Beneficial Ownership
See every holder of more than 5% of a US public company, from SEC Schedules 13D and 13G. Activist and passive stakes with full amendment history.
Overview
The beneficial ownership API returns the holders of more than 5% of a class of a company’s shares, sourced from SEC Schedules 13D and 13G. Both schedules report the same thing — a 5%+ stake — and differ by intent:- Schedule 13D (
type=activist): the holder may seek to influence control (proxy fights, board seats, pushing for a sale). - Schedule 13G (
type=passive): the holder certifies passive intent (typically large asset managers).
- Who owns more than 5% of this company, and how much exactly?
- Which of those holders are activists versus passive institutions?
- How has a specific holder’s position changed filing by filing?
Coverage
Two Ways to Query
Provide exactly one ofticker or filer_cik:
ticker— who owns more than 5% of this companyfiler_cik— what stakes does this filer hold, across companies
history=true to get the full chain of original filings and amendments.
Available Tickers
You can fetch a list of companies with 5%+ holders with aGET request to:
https://api.financialdatasets.ai/beneficial-ownership/tickers/
Available Filers
You can look up filers (and their CIKs) by owner name with aGET request to:
https://api.financialdatasets.ai/beneficial-ownership/filers/?name=vanguard
The name parameter matches owner names by prefix (case-insensitive). The response includes a total count of all matches alongside the returned page; the page size is controlled with limit (default 100, max 1000). If total is larger than the page you received, narrow the search with name.
Getting Started
There are only 3 steps for making a successful API call:- Add your API key to the header of the request as
X-API-KEY. - Add query params like
tickerandlimitto filter the data. - Execute the API request.
Filtering the Data
You can filter the data byticker or filer_cik (exactly one, required), plus type, history, limit, and filing_date.
Note: by default, limit is 10 (max 1000), type is null (both activist and passive), and history is false (current stake state only).
The type parameter filters to activist (Schedule 13D) or passive (Schedule 13G) stakes.
The filing_date parameter is used to filter by when filings were submitted. For example, you can include filters like filing_date_lte=2026-06-30 and filing_date_gte=2026-01-01 to get filings from the first half of 2026.
The available filing_date operations are:
filing_date_ltefiling_date_ltfiling_date_gtefiling_date_gtfiling_date
Example (by ticker)
Example (passive stakes only)
Example (by filer, with history)
Authorizations
API key for authentication.
Query Parameters
The ticker symbol of the subject company. Provide ticker or filer_cik, not both.
The SEC CIK of the filer (the beneficial owner). Provide ticker or filer_cik, not both. Use the /beneficial-ownership/filers endpoint to look up CIKs by owner name.
Filter by stake type: activist (Schedule 13D) or passive (Schedule 13G).
activist, passive When true, returns the full amendment history of each stake instead of only its current state.
Filter by exact filing date in YYYY-MM-DD format.
Filter by filing date greater than or equal to this date (YYYY-MM-DD).
Filter by filing date less than or equal to this date (YYYY-MM-DD).
Filter by filing date greater than this date (YYYY-MM-DD).
Filter by filing date less than this date (YYYY-MM-DD).
The maximum number of rows to return (default: 10, max: 1000).
Response
Beneficial ownership response