Part 1 · Getting familiar with DART · Lesson 3
How to find a company on DART and open its report
If you know a company's name, you can open its annual report in 3 minutes. Follow along on the real DART screens, from search all the way to the balance sheet.
QToday's question
You know the company's name, but where and how on DART do you find and open its annual report?
In the previous two lessons, you learned that financial statements are a company's health checkup report and that DART is the official bulletin board where that report is posted. Now it is time to open one yourself. The first time you enter DART, the many menus and checkboxes can feel overwhelming, but only a few buttons are actually used. In this lesson, you follow the real DART screens and learn search → filter → open the report → move through the table of contents in one go.
MAPLearning map for this lesson
We build it up in three steps. At the end of each step, a 'Quick check' lets you test your understanding before moving on.
In Lesson 1 you learned that the balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement are a photo, a report card and a bank record, and in Lesson 2 that DART is the official disclosure bulletin board run by the Financial Supervisory Service, with types of filings such as periodic disclosures, material event reports and ownership disclosures. This lesson is a hands-on exercise that puts that knowledge to use on real screens. How to read the financial statement numbers comes from Part 2, so today focus only on 'how to find where things are'.
- STEP 1 · Basic conceptsOne search box, three filters
Know that a DART search consists of three conditions, company name, period, and , and be able to say what to enter where on the first screen.
- STEP 2 · Understanding the principleFollowing along on real screens
Be able to do the five steps on your own, from entering a company name and opening the annual report to finding the balance sheet using the .
- STEP 3 · Real-world applicationChoosing filters to fit your purpose
You can decide which filing type and period to choose depending on your purpose, such as 'I'm curious about earnings' or 'there's news of a capital increase', and read the markers in the results list.
STEP 1One search box, three filters
The first time you open DART's front page, the many menus and checkboxes are scary. But in practice you only use one search box and three filters.
An easy analogy · the library search desk
When looking for a book in a library, you type in the 'author's name', pick a 'publication year', and check a 'category such as novels or essays', and the book you want shows up quickly. If you just type 'Kim' with no conditions, thousands of books pour out.
DART is exactly the same. Enter the company name instead of the author, the period instead of the publication year, and the filing type instead of the book category, and out of hundreds of filings, the one report you want remains.
The three conditions of a DART search
DART (dart.fss.or.kr) is the electronic disclosure system run by the Financial Supervisory Service. The 'Integrated Disclosure Search' in the middle of the front page and the 'Disclosure Document Search' in the top menu are the entrances for finding reports. Whichever you use, the conditions are the same three.
- Company name (or stock code): the company you want to find. Many companies have similar names, so if you do not know the exact name, entering the 6-digit stock code is more reliable.
- Period: the range of dates when the report was received. The Disclosure Document Search screen has 1-month, 6-month, 1-year, 3-year, 5-year and 10-year buttons, and 'more periods' can widen it to 20 years back or to when DART started.
- : there are 10 types: periodic disclosure, material event reports, issuance disclosure, ownership disclosure, other disclosure, audit-related, fund disclosure, asset-backed securitization, exchange disclosure, and Fair Trade Commission disclosure. The annual, semi-annual, and quarterly reports containing financial statements are all under 'Periodic disclosure'.
If you change the 'search category' on the left of the search box, you can search by report name, report table-of-contents name or body text instead of company name. For example, if you enter a specific product name in body text, you can work backward and find the reports that mention that product.
One small checkbox: Final report
To the right of the period there is a 'Final report' checkbox, which is checked by default. When a company files a report and later corrects and refiles it, that is called a correction. With checked, older versions from before the correction are hidden and only the last version is shown. When you are first learning, it is best to leave this checked. Uncheck it only when you deliberately want to compare the history of changed numbers.
Quick checkYou want to see a company's financial statements. Which of the 10 filing types should you pick?
STEP 2Following along on real screens
Now let's follow along step by step on the real DART screens. As an example, we look for Samsung Electronics' annual report. It was chosen as a practice route because it is a widely known large company, and it is not an investment recommendation.
See it in a picture: five steps from DART to the balance sheet
Screen source: FSS electronic disclosure system DART (dart.fss.or.kr), captured 2026-10-08. The example report is the annual report Samsung Electronics filed on 2025-03-11 (56th term, fiscal year 2024). At the time of capture, DART had temporarily suspended integrated search for system maintenance (2026-10-08 20:00 to 10-11 18:00), so the step 3 results list is drawn as a screen example modeled on the real list format. The number markers were added by Robin Invest.
