Two settlement dates a month
FINRA measures short interest twice each month: on the 15th and on the last calendar day, each rolled back to the prior trading day when that date falls on a weekend or holiday. That produces twenty-four reporting cycles in 2026, not four quarterly snapshots.
Filing and publication lag
A settlement date is not a publication date. Member firms must file their short-interest positions with FINRA by 6:00 p.m. ET on the second trading day after the settlement date, and FINRA publishes the aggregated report roughly five trading days after that filing deadline. For the September 15, 2026 settlement date, FINRA published the report on September 24, 2026, about a week and a half after the position was actually measured.
Why the lag matters
A short-interest percentage read today can describe a position that was already stale by the time it became public. Compare the settlement date on each observation, not the date you happened to read it, before treating a change between two reports as new information.
Where to check the current schedule
FINRA publishes the full list of settlement and due dates for the current year on its short-interest reporting page. This tracker keeps both the settlement date and the published date visible on every row for exactly this reason: reconcile a screen against the official schedule before drawing a conclusion from it.
Sources and further reading
This guide explains a tool and its assumptions. It is not personalized financial, tax, or legal advice.
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