconduct — reporting failures, fraud — that leads to a revocation. The overlap is in subject matter, not structure. AAERs are narrative enforcement documents published through the SEC's release system, not EDGAR form filings. A single AAER may cover multiple respondents and multiple sanctions (bars, penalties, cease-and-desist orders) alongside or instead of a revocation. The Form REVOKED Files Dataset is the structured EDGAR record of the revocation itself, tied to one registrant's CIK and accession number. Researchers tracking the legal reasoning behind a revocation need AAERs; researchers identifying which registrations were revoked and when need Form REVOKED.

Trading suspension orders (Section 12(k))

The SEC can temporarily suspend trading for up to ten business days. Suspensions frequently precede revocation proceedings but differ in duration, legal authority, and effect. A suspension is an emergency interim measure; a revocation is permanent. Suspension notices are published as press releases or administrative orders on the SEC website, not as EDGAR form filings. Many suspended companies later appear in the Form REVOKED Files Dataset, but the two actions are procedurally and temporally distinct.

10-K / 10-Q periodic filing datasets

Prolonged failure to file 10-Ks and 10-Qs is the most common factual basis for a revocation order. Periodic filing datasets are upstream: the absence of filings is what triggers the enforcement action recorded in Form REVOKED. The periodic datasets are vastly larger, cover all reporting companies, and contain financial disclosure. The Form REVOKED Files Dataset is enforcement-focused and contains only the administrative order text. Both are needed to study the pipeline from delinquency to revocation.

Who Uses This Dataset

The Form REVOKED Files Dataset serves a focused set of professional functions united by one need: identifying companies forcibly removed from U.S. public reporting, understanding why, and acting on that information.

Broker-dealer and transfer agent compliance teams

Compliance officers use the dataset to maintain restricted-security lists. When a revocation order posts, trading desks and clearinghouses must cease transactions in the affected security. Teams monitor new filings to flag open positions, block trade processing, and update shareholder registries. The registrant name, CIK, and effective date are the critical fields; the regulatory basis section confirms whether the order is final.

OTC market surveillance analysts

Surveillance teams at OTC venues and self-regulatory organizations cross-reference revocation orders against active quotation systems. Securities of revoked issuers often continue circulating in grey markets, creating exposure to pump-and-dump schemes and unauthorized trading. The order text, which describes the nature and duration of reporting failures, helps analysts gauge issuer risk and prioritize investigations.

Securities enforcement and litigation counsel

Attorneys use the order text to research revocation practice, advise respondents in pending proceedings, and build pattern-of-conduct arguments in related fraud cases. The findings of fact (reporting failures, shell-company indicators, fraud references) and the specific Exchange Act provisions cited in each order are the most closely examined sections.

Due diligence and background investigation teams

Investigators search by registrant name and CIK to determine whether a counterparty, acquisition target, or its principals were subject to forced deregistration. The order text surfaces references to specific individuals, related entities, and patterns of noncompliance. Results feed directly into risk memoranda, transaction clearance decisions, and know-your-customer workflows.

Forensic accounting and fraud detection analysts

Forensic teams study the population of revoked registrants to build shell-company risk profiles. Many orders describe issuers that filed no reports for years or maintained no auditable books. By mapping networks of related revoked entities, analysts develop early-warning indicators applicable to active filers.

Financial data engineers and reference data teams

Data engineers at financial data vendors and institutional asset managers ingest the dataset's metadata to flag revoked entities as inactive, mark security identifiers as non-tradable, and close filing histories. Linking revocation events to entity records by CIK prevents downstream errors in portfolio accounting, index construction, and regulatory reporting.

AML and financial crime analysts

Anti-money-laundering teams incorporate revocation data into transaction-monitoring rules. Revoked issuers, especially dormant shells, are frequently implicated in unauthorized share issuance and manipulation of thinly traded securities. The order text supports investigations triggered by suspicious activity reports tied to formerly registered companies.

Regulatory policy and enforcement researchers

Researchers studying SEC enforcement patterns and deregistration trends use the dataset as a structured population for quantitative analysis: enforcement volume over time, issuer types targeted, average noncompliance duration before revocation, and provisions most frequently invoked. Filing dates, order text, and regulatory basis are the key fields.

Specific Use Cases

Maintaining restricted-security and non-tradable lists

Broker-dealer compliance teams and transfer agents ingest new Form REVOKED filings to block trade processing in revoked securities. The entity-level CIK, registrant name, and revocation effective date from metadata.json feed directly into restricted-security lists and clearinghouse filters. Linking the entity CIK to existing security master records ensures positions are flagged and shareholder registries updated before residual trading occurs.

Screening counterparties and acquisition targets for forced deregistration

Due diligence teams search the dataset by registrant name, CIK, or IRS number to determine whether a counterparty or target was subject to a Commission revocation order. The findings-of-fact section in the PDF order surfaces related entities, named individuals, and the nature of noncompliance. Results feed into risk memoranda, transaction clearance decisions, and know-your-customer reviews.