Steps 1–2: Enter the company name and choose filters
If you enter a company name in the Integrated Disclosure Search box on the front page and search, all of that company's filings appear at once. On DART, where hundreds of filings are posted every day, a large company like Samsung Electronics can have hundreds of filings in a single year. So rather than searching right away, it is faster to go to the 'Disclosure Document Search' in the top menu and narrow the conditions.
On the Disclosure Document Search screen, enter the name in the company name field, press '1 year' under period, and check 'periodic disclosure' under filing type. Checking periodic disclosure opens a detailed box below, and if you leave only 'annual report' there, the results narrow to the single report that contains a full year of financial statements. If you also want semi-annual and quarterly results, check the semi-annual and quarterly reports as well.
Step 3: Choose a report from the results list
Search results appear as a table in the order of number, company, report name, filer and date received. The small markers attached before and after the report name are important hints.
Steps 4–5: Use the table of contents to find the balance sheet
Clicking the report name opens a new window. On the left is the , and on the right is the main text. The 'Main text' selection box at the top lets you choose other versions of the same report (before and after corrections), the 'Attachments' box lets you choose attached documents such as the audit report, and at the top right there are buttons for English view, download, and print.
The table of contents of an annual report follows the same order for every company. Financial statements are under III. Financial Matters, and most listed companies include both 'consolidated financial statements' (including subsidiaries) and 'financial statements' (the company alone). Click 2-1 Consolidated balance sheet and the table opens on the right. Before reading the table, look at two things first. The first is the unit. Above the table in the example report it says '(Unit: millions of won)', so current assets of 227,062,266 mean KRW 227 trillion. The second is the fiscal term. Three years sit side by side, as in the 56th, 55th and 54th terms, so you can see a 3-year trend on one screen.
Common misconceptions
- "The earnings number in the news is exactly the same as in the annual report?"
- It can differ. News usually cites the preliminary earnings the company released first, or consolidated-basis numbers. The annual report carries the audited, finalized numbers split into consolidated and separate. When comparing, compare like with like.
- "The numbers in the table are in won?"
- Mostly not. Large companies use millions of won, and small companies use thousands of won or won. If you read without checking the unit, you can misjudge a company's size by more than 1,000 times.
- "The report at the very top is the most accurate?"
- The list is usually in order of date received, so the top is simply the most recent. If there is an 'A' badge, check the correction report to see what was changed.
Quick checkAbove the balance sheet table it says '(Unit: thousands of won)' and total assets are 50,000,000. What are this company's assets?
STEP 3Choosing filters to fit your purpose
Now that you have learned to find your way, practice choosing different filters depending on 'what you want to know'. Even for the same company, the report you need to find differs by purpose.
See it in a picture: choosing the search filters that fit your purpose
Filing types and detailed categories are based on the DART Disclosure Document Search screen (checked 2026-10-08). What each report contains is covered in detail in Lesson 4 (the disclosure calendar) and Part 6 (reading disclosures beyond the numbers).
Your purpose decides the filter
If you are curious about a full year of earnings and financial condition, look at the annual report under periodic disclosure, and if you are curious about the most recent three months of numbers, look at the quarterly or semi-annual report. If there is news that a company decided on a paid-in capital increase or convertible bond issuance, choose 'major event reports', and if you wonder whether a major shareholder or executive bought or sold shares, choose 'ownership disclosures'. Filings submitted to the Korea Exchange, such as preliminary earnings or the signing of supply contracts, are under 'exchange disclosures'. Keep the period short when looking for a single filing, and widen it to 3–5 years when comparing across several years.
Practice mission: find Robin Bakery's annual report
Mission · How would you find the balance sheet in Robin Bakery's (fictional) most recent annual report?
- In Disclosure Document Search, enter 'Robin Bakery' in the company name field. If several companies with similar names appear, use 'Find' to pick the exact company.
- Set the period to '1 year' and the filing type to 'periodic disclosure' → check only 'annual report'. Leave 'Final report' checked as is.
- In the results, open the report with a fiscal year-end month like 'Annual report (2025.12)', and check whether an 'A' badge is present.
- In the left table of contents, click III. Financial Matters → Consolidated financial statements → Consolidated balance sheet.
- Check the unit above the table, and find where assets of KRW 10 billion = liabilities of KRW 4 billion + equity of KRW 6 billion from Lesson 1 appear.
Robin Bakery is a fictional company in this course, so it is not on the real DART. Try applying the same steps as is to a real company you are interested in.
