The End of the Quarter Crunch?

What the SEC’s Big Shake-Up Really Means for Finance Teams 

Your finance team has spent years honing the quarterly reporting schedule. The 10-Q calendar is integrated into your closing process, IR calendar, and compliance budget. The cycle repeats every 90 days: close the books, prepare disclosures, tag data, and file with EDGAR. 

The SEC is now preparing a proposal to make the full quarterly cycle optional. 

The Securities and Exchange Commission is working on a proposal that would allow public businesses to disclose earnings twice a year rather than quarterly, as is currently required. According to the Wall Street Journal, the proposal might be released as early as next month. 

This is not a rumor. This is not a remote policy debate. It is an active regulatory development that has the potential to profoundly change how public firms plan, prepare, and submit financial disclosures – as well as how the professionals who advise them to design their workflows. 

The question is no longer whether this shift will happen, but whether it will be effective. It is whether your team has a clear understanding of what it implies before it arrives. 

What the SEC Is Actually Proposing 

It is critical to specify what this proposal does and does not say, as the headlines have caused more confusion than clarity. 

The rule is intended to make quarterly reporting optional, rather than eliminating it entirely. Companies would retain the opportunity to file quarterly reports. What changes is the mandate: public firms can now report results every six months rather than every 90 days if they wish. 

On February 13, 2026, Division of Corporation Finance Director James Moloney confirmed that staff were working to create an option for semi-annual rather than quarterly reporting and that Chairman Paul Atkins had asked staff to prioritize the proposal while determining what other rule changes would be required for a workable transition. 

Importantly, Form 8-K, Regulation FD, and other material-disclosure requirements would continue in effect. The need to disclose material information in real time does not apply. 

If the proposal is formally announced, it will begin the SEC’s rulemaking process, which involves a public comment period of at least 30 days before the commission decides on whether to accept the modification. There is no certainty that the regulation will eventually be approved. 

How We Got Here 

Quarterly earnings reports have been a staple of the United States’ capital markets since 1970, when regulators mandated the Form 10-Q filing requirement to give investors regular updates on corporate performance. That’s about 50 years of institutional infrastructure constructed on a 90-day cycle. 

So why change it now? 
This trend toward easing reporting requirements began last year, when the Long-Term Stock Exchange petitioned the SEC to abolish mandated quarterly profit reports. Within days of the plan, President Donald Trump and SEC Chairman Paul Atkins expressed support for allowing corporations to submit results semi-annually. 

In September 2025, the Long-Term Stock Exchange publicly requested that the SEC revise Rule 13a-13, Rule 15d-13, and Form 10-Q so that corporations might choose comprehensive semi-annual reporting while maintaining timely Form 8-K disclosures. 

The case for the change has two pillars: 

• Reducing short-termism – President Trump has stated that changing the criteria will deter public firms from being short-sighted while also lowering costs. 

• Encouraging more IPOs – Proponents of this reform expect that requiring a semi-annual filing will encourage more companies to go public by making it easier to maintain public status.

  There is precedent for this rule. Both the European Union and the United Kingdom eliminated mandated quarterly reporting over a decade ago in favor of semi-annual disclosures, while many companies in both markets continue to report quarterly by choice. 

The Case For and The Case Against Half-Yearly Filing 

This proposal is seriously challenged. Finance professionals, investors, and regulators are not in agreement, and comprehending both viewpoints is critical for properly advising clients and boards. 

The Arguments in Favor 

• Compliance cost relief: Preparing a Form 10-Q requires significant resources, including accounting close work, XBRL tagging, legal review, audit procedures, and submission with EDGAR. Performing this twice rather than four times per year results in a significant decrease in recurring compliance overhead. 
• Management bandwidth: Finance teams now spend a disproportionate amount of time filing. Leadership can devote more time to strategy, operations, and long-term planning with semi-annual reports. 
• IPO market stimulus: One of the documented obstacles preventing smaller companies from going public is the compliance load. Reducing reporting frequency reduces the continuing costs of being a public corporation. 
• International alignment: A decade ago, the European Union and the United Kingdom made this transition. Multinational corporations and cross-border investors face difficulty as the US markets operate at a different rhythm. 

The Arguments Against 

• Reduced Transparency & Market Volatility: Critics contend that switching from quarterly to semi-annual reporting will give investors less frequent insight into a company’s financial health. This information gap may make markets more volatile, as investors react more strongly when updates are delayed or unexpected. 
• Loss of Standardized Reporting: The quarterly Form 10-Q provides a consistent, structured snapshot of financial statements, MD&A commentary, updated risk factors, and internal control disclosures. If semi-annual reporting were made voluntary, organizations’ approaches to communicating intermediate performance would differ. Some would keep quarterly filings, while others would switch to earnings releases, investor presentations, or furnished Form 8-Ks, making apples-to-apples comparisons between businesses substantially more difficult for shareholders. 
• IPO Hesitation Stems from Litigation, Not Disclosure: Despite efforts to reduce reporting burdens, attorney Rick Werner of Haynes and Boone points out that disclosure requirements are not the major reason corporations avoid going public. The high expense of Directors and Officers (D&O) insurance, as well as the possibility of “strike suits” opportunistic shareholder lawsuits, are the most significant deterrents. This shows that relaxing reporting regulations may not have the intended effect of increasing IPO activity. 
• Finance Teams Must Act Now: While the regulatory outcome is uncertain, the debate suggests that change is on the way. Finance teams cannot afford to wait for final rulemaking; instead, they should analyze how a transition to semi-annual reporting might influence their reporting infrastructure, investor relations strategy, and compliance workflows, ensuring that they are prepared for any outcome. 

The Practical Impact on 10-Q Filing Workflows 

Whether a corporation chooses quarterly or semi-annual reporting under the new framework, this proposal requires rapid workflow planning decisions from CFOs, compliance officers, and legal teams. 

If Your Company Transitions to Semi-Annual Reporting 
The filing cadence changes, but the complexity of each filing does not decrease proportionally. In fact, it could increase: 

• Each semi-annual 10-Q bears additional weight: Six months of financial activity compacted into one file results in more transactions, disclosures, and XBRL tagging complexity per document. 
•  XBRL and iXBRL precision are more important: With fewer filing periods, faults in structured data tagging have fewer chances to be addressed through later files.  
• The importance of Form 8-K requirements grows: With less frequent structured reporting, Form 8-K filings for substantial events become more important to investors and necessitate greater disclosure clarity.  
• Audit committee and board reporting rhythms need to be redesigned: Internal governance cadences based on quarterly cycles require conscious reorganization. 

If Your Company Maintains Quarterly Reporting 

This scenario has its own strategic risk: 

• You bear the entire compliance cost while peers may lower theirs – If competitors switch to semi-annual reporting, your quarterly cycle becomes a relative cost disadvantage. 
• Investor expectations may vary. Some investors will prefer companies to continue to report quarterly for transparency reasons, while others may see it as unnecessary overhead. 
• The decision becomes a concern of governance and investor relations, rather than just compliance. 

Regardless of the path a company takes, shifting from an obligatory quarterly framework to an optional one necessitates thoughtful process change. Prior to the first semi-annual filing window, reporting teams, external auditors, SEC filing partners, and investor relations departments must all be in sync.