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In forceCompany financial reportingLast checked 13 November 2026

Company annual financial report (388)

A regulatory return listed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), Australia.

A company, registered scheme or other entity Chapter 2M of the Corporations Act covers must prepare a true and fair annual financial report and a directors' report, have them audited, and lodge copies with ASIC, so investors, creditors and the public can see the entity's financial position. Source

Official title: Annual financial report, directors' report and auditor's report lodged under Chapter 2M of the Corporations Act 2001 (Form 388)

The facts

Who files
All disclosing entities, all public companies, all large proprietary companies, all registered schemes and all registrable superannuation entities; a small proprietary company only if ASIC or its shareholders direct it to, or if it was foreign-controlled or had a crowd-sourced-funding shareholder during the year. Source
How often
Once for each financial year; a disclosing entity must also lodge a half-year report. Source
Deadline
Within 3 months after the end of the financial year for a disclosing entity, registered scheme, registrable superannuation entity or notified foreign passport fund; within 4 months for anyone else (Corporations Act s319(3)). A report amended after lodgment must be lodged again within 14 days of the amendment. Source
Format
Web form. Section 350 of the Corporations Act requires this report to be lodged in the form the regulations prescribe or, failing that, the form ASIC has approved; section 352 lets ASIC approve the manner and format for lodging it, which the Act notes 'could be electronic', and requires ASIC to publish that approval on its own website rather than setting it out in the Act itself. Source
How it is filed
Filing routes recorded for the ASIC: ASIC Regulatory Portal; Australian Credit Register Portal. See how firms file with the ASIC.
Status
In force
Legal basis
Group
Company financial reporting

Templates (1)

The tables and forms inside the return. Plain name first, the ASIC's code in brackets.

  • Copy of financial statements and reports (388)

A single report, built from the annual financial report, directors' report and auditor's report that Chapter 2M requires (Corporations Act 2001 s292, s301, s319); an entity that must also prepare a sustainability report under the Act's sustainability reporting provisions (for example s292A, s301A) lodges that as a further, separate report alongside it. Source

Validation rules

No published validation rules were found for this return. No standalone, published catalogue of automated edit checks was found; the accounting standards and the auditor's own work set the content requirements. Source

Public data

Published firm by firm. A document lodged under Chapter 2M is not one of the classes of document Chapter 9 of the Corporations Act excludes from public inspection, so any person may inspect it, or ask ASIC for a copy, under the Act's general document-inspection right. Source

Official documents (2)

The ASIC's own files, with the size and SHA-256 fingerprint of each as downloaded on 13 November 2026, so anyone can tell whether a copy is the same version.

Sources

Every page and document this return's facts were read from.

Knowing exactly what is collected, in what format and under which rules is the first step to real-time supervision. Line4 builds SupTech software for financial regulators that runs checks like these as each return arrives.

Line4's own text, and the way Line4 has collected and arranged these records, are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0. Please credit: “Source: Line4 regulatory submissions library (CC BY 4.0), https://www.line4.ai”. The facts themselves belong to no one. The regulators' document titles, template names, quoted terms and documents belong to them and are not covered by this licence: see ASIC's reuse terms. This describes what regulators publish. It is not legal or regulatory advice: always rely on the regulator's own text. Not affiliated with or endorsed by any regulator.

Line4 wrote this page in its own words from the ASIC's public website and links to the ASIC's own pages as the source; the ASIC has not reviewed or endorsed it, so always check the ASIC's own published text before relying on it.

© Australian Securities & Investments Commission. Material drawn from ASIC's regulatory guides, information sheets, forms, pro forma documents, legislative instruments and annual reports (https://asic.gov.au) is used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/); this library summarises it in plain English and links the originals.

Based on content from the Federal Register of Legislation at 13 November 2026. For the latest information on Australian Government legislation please go to https://www.legislation.gov.au.

Last checked 13 November 2026.