Fund groups with net assets of $1 billion or more must comply with the SEC’s amended US Names Rule from 11 June 2026, which is now ten days away. The date has moved once already, and in February the SEC moved part of the package again, but only the Form N-PORT reporting items. As Release IC-35963 makes clear, everything else stays on 11 June for larger groups and 11 December 2026 for smaller ones, so if your fund names, prospectuses and compliance monitoring aren’t aligned yet, this is the final stretch.
What is the Names Rule?
Rule 35d-1 under the Investment Company Act stops registered funds and business development companies from using names that are materially deceptive or misleading. At its heart is the 80% investment policy, which means that if a name suggests a particular focus, the fund must invest at least 80% of its assets in line with that focus.
The SEC adopted amendments on 20 September 2023 to widen the rule and tighten how it works day to day. The original compliance dates were 11 December 2025 for larger groups and 11 June 2026 for smaller ones, until the SEC pushed both back by six months in March 2025.
What does the amended rule require?
The most visible change is that more names now need an 80% policy. The rule covers names suggesting investments with particular characteristics, with the rule text naming terms such as “growth” or “value” and terms indicating that investment decisions incorporate ESG factors. That sits alongside the existing categories of types of investment, industries, and countries or regions.
Terms also have to mean what they say. The terms used in a name must be consistent with their plain English meaning or established industry use, and the prospectus has to define them, including the criteria used to select the investments they describe.
The 80% test is now something a fund monitors rather than simply declares. The policy applies at the time of investment, but a fund must review its portfolio’s inclusion in the 80% basket at least quarterly, and if it drifts out it has to get back into compliance as soon as reasonably practicable and within 90 consecutive days.
The amendments also set out some more detailed mechanics:
- Derivatives at notional value: when measuring the basket, derivatives are valued at their notional amount, with interest rate derivatives converted to 10-year bond equivalents and options delta adjusted.
- Notice of changes: if the 80% policy isn’t fundamental, shareholders must get at least 60 days’ prior notice of any change to it and to an accompanying name change, and the notice must carry a bold-face statement, “Important Notice Regarding Change in Investment Policy [and Name]”, or something equally clear.
- Records: funds must keep written records documenting which investments sit in the 80% basket and the basket’s value as a share of assets.
What moved in February, and what didn’t
On 18 February 2026 the SEC took two steps at once. In Release IC-35963, effective 25 March 2026, it extended the compliance dates for the Names Rule’s Form N-PORT reporting items only, to 17 November 2027 for groups with $10 billion or more and 18 May 2028 for smaller groups, using a higher size threshold than the $1 billion that applies to the rest of the rule. Alongside that, it proposed amendments to Form N-PORT that would remove those Names Rule reporting items altogether, and while comments on the proposal closed on 24 April 2026, it remains a proposal.
The release is direct about everything else, stating that compliance dates for all other amendments to Rule 35d-1, and for the related prospectus disclosure and reporting requirements, remain 11 June 2026 and 11 December 2026. In other words the reporting may change, but the underlying obligation hasn’t.
The SEC staff’s Names Rule FAQs now include four answers dated 18 February 2026 alongside the seven dated January 2025. Among other things, the February answers confirm that no 60-day notice is needed for non-material changes made solely to comply with the amendments, that “growth” or “value” paired with a modifier showing they aren’t the main focus, such as “income and growth”, doesn’t trigger an 80% policy, and that terms describing techniques, such as “merger arbitrage”, don’t trigger one either.
What it means in practice
In effect, the rule turns a fund’s name into a monitored data point, because every term in a name needs a definition, a selection method, a basket, a quarterly check and a record. If any one of those lives in a spreadsheet that nobody owns, that’s where the process is most likely to break down.
It’s a documents exercise too, since prospectus definitions, any renamed funds, shareholder notices and the marketing that describes each strategy all need to say the same thing. A name change also ripples out into factsheets, websites, data vendors and distributor feeds.
When do the Names Rule dates apply?
- 20 September 2023: the SEC adopts the amendments