Detecting shell-company networks through related revocation orders

Forensic analysts map clusters of revoked registrants that share incorporation jurisdictions, SIC codes, or overlapping noncompliance timelines. Batch revocation orders — particularly the large proceedings from 2012–2013 naming dozens of respondents in a single PDF — provide a ready-made population of defunct shells. These networks serve as training data for shell-company risk models applied to active filers.

Monitoring OTC grey-market exposure after revocation

Surveillance teams at OTC venues cross-reference new revocation orders against active quotation systems to identify securities still circulating after registration is terminated. The order text describes the duration and severity of reporting failures, helping analysts prioritize which revoked issuers pose the greatest manipulation risk. The description field's bracketed section citation (e.g., [Section 12(j)]) provides a quick filter for order type without opening the PDF.

Enriching AML transaction-monitoring rules with revocation events

Anti-money-laundering analysts incorporate revocation records into alert logic that flags transactions involving formerly registered companies. Revoked issuers — especially those with years of delinquent filings documented in the order text — are common vehicles for unauthorized share issuance. The entity CIK and IRS number link revocation events to existing entity records in transaction-monitoring platforms.

Studying SEC enforcement patterns and deregistration trends

Policy researchers use the dataset as a structured population for longitudinal analysis of Commission revocation activity. Filing dates, regulatory section citations parsed from the description field, SIC codes, and incorporation jurisdictions support studies of enforcement volume over time, industry concentration, and average noncompliance duration before revocation. Combining Form REVOKED records with Form 15-12G filings produces a complete picture of both voluntary and involuntary exits from Exchange Act reporting.

Dataset Access

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

This endpoint returns metadata about the Form REVOKED Files Dataset, including the dataset name, description, last updated timestamp, earliest sample date, total records and total size, covered form types, container format (ZIP), and content file types (PDF, JSON). It also returns the download URL for the entire dataset archive and a list of all individual container files with per-container metadata such as file size, record count, last updated timestamp, and download URL. No API key is required to access this endpoint.

Use this endpoint to monitor which containers have been updated in the most recent refresh run, so you can decide which containers to download on a daily basis rather than re-downloading the full archive each time.

          1
          {
        

          2
            "datasetId": "1f13365b-9ae0-6944-8c91-2cf70772d973",
        

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

          4
            "name": "Form REVOKED Files Dataset",
        

          5
            "updatedAt": "2026-04-15T06:25:52.188Z",
        

          6
            "earliestSampleDate": "2012-04-01",
        

          7
            "totalRecords": 6212,
        

          8
            "totalSize": 623323978,
        

          9
            "formTypes": ["REVOKED"],
        

          10
            "containerFormat": "ZIP",
        

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

          12
            "containers": [
        

          13
              {
        

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

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

          16
                "size": 1245678,
        

          17
                "records": 12,
        

          18
                "updatedAt": "2026-04-15T06:25:52.188Z"
        

          19
              }
        

          20
            ]
        

          21
          }
        

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

Downloads the full dataset as a single ZIP archive containing all Form REVOKED filing documents from April 2012 to present. This endpoint requires an API key.

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

Downloads one individual container file, such as a specific monthly archive, instead of the full dataset. Use the container paths returned by the dataset index JSON API to construct the download URL. This endpoint requires an API key.

Frequently Asked Questions

What form type does this dataset cover?

The dataset covers the REVOKED form type on EDGAR — formal SEC administrative orders that revoke a company's Exchange Act securities registration under Section 12(j) or suspend a Securities Act registration statement under Section 8.

What does one record in the Form REVOKED Files Dataset represent?

Each record is one Commission revocation or stop order, stored as a folder containing a metadata.json sidecar and the primary order document as a PDF. The folder is named by its accession number (dashes stripped) and sits inside a monthly ZIP archive.

Who publishes Form REVOKED filings — the company or the SEC?

The SEC itself publishes every Form REVOKED record. These are Commission-issued enforcement orders, not voluntary filings by the affected company. The registrant named in the order is the subject, not the filer.

What time period does the dataset cover?

The dataset begins in April 2012, when the SEC started systematically posting revocation orders as discrete EDGAR submissions under the REVOKED form type. New orders are added on an event-driven basis as the Commission enters them.

How does Form REVOKED differ from Form 15?

Form 15 is a voluntary filing by a registrant that meets eligibility criteria (such as falling below holder-of-record thresholds) to terminate its Exchange Act reporting obligations. Form REVOKED is involuntary — the Commission initiates it against registrants that have failed to comply with reporting or disclosure requirements.

What file formats are included in each record?

Each record folder contains a metadata.json file with structured EDGAR metadata and a PDF file containing the full text of the Commission's administrative order. The primary document format has been PDF consistently throughout the entire dataset period.

Why does the accession number use CIK 9999999997 instead of the company's CIK?

The CIK 9999999997 is a reserved EDGAR identifier for Commission administrative proceedings. The affected registrant's actual CIK appears in the entities array within metadata.json. Analysts linking revocation records to a company's filing history should use the entity-level cik field, not the accession-number prefix.