There are numerous forms that companies must file with the SEC. A complete list of SEC filings is available at the Securities Exchange Commission website.
Corporate Filings & Annual Reports
Resources for Obtaining Annual Reports & SEC Filings
*Annual reports are provided only if the company chooses to file them with the SEC.
- Bloomberg
Business Electronic Resources
Bloomberg contains EDGAR filings. To get a list of a company's EDGAR filings, type: "[ticker symbol] <EQUITY> CF <GO>" . Bloomberg has filings back to 1993. - Capital IQ
Current non-Business School affiliates can use Capital IQ at one of the four designated terminals in the library.
Business School students and faculty must request individual accounts. For access information see: Business 24/7 Help. Access to this resource is restricted to CURRENT Columbia University affiliates.
- Company Home Pages
One of the best places to find a company's annual reports and filings is that company's home page. Most public companies have an "investor relations" page on their website that provides annual report(s) and/or SEC filings. - EDGAR: The Official Securities Exchange Commission filings database
EDGAR is the key database for SEC filings; almost all financial, operations, and ownership data is derived from documents in the EDGAR database. The Securities Exchange Commission's Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system (EDGAR), performs automated collection, validation, indexing, acceptance, and forwarding of SEC filings. Not all documents filed with the Commission by public companies are available on EDGAR; for example, filings by foreign companies are not required to be filed on EDGAR, but some of these companies do so voluntarily. - Thomson ONE
Thomson ONE contains real-time and historical SEC EDGAR filings, scanned images of company annual reports and foreign exchange filings.
Historical Annual Reports & SEC Filings
- The Business and Economics Library has on microfiche Annual Reports to Stockholders, 10Ks, Prospectuses and Proxies for NYSE and ASE companies. They are filed alphabetically in the cabinets with the red discs in the microforms area, first floor. Both microfiche readers and reader/printers are located in this area. Annual reports and 10Ks generally are from 1969 - 1994.
Please consult the Excel finding aid for a list of companies and available reports.
For annual reports before 1934, consult the library's collection of Historical Corporate Annual Reports. Columbia University's Watson Library of Business and Economics owns a unique collection of historical annual reports.
The 4,482 corporations whose reports comprise the collection represent most of the industries that were instrumental in the creation of early industrialized America.
All reports are housed in Columbia University Libraries' off-site facility. To request a report:
1. Open Excel finding aid and find the company in the list
2. Write down the barcode associated with the company
3. Call or visit the Business and Economics Library to request the report from off-site [barcode is needed]* Telephone: (212) 854-7804 or e-mail.
*Reports must be requested in advance and be used in the library.
Please note that access policies for Columbia University Libraries differ for non-affiliates. - ProQuest Historical Annual Reports
Database offers corporate annual reports for U.S. companies from 1884 to the present. Key data (financial, Fortune 500 ranking, industry classification, key people, geographic location, auditor, and related companies) are indexed in the citation and can be searched. Reports can be browsed by company name, industry or date.
Search this guide

Watson Library Blog