Form 13F Instructions: How to Complete and File It Correctly

Form 13F's own general instructions cover more than the $100 million threshold and the 45 day deadline that most guides repeat. They also spell out how to get EDGAR access in the first place, what the form's three parts actually require, how strict the SEC is about confidential treatment, and how to fix a filing that was wrong. This post walks through those instructions in the order a filer actually needs them.

For who has to file and when, see Form 13F filing requirements, which this post does not repeat. This one is about completing and submitting the form correctly once you know you have to file.

Getting access to file

Form 13F cannot be mailed, faxed, or emailed to the SEC. The form's general instructions require electronic submission through EDGAR, the SEC's Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval system, and a manager needs two things before it can file anything there:

1. A Central Index Key (CIK), the SEC's permanent identifier for the filer.
2. EDGAR access codes: a CIK Confirmation Code (CCC), a password, and a password modification authorization code (PMAC).

A manager that has never filed with the SEC applies for both through Form ID, submitted on the SEC's EDGAR Filer Management website. The application requires identifying information about the manager and, historically, a notarized copy of the form as part of verifying the applicant's identity. Once the SEC accepts the application, it issues the CIK and the manager generates its own password and PMAC. A manager that already has a CIK from registering elsewhere with the SEC, but no EDGAR filing codes yet, applies separately for just the codes.

The three parts of Form 13F

Every Form 13F submission, whether an original filing or an amendment, has three parts:

• Cover page. Names the manager, its address, the report type (original or amendment), the period covered, and whether the filer is reporting alone or as part of a group.
• Report summary. States the number of holdings reported and the total market value of those holdings, so EDGAR and anyone reading the filing can sanity check the information table against a stated total.
• Information table. The actual position-by-position data: every qualifying security the manager held discretion over at quarter end.

A manager with no reportable holdings for a quarter still has to file something. It submits a Form 13F "notice" instead of a holdings report, which carries the cover page but no information table. The Form 13F-NT notice reports dataset tracks that filer group specifically; the holdings-bearing filings land in the Form 13F-HR dataset.

What the information table requires

The instructions specify exactly what each row of the information table must carry:

Before including a security on the table, a manager checks it against the SEC's Official List of Section 13(f) Securities, published each quarter. Only securities on that list count toward both the $100 million threshold and the information table. What a 13F filing actually shows covers how to read the resulting rows once a filing is public.

Confidential treatment is stricter than it looks

The instructions let a manager ask the SEC to withhold specific holdings from public disclosure for a limited time, under Rule 24b-2. One category gets automatic treatment: positions related to an ongoing risk arbitrage strategy can be withheld for up to a year from the filing's due date without a case-by-case review, and the manager can file a fresh request when that period runs out.

Every other confidential treatment request has to clear a higher bar. The SEC's Division of Investment Management has said directly that a request needs enough factual detail about the specific strategy and the manager's competitive position for the Commission to judge the request on its merits, not a general statement that disclosure would hurt the manager's trading.

That standard is not theoretical. In 2005 the SEC's Division of Investment Management denied confidential treatment requests from Two Sigma Investments, LLC, and Two Sigma petitioned the full Commission to review the denial. The Commission sided with the Division, issuing two orders on July 27, 2005 (Release Nos. 34-52134 and 34-52135), both titled "Order Denying Requests for Confidential Treatment." Most pages explaining how to request confidential treatment on a 13F do not mention that the SEC has formally enforced the factual-basis requirement against a real filer, twice, at the Commission level rather than just at staff level.

Correcting a filing: amendments

If a Form 13F already filed turns out to be wrong or incomplete, the fix is an amendment, not a brand new original filing. The cover page of an amendment has to say which of two things it is:

• A restatement, which replaces the entire original report, including every row of the information table.
• An addition, which includes only the holdings that were missing from the already-public filing for that period, leaving the rest of the original in place.

Treat those two types differently if you are collecting 13F data yourself: a restatement supersedes everything in the original filing for that period, while an addition has to be combined with it to see the full picture. The accession number of the amendment is distinct from the original's, so you need both to reconstruct the final, corrected position list for a manager and quarter.

Working with Form 13F data as code

Reading a manager's cover page and report summary without opening the filing on EDGAR:

curl "https://secfeedapi.com/v1/form-13f?cik=1067983" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

To tell an original filing from its amendments in code, the holdings endpoint carries an isAmendment flag on every row, and filtering by accessionNo returns one filing's rows in the filing's own order:

from secfeed import Client

sf = Client("YOUR_API_KEY")
rows = sf.holdings_13f(cik="1067983", period="06-30-2026")
originals = [r for r in rows if not r["isAmendment"]]
amendments = [r for r in rows if r["isAmendment"]]
print(len(originals), "original rows,", len(amendments), "amendment rows")

Both endpoints return the same fields the manager's XML information table carries, including CUSIP, value, shares, and voting authority, so you can build the cover-page-plus-positions view the form itself produces without parsing the XML by hand. Form 13F filing requirements covers the $100 million threshold and the 45 day deadline these instructions assume you already know, and the Form 13F Holdings API documents every field the information table exposes.

Frequently asked questions

Can Form 13F be filed on paper?

No. The form's general instructions require electronic filing through EDGAR using access codes issued through a Form ID application. There is no routine paper filing option.

What are the three parts of Form 13F?

A cover page naming the manager and report type, a report summary stating the total number of holdings and their combined value, and an information table listing every qualifying position.

How do I request confidential treatment on a Form 13F?

Under Rule 24b-2 and the form's instructions, a request needs a specific factual basis describing the strategy and competitive harm disclosure would cause. Automatic confidential treatment for up to a year applies only to positions tied to an ongoing risk arbitrage strategy; every other request is reviewed case by case and can be denied, as the SEC's Division of Investment Management and later the full Commission did to Two Sigma Investments in 2005.

What is the difference between a restated amendment and an added-holdings amendment?

A restated amendment replaces the entire original report. An added-holdings amendment includes only the positions that were missing from the original and has to be combined with it to see the full corrected picture.

What counts as a reportable security on Form 13F?

Only securities on the SEC's quarterly Official List of Section 13(f) Securities, which is mostly US exchange-listed common stock, many ETFs, certain convertible securities, and listed equity options.