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Research · 2026-10-18

About 1 in 10 revenue figures is later restated

About 1 in 10 revenue and net income figures in SEC filings is later changed by the company itself. Most databases store only the newest number, so a backtest of 2017 quietly uses figures published in 2019. We keep both, each dated by the filing that made it public.

10.1%
of revenue values are later restated (10.5% of net income)
55%
of companies (9,067 of 16,423) have at least one restated revenue or net income figure
8.6%
median size of a revenue restatement; 48% are over 10%
5,618
net income figures flipped between profit and loss, at 2,599 companies

What gets restated

Share of values that a later filing changed, by field

Every first-reported value in Varve Fundamentals, 2009–2026. Precision-only differences are excluded.

0%5%10%15%20%Shareholders' equity17.9%Shareholders' equity: 17.9%SG&A15.8%SG&A: 15.8%Operating income12.5%Operating income: 12.5%Cost of revenue11.7%Cost of revenue: 11.7%Cash11.3%Cash: 11.3%Gross profit11.1%Gross profit: 11.1%Operating cash flow10.7%Operating cash flow: 10.7%Net income10.5%Net income: 10.5%Revenue10.1%Revenue: 10.1%Income tax9.2%Income tax: 9.2%Diluted EPS9.1%Diluted EPS: 9.1%Diluted shares8.2%Diluted shares: 8.2%Basic EPS8.0%Basic EPS: 8.0%Interest expense7.9%Interest expense: 7.9%R&D7.7%R&D: 7.7%Depreciation & amortization7.5%Depreciation & amortization: 7.5%Capex6.4%Capex: 6.4%Basic shares6.2%Basic shares: 6.2%Stock compensation4.3%Stock compensation: 4.3%Total assets4.1%Total assets: 4.1%Shares outstanding3.9%Shares outstanding: 3.9%Total liabilities3.6%Total liabilities: 3.6%Current liabilities3.5%Current liabilities: 3.5%Current assets3.3%Current assets: 3.3%Buybacks2.8%Buybacks: 2.8%Dividends paid2.7%Dividends paid: 2.7%Long-term debt2.4%Long-term debt: 2.4%

Income-statement lines are restated most, balance-sheet totals least. Equity tops the list: it is re-presented whenever a prior period is recast, for any reason. SG&A and operating income move whenever a company reorganizes its segments or reclassifies costs.

Mostly not errors

A restatement in this sense is any later filing that reports a different number for the same period. Few are corrections of mistakes. The common causes:

Example: Berkshire Hathaway, fiscal 2016 revenue. First filed on 27 February 2017 as $223.60 billion; restated in the 10-K filed on 25 February 2019 as $215.11 billion. A dataset holding only the restated figure hands a 2017 backtest a number that was published two years later.

Restatements arrive late

Time from the first filing of a revenue figure to its latest version

45,895 restated revenue values. Median 477 days.

0%10%20%30%40%3%< 6 mo< 6 mo: 2.9%27%6–12 mo6–12 mo: 27.3%27%12–18 mo12–18 mo: 26.7%32%18–24 mo18–24 mo: 31.7%11%2–3 yr2–3 yr: 10.9%0%3–4 yr3–4 yr: 0.4%0%4+ yr4+ yr: 0.1%time from first filing to latest version

Most restatements arrive 6 to 24 months after the original, typically when the period reappears as a comparative in a later annual report. Any backtest that uses today's values for a date in between is using information from the future.

How Varve Fundamentals stores it

Every value carries the number as first filed (value, filed) and the latest number for the same period (value_latest, filed_latest), with a restated flag. For figures restated more than once, fact_versions keeps every version with known_from and known_to, so you can ask what was known on any date. How much this matters for a strategy is measured in the look-ahead bias study: restated numbers alone move about 4% of companies to a different quintile, and dating by quarter end moves far more.

Every number as first filed, and every restatement

Point-in-time fundamentals for every SEC filer since 2009, survivorship-bias-free from 2012.

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