# How Do I Obtain Readable U.S. House Financial Disclosure Reports?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-obtain-readable-u-s-house-financial-disclosure-reports/992505>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 2, 2023, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-obtain-readable-u-s-house-financial-disclosure-reports/992505 "2023-11-02T23:32:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2023, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-obtain-readable-u-s-house-financial-disclosure-reports/992505/1 "2023-11-02T23:32:11Z")

</div>

This may be a dumb question where I missed something obvious. But I am unable to find the actual reports here:

[Download Financial Disclosure Reports by Year](https://disclosures-clerk.house.gov/FinancialDisclosure)

> [@](#):
>
> Section 8 of the STOCK Act of 2012, as amended, requires the Clerk of the House of Representatives to provide online public access to financial disclosure reports filed by Members of Congress and candidates for Congress.

When I download and extract the annual .zip files for 2022 and 2023, I find 2022FD.txt, 2022.xml, 2023FD.txt, and 2023.xml. These all seem to be index files, not the actual financial disclosure report. They give a DocID for each member, or almost every member, but I can’t find the referenced documents.

The factual information I am looking for is to see what members of congress may be claiming to have no reportable assets. News reports say this is rare but is the case for more than one member (including the current House speaker).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![andrewm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c57346/32.png) [@andrewm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrewm)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2023, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-obtain-readable-u-s-house-financial-disclosure-reports/992505/2 "2023-11-02T23:48:54Z")

</div>

You can click the “Search” tab on the left side and then on that form you can put in a name and find their filed reports.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2023, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-obtain-readable-u-s-house-financial-disclosure-reports/992505/3 "2023-11-03T00:04:22Z")

</div>

I should have noticed that.

Thank you.

Seems you have to go through them one by one to find any patterns.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2023, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-obtain-readable-u-s-house-financial-disclosure-reports/992505/4 "2023-11-03T00:15:25Z")

</div>

And not by accident I assure you.