When Is Short Interest Released?

Short interest is released twice a month on a fixed FINRA schedule: one settlement date mid-month, one at month-end, with the compiled file made public roughly eight business days after each. The newest short interest print on file here is the Aug 14, 2026 settlement, covering 22480 securities and delivered 14 days after the positions it counts were recorded. This page is a live readout of that calendar: the recent settlement dates, the mid-month/month-end rhythm, and the measured gap between when a position is snapshotted and when you can see it.

When does FINRA release short interest?

FINRA runs two settlement dates every month. Brokers snapshot the shares held short in their accounts on each of those dates, file the totals, and FINRA compiles one number per security and disseminates the file about eight business days later. The settlement dates land near the 15th and near the last trading day of the month, so a full year is 24 prints. Here are the most recent settlement dates on file, each with the number of names reported.

SELECT settlement_date,
       count() AS names_reported
FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
GROUP BY settlement_date
ORDER BY settlement_date DESC
LIMIT 16

The count sits near 22480 names on the newest print and holds within a narrow band across the whole series. That stability is the point: every US equity with a reportable short position appears in every print, so the file is a full-market census on a metronomic schedule, not a sampled feed. What changes settlement to settlement is the positioning, not the coverage. To see which names carry the heaviest positions in the latest print, see the current most-shorted stocks; for the definition itself, what short interest is walks through the mechanics.

Mid-month and month-end: the twice-monthly rhythm

The schedule is easiest to read as two numbers per settlement: which day of the month it falls on, and how many days separate it from the previous one. The mid-month prints cluster near the 15th and the month-end prints near the 30th, and the gap between consecutive settlement dates stays close to two weeks all year.

SELECT settlement_date,
       toDayOfMonth(settlement_date) AS day_of_month,
       dateDiff('day', prior, settlement_date) AS days_since_prior
FROM (
    SELECT settlement_date,
           lagInFrame(settlement_date) OVER (ORDER BY settlement_date) AS prior
    FROM (
        SELECT DISTINCT settlement_date
        FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
        ORDER BY settlement_date DESC
        LIMIT 17
    )
    ORDER BY settlement_date
)
WHERE prior > toDate('2000-01-01')
ORDER BY settlement_date

The two most recent settlements landed on day 31 and day 14 of their months, and the gap between them was 14 days. Run down the days_since_prior column and the numbers hug 14 to 17: the mid-to-end leg of a month is short, the end-to-mid leg carries the extra days of the calendar turn, and the average is about a fortnight. When a settlement date falls on a weekend or a market holiday the schedule shifts to the prior trading day, which is why the day-of-month column reads 13 or 14 in some months and 15 in others rather than a fixed number. The schedule is published a year ahead, so the next two dates are always knowable: take the newest date on file and step forward to the next 15th-ish and month-end.

How long after the settlement date is it public?

The settlement date is when the position is measured. Publication comes later. This warehouse timestamps every row on arrival, so for the settlements it received one at a time, after its initial archive load, the gap between the settlement date and the first appearance of the data is a direct measure of the real publication pipeline.

WITH first_arrival AS (
    SELECT settlement_date,
           toDate(min(_ingest_time)) AS arrived
    FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
    GROUP BY settlement_date
),
bulk_days AS (
    SELECT arrived
    FROM first_arrival
    GROUP BY arrived
    HAVING count() > 5
)
SELECT settlement_date,
       toString(arrived) AS arrived_here,
       dateDiff('day', settlement_date, arrived) AS publication_lag_days
FROM first_arrival
WHERE arrived NOT IN (SELECT arrived FROM bulk_days)
ORDER BY settlement_date

Each bar is one settlement, measured on its date and on file publication_lag_days later. The most recent incrementally-delivered settlement, 2026-08-14, arrived 14 days after the fact; the one before it took 11 days. The full band, in one row:

WITH first_arrival AS (
    SELECT settlement_date,
           toDate(min(_ingest_time)) AS arrived
    FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
    GROUP BY settlement_date
),
bulk_days AS (
    SELECT arrived
    FROM first_arrival
    GROUP BY arrived
    HAVING count() > 5
),
organic AS (
    SELECT settlement_date,
           dateDiff('day', settlement_date, arrived) AS lag
    FROM first_arrival
    WHERE arrived NOT IN (SELECT arrived FROM bulk_days)
)
SELECT count() AS settlements_measured,
       min(lag) AS fastest_lag_days,
       round(quantileDeterministic(0.5)(lag, cityHash64(settlement_date)), 1) AS median_lag_days,
       max(lag) AS slowest_lag_days
FROM organic

Across 11 settlements that arrived one at a time, the fastest print landed 10 days after its settlement date and the slowest took 26 days; the median is 14 days. That is the "two weeks old" reputation short interest carries, measured rather than asserted. The mechanics of every step in that pipeline, the snapshot, the filing deadline, the compilation, the dissemination, are laid out in why short interest data is always two weeks old, and the full FINRA dataset is documented in the FINRA short interest data guide.

Where the cycle stands right now

At any moment there is a settlement date that has already happened and has not yet been published. This panel is the live receipt of that state.

WITH (SELECT max(settlement_date) FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest) AS latest
SELECT toString(latest) AS latest_settlement_on_file,
       formatDateTime(latest, '%b %e, %Y') AS latest_label,
       toDayOfMonth(latest) AS latest_day_of_month,
       (SELECT count() FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
        WHERE settlement_date = latest) AS securities_in_that_print,
       (SELECT dateDiff('day', latest, toDate(min(_ingest_time))) FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
        WHERE settlement_date = latest) AS its_publication_lag_days,
       (SELECT count() FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
        WHERE settlement_date > latest) AS rows_after_latest

The newest short interest print on file is the Aug 14, 2026 settlement, day 14 of the month, covering 22480 securities and delivered 14 days after the fact. The settlement after it shows 0 rows: it has not been published, and at the lags measured above that is entirely expected. That column is bounded to zero on purpose. When the next print lands the bound trips and this page is held for a refresh rather than quietly serving a stale calendar. Pair that with the near-real-time daily short-volume file and you have two FINRA feeds on two clocks: one twice-monthly census of positions held, one daily tally of short-sale flow.

FAQ

How often is short interest reported?

Twice a month. FINRA sets one settlement date near the middle of the month and one near the end, so a calendar year holds 24 short interest prints. Every US equity with a reportable short position appears in every print, 22480 of them in the Aug 14, 2026 settlement.

How long after the settlement date is short interest published?

Roughly eight business days. Across the settlements this database received as live deliveries, the gap between the settlement date and first publication ran 10 to 26 calendar days, with a median of 14 days. The newest print on file arrived 14 days after its settlement date.

What are the FINRA short interest settlement dates?

FINRA publishes the schedule a year in advance. The dates fall near the 15th and near the last business day of each month, shifting to the prior trading day when they land on a weekend or holiday. The most recent on file is Aug 14, 2026; the gap between the two latest settlements was 14 days.

Is short interest released daily?

No disclosed short interest number is published daily in the US. FINRA does publish a daily short-volume file, which counts short-sale trading flow rather than positions held, and vendors sell daily short-interest estimates modelled from securities-lending data. The disclosed, settlement-based figure exists only twice a month. The short interest primer covers the distinction.

Every panel above ships with the SQL that produced it, expand any one to audit the numbers, or run the settlement calendar yourself on the Strasmore terminal.