A 10-K is a public company's audited annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a 10-Q is its shorter, unaudited quarterly update. The 10-K is the full picture of the business and its risks, filed once a year. The 10-Q tracks what changed over a single quarter. Both are free to read on the SEC's EDGAR system.

That one difference, annual and audited versus quarterly and unaudited, drives everything else about how the two filings read and how you should use them. Below is what each one holds, why the gap matters, and how to pull them yourself.

What a 10-K actually contains

The 10-K is the document a company spends the most time on. It carries audited financial statements, meaning an outside accounting firm has examined them and signed off. It also lays out the business in plain terms: what the company sells, who its customers and competitors are, the legal proceedings it faces, and a long list of risk factors covering everything that could go wrong. The management discussion and analysis section, often called the MD&A, is where management explains the year's results in its own words.

Because it is the complete record, the 10-K is where you start if you want to understand a company you do not know. Reading it alongside how to read a company earnings report gives you both the formal filing and the press-release version management would rather you see first.

What a 10-Q adds between annual reports

A public company files three 10-Q reports a year, one after each of the first three fiscal quarters. There is no fourth-quarter 10-Q, because that quarter is folded into the annual 10-K. So a typical year brings four filings in total: three quarterly updates and one annual report.

The 10-Q is condensed. Its financial statements are unaudited, its footnotes are shorter, and its risk section usually lists only what is new since the last 10-K rather than repeating the full catalog. That makes it faster to read, and it is the filing you turn to when you already know the business and just want to see what moved last quarter: revenue, margins, cash, debt, and any fresh disclosures.

Why audited versus unaudited matters

The audit is the heart of the distinction. Audited statements in the 10-K have been tested against accounting standards by an independent firm, which is why the annual report takes longer to produce and arrives well after the year closes. The 10-Q's unaudited numbers are prepared by the company and reviewed, not fully audited, so they can be restated later if something needs correcting.

For a reader, the practical rule is simple. Treat the 10-K as the settled, examined record, and treat the 10-Q as a timely but provisional read. When a quarterly number looks surprising, it is worth waiting to see whether the annual filing confirms it.

When each is due, and why timing differs

SEC rules require companies to file these reports on a set schedule, and the largest companies get the least time. A company with a big public float must turn its annual report around in roughly two months after its fiscal year ends, while smaller filers get up to about three months. Quarterly reports are due within about six weeks of the quarter's close. The exact windows depend on a company's size category, but the direction is consistent: bigger companies, faster deadlines.

That timing is why earnings season clusters. Most large firms share a calendar quarter end, so their 10-Qs and the press releases that accompany them land in the same few weeks.

How to read them for free on EDGAR

Both filings live on EDGAR, the SEC's filing database, and access costs nothing. As the SEC puts it, the system is the primary place companies submit their disclosure documents, and it processes about 4,700 filings a day. To find a company, search its name on EDGAR, open its filing history, and filter for the form type you want.

A fast way to work: open the most recent 10-K to learn the business and its risks, then open the latest 10-Q to see what has changed since. Numbers like the price to earnings ratio in what is a price to earnings ratio are only as good as the earnings underneath them, and the filings are where those earnings are defined and footnoted.

What to watch

Read the footnotes, not just the headline numbers. A clean revenue figure can sit next to a footnote about a lawsuit, a customer concentration, or an accounting change that matters more than the quarter itself. Compare the latest 10-Q's risk list against the prior 10-K to spot what management has newly flagged. And remember that the quarterly numbers are unaudited, so a figure that drives a sharp market reaction is worth re-checking when the audited annual report arrives. The filings are free, exact, and filed on a deadline, which makes them the most reliable record a public company produces about itself.