How to Find the Float of a Stock: EDGAR Filings and Affiliate Shares

To find the float of a stock, pull two numbers from the company’s SEC filings and subtract one from the other: total shares outstanding (on the cover page of the most recent Form 10-K or 10-Q) minus shares held by affiliates (in the beneficial ownership table of the 10-K or the definitive proxy statement). The result is the float, which is the number of shares actually available for public trading. Once you know where the numbers live, the calculation takes about ten minutes. If you’d rather skip the filings entirely, Yahoo Finance, MarketWatch, and similar platforms publish a pre-calculated float figure for every listed company, though it pays to spot-check them against EDGAR.

Float vs. Shares Outstanding

Shares outstanding is the total number of shares a company has issued. Float is the subset of those shares that trade freely in the open market, after removing shares locked up in the hands of insiders and controlling shareholders. The gap can be large. A company with 500 million shares outstanding but only 50 million in the float behaves very differently from one where 450 million shares circulate freely, because a smaller float means each buy or sell order moves the price more.

That’s why the float number matters on its own, separate from the outstanding count you see quoted more often.

Step 1: Find Total Shares Outstanding on EDGAR

Every publicly traded company files annual reports on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q with the SEC, and both contain the numbers you need.¹ The fastest way in is EDGAR, the SEC’s free filing database at sec.gov/edgar/search/. Type the company name, ticker, or CIK number, filter by form type, and you’ll see every filing in chronological order.²

Open the most recent 10-K and go to the cover page. Near the bottom, after the address and fiscal year information, you’ll find two disclosures. One is the aggregate market value of voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates, calculated as of the last business day of the company’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter. Right below it is the total number of shares of each class of common stock outstanding as of the latest practicable date.³ That second number is your starting point.

A quick shortcut: the aggregate market value figure just above it is effectively the dollar float. Divide it by the stock price used in the calculation and you get an approximate share float without doing anything else. For a precise share count, keep going.

Step 2: Find Shares Held by Affiliates

The beneficial ownership table appears in Part III, Item 12 of the 10-K, titled “Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters.”³ It lists every director, named executive officer, and any shareholder who owns 5% or more of the company’s equity, alongside the number of shares each one holds.

Many companies don’t print the table in the 10-K itself. Instead, Item 12 says “see proxy statement,” and the numbers live in the definitive proxy statement (Form DEF 14A) filed a few weeks later. Search EDGAR for the company’s most recent DEF 14A and you’ll find the same beneficial ownership table, usually formatted more readably. It includes shares each insider has the right to acquire within 60 days through options or other convertible securities. Add up the shares in that table to get total affiliate holdings.

Step 3: Do the Subtraction

The math is straightforward. Total shares outstanding minus shares held by affiliates equals float. If a company reports 200 million shares outstanding and the beneficial ownership table shows insiders and 5%-plus holders collectively own 45 million, the float is 155 million shares.

The judgment call is who counts as an affiliate. The SEC doesn’t publish a bright-line checklist. Affiliates generally include directors, executive officers, and anyone holding a controlling interest. Large institutional investors like mutual funds and pension funds are typically not treated as affiliates unless they also have a board seat or another control relationship.³ When companies calculate their own public float for the 10-K cover page, they’re allowed to make reasonable assumptions about who qualifies, and they must disclose those assumptions in the filing.

That ambiguity is why different data providers sometimes report different float numbers for the same stock. One source might treat a 6% institutional holder as part of the float; another might exclude them. Running the calculation yourself lets you see exactly who’s being counted.

Keeping the Number Current Between Filings

A 10-K or proxy statement is a snapshot. Holdings shift throughout the year, and several other filings tell you when the float has changed.

Form 4 must be filed within two business days whenever an officer, director, or 10%-plus shareholder buys or sells company stock. Each Form 4 shows the transaction date, number of shares, and price.⁴ If a lock-up expires and an insider unloads a block of shares, you’ll see it here well before the next quarterly filing.

Schedule 13D and Schedule 13G cover large outside shareholders. Anyone who crosses the 5% ownership threshold must file a Schedule 13D within five business days, disclosing holdings, recent transactions, and any intent to influence management. Passive investors who cross 5% without activist intent can file the shorter Schedule 13G instead.⁵ Both filings signal when a big holder is accumulating or selling.

Form 8-K catches the corporate actions that reshape the float itself. Companies must disclose material events on an 8-K, typically within four business days.⁶ The events to watch:

Secondary offerings issue new shares to the public, raising both shares outstanding and float.
Share buybacks pull shares out of circulation, reducing the float.
Stock splits multiply shares outstanding and float in absolute terms, but the float as a percentage of outstanding shares doesn’t change.
Option and warrant exercises add new shares to outstanding when the company issues fresh stock rather than drawing from treasury. Whether those shares immediately join the float depends on whether the recipient is an affiliate.
Lock-up expirations release insider shares that were contractually restricted after an IPO, typically for 90 to 180 days. Once the lock-up ends, those shares become eligible for sale and the float expands.⁷

One boundary worth flagging: even when a holding period ends, affiliates who own restricted shares face volume caps under Rule 144. In any three-month window they can sell no more than the greater of 1% of shares outstanding or the average weekly trading volume over the preceding four weeks.⁸ Restricted shares don’t fully convert to float the day the calendar allows a sale.

The Shortcut: Pre-Calculated Float on Financial Platforms

If you don’t want to dig through filings, type the ticker into Yahoo Finance or MarketWatch and open the “Statistics” or “Key Data” tab. You’ll usually see both shares outstanding and float listed alongside market cap and average volume. Bloomberg terminals and professional brokerage platforms show the same data, often displaying float as both a raw share count and a percentage of shares outstanding.

These platforms pull from SEC filings and refresh after each new 10-Q, 10-K, or proxy statement, but their update cadence varies. The float on one site may still reflect last quarter’s 10-Q while another has already incorporated a more recent proxy. Other discrepancies come from platforms treating “affiliate” differently, from one source mistakenly using fully diluted share counts (which add unexercised options and warrants) instead of basic shares outstanding, or from confusion between authorized and issued shares, which can produce a float figure larger than shares outstanding.

Treat third-party float data as a starting point. If you’re sizing a position based on liquidity, verify the number against the most recent filing on EDGAR. A few minutes of checking beats trading on a stale figure.

1
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Exchange Act Reporting and Registration
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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. EDGAR Full Text Search
3
SEC.gov. Form 10-K Annual Report Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Insider Transactions and Forms 3, 4, and 5
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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Exchange Act Sections 13(d) and 13(g) and Regulation 13D-G Beneficial Ownership Reporting
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SEC.gov. Form 8-K – Current Report
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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Initial Public Offerings, Lockup Agreements
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eCFR. 17 CFR 230.144 – Persons Deemed Not to Be Engaged in a Distribution