SEC Moves Toward Allowing Semiannual Earnings Reports

The Securities and Exchange Commission is developing a proposal that would allow public companies to file earnings reports twice a year rather than every quarter, a potentially sweeping change to a disclosure regime that has been in place for more than half a century.

The effort, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, has the backing of both SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and President Donald Trump. The agency has already begun preliminary discussions with stock exchanges about how such a transition might work, though officials caution that any formal rule change remains far off. If the SEC issues a proposal — which sources suggest could arrive within weeks — it would still need to go through a public comment period followed by a commission vote before taking effect.

Proponents argue that mandatory quarterly reporting has become an expensive and time-consuming burden that discourages companies from going public. The cost of preparing four earnings releases per year, along with the associated analyst calls, legal reviews, and compliance work, is frequently cited as one reason startups and growth-stage firms opt to remain private longer. Advocates for semiannual reporting believe the change could reinvigorate the IPO pipeline by lowering the administrative barriers to maintaining a public listing.

The idea is not without precedent. Both the European Union and the United Kingdom eliminated mandatory quarterly reporting requirements roughly a decade ago, shifting instead to semiannual disclosures. Notably, many large companies in those markets have continued to report quarterly on a voluntary basis, suggesting that investor demand for frequent updates may persist regardless of the regulatory floor. That dynamic raises an open question: whether the practical effect of the rule change would be felt primarily by smaller public companies with fewer resources, while major corporations continue business as usual.

Critics of the proposal are likely to raise concerns about reduced transparency. Quarterly reports give investors, analysts, and regulators a more granular and timely view of corporate performance, and lengthening the reporting cycle could make it harder to spot deteriorating fundamentals or emerging risks. The public comment period, once a proposal is formally issued, will be a critical forum for these competing perspectives. For now, the SEC's move signals a broader deregulatory posture aimed at making U.S. public markets more attractive in an era of prolonged private capital dominance.