If you want to gather numbers: OpenDART
Opening reports one by one is inefficient when you want to compare the numbers of several companies at once. The FSS also operates (opendart.fss.or.kr). Anyone who applies for an authentication key can receive the original filings, key items of annual reports, major financial accounts, ownership disclosure information, and more as data, and the web interface also offers single-company financial statement lookup, key account comparison across companies, and bulk download of financial information. It is a good next step when you want to analyze on your own with Excel or a program.
How to use it in investing
| Situation | What to do on DART |
|---|---|
| You saw "Company X's operating profit surged" in the news | First read the preliminary earnings original in exchange disclosures, and later compare with the finalized numbers in the quarterly or annual report |
| You hear news of a "paid-in capital increase decision" | Open the original in major event reports and check the number of shares issued and the purpose of the funds (you will learn this in Lesson 31) |
| You are studying a company of interest for the first time | Start by reading II. Business Overview and III. Financial Matters in the latest annual report (the table of contents map from Lesson 5) |
| You want to compare several companies | Use OpenDART's cross-company key account comparison or bulk download |
You can check the earnings dates you care about ahead of time in the earnings calendar. The best starting habit is to open DART on the release day and read the original filing yourself.
The example company in this lesson was chosen only to practice finding your way around DART; it is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stock. DART's screen layout and menu names can change, so if something looks different, check the 'Disclosure Search' menu at the top and the 'Help' page.
Quick checkI'm curious whether the largest shareholder of a company I follow has recently sold shares. Which filing type should I choose?
✓What we learned today
- A DART search works with three conditions: the company name (or stock code), the period, and the filing type. Enter these three correctly and you can find most reports.
- To find an annual report, choose 'Periodic disclosure' as the filing type and tick only 'Annual report' inside it. Use a period of at least one year; widen it to 3 or 5 years if you want to compare several years.
- If you tick 'Final version', old pre-correction versions are hidden and only the last version is shown. In the results list, 'Corr.' means a correction was filed, and 'Cons.' means consolidated financial statements are included.
- When you open a report, the document table of contents on the left is your map. The financial statements are under 'III. Financial Matters'; first check the unit above the table (for example, KRW millions) and the fiscal term number (the Nth term).
- If you want to collect and compare lots of numbers, you can get an authentication key from the Financial Supervisory Service's OpenDART and download financial data directly.
You now know how to open a report. But each report comes out at a different time: the annual report in March, the quarterly report in May, and so on. In the next lesson we unfold the one-year disclosure calendar and sort out which report is posted when.
Quiz5-question quiz
Pick an answer and it's graded right away with an explanation.
Q1. Which of the following is NOT one of the three basic conditions used to find a report on DART?
A DART search is narrowed by company name, period and filing type. Stock price is not a DART search condition.
Q2. How should you choose to find a report that contains a full year of financial statements?
The annual report is a periodic disclosure and contains a full year of audited financial statements.
Q3. A report name in the results list carries a 'Corr.' tag. What does it mean?
'Corr.' marks that a correction was filed after submission. Check the related correction report as well to see what was changed.
Q4. In which chapter of the table of contents is the balance sheet in an annual report?
The financial statements are under III. Financial Matters, split into consolidated financial statements and separate financial statements.
Q5. You want to download key financial figures for many companies at once as data. What should you use?
With an authentication key from OpenDART, you can get the original filings and key financial accounts as data, and also use cross-company comparison and bulk download.
NextTerms · Next lesson · Related tools
The 10 categories DART uses to sort disclosures: periodic disclosure, material event reports, issuance disclosure, ownership disclosure, other disclosure, external audit-related, fund disclosure, asset-backed securitization, exchange disclosure, and Fair Trade Commission disclosure. Annual, half-year and quarterly reports, which contain the financial statements, belong to periodic disclosure.
Final versionFinal version filterA check option in DART search that hides older pre-correction versions and shows only the last corrected report. It is checked by default.
Document table of contentsDocument table of contentsThe tree-shaped table of contents that unfolds on the left side of a DART report window. The financial statements in an annual report are under 'III. Financial Matters'.
OpenDARTOpen DART APIThe open API service for DART disclosure information (opendart.fss.or.kr), operated by the Financial Supervisory Service. If you apply for an authentication key, you can get original filings, key annual report items, key financial accounts and more as data.
Market capitalizationMarket capitalizationStock price × number of shares issued. The price the market puts on the whole company.
RevenueRevenueThe total amount a company earns by selling goods and services. It is the amount before deducting costs.
Put what you learned to use right away
Lesson 2 · DART is the official bulletin board→Lesson 4 · Disclosure calendar→Earnings calendar→This is educational material and not investment solicitation. There is no guarantee that past relationships will repeat in the future.