XBRL Mandate and Timeliness of Financial Reporting: Do XBRL Filings Take Longer

We examine the impact of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) mandate on the timeliness of financial reporting, measured by the reporting lag between fiscal period end and the filing date. Using annual and quarterly filing data from 2007 to 2014, we compare the reporting lags of XBRL reports to the lags of non-XBRL reports in three separate filing categories as defined by the SEC. Our results show that by using XBRL the reporting lag is shortened by one to two days when companies file annual reports while the reporting lag is shortened by one day in quarterly filings. However, the results are manifest for both large accelerated filers and accelerated filers. In our multivariate analysis, we do not observe the improved reporting lag when using XBRL among non-accelerated filers. The results are robust to various model specifications and additional differential effect analyses. While we provide the evidence that the XBRL mandate improves the timeliness of financial reporting for large filers, we question the public policy-making of the XBRL mandate that has the intention of benefiting small companies.