AlterLab

Posted on Jul 15 • Originally published at alterlab.io

SEC EDGAR Data API: Extract Structured JSON in 2026

#dataextraction #api #python

TL;DR

Extract SEC EDGAR pages with a POST to the Extract API, define a JSON schema for title, identifier, date_published, category and description, and receive validated JSON. This approach avoids fragile HTML parsing and gives predictable cost.

Why use SEC EDGAR data?

AI training pipelines that need clean, government‑issued filings
Financial analytics that track 10‑K and 8‑K filings across companies
Competitive intelligence that monitors filing frequency and topics

What data can you extract?

SEC EDGAR publishes only public filings. Typical fields include:

title: The document headline
identifier: CIK or accession number
date_published: Filing date in ISO format
category: Document type such as "10-K" or "8-K"
description: Brief summary of the filing’s content

All of these are openly available; no login or paywall is required.

The extraction approach

Scraping SEC EDGAR pages with raw HTTP requests and HTML parsing breaks whenever the site updates its layout or adds anti‑bot checks. A data API abstracts that complexity. AlterLab’s Extract API handles:

Automatic request routing and proxy rotation
HTML‑to‑JSON conversion that respects robots.txt
Schema validation that guarantees field types

The result is a predictable, typed JSON payload you can store directly in your pipeline.

Quick start with AlterLab Extract API

First install the client library or use curl. See our Getting started guide for full setup details.

Python example

```python title="extract_sec-gov.py" {5-12}

client = alterlab.Client("YOUR_API_KEY")

schema = {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"title": {"type": "string", "description": "The title field"},
"identifier": {"type": "string", "description": "The identifier field"},
"date_published": {"type": "string", "description": "The date published field"},
"category": {"type": "string", "description": "The category field"},
"description": {"type": "string", "description": "The description field"}
}
}

result = client.extract(
url="https://sec.gov/example-page",
schema=schema,
)
print(result.data)




### cURL example


```bash title="Terminal"
curl -X POST https://api.alterlab.io/v1/extract \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://sec.gov/example-page",
    "schema": {"properties": {"title": {"type": "string"}, "identifier": {"type": "string"}, "date_published": {"type": "string"}}}
  }'

Both examples return a JSON object that matches the schema exactly, eliminating the need for post‑processing.

Define your schema

The schema parameter describes the shape of the output. Use standard JSON Schema syntax; AlterLab validates the extracted data against it and returns only fields that conform. This guarantees that your downstream code can rely on title being a string, date_published on an ISO‑8601 timestamp, and so on.

Handle pagination and scale

For a single filing the request is quick, but high‑volume pipelines need batching. Use the /v1/batch endpoint to queue multiple URLs, then poll for completion. Responses include a job ID you can use with webhooks to trigger downstream processing.

Cost scales with request complexity. Review AlterLab pricing at AlterLab pricing to estimate expense before committing. Minimum cost is $0.001; maximum is $0.50. When you register a BYOK key, the orchestration fee is a flat $0.0003; otherwise the platform rate applies.

Key takeaways

SEC EDGAR provides only public data; always respect robots.txt.
Use a schema to get typed JSON without manual parsing.
AlterLab’s Extract API manages anti‑bot bypass, cost estimation and scaling.
Batch and async workflows let you process hundreds of filings per minute.

Batch/async usage example

```python title="batch_async.py" {10-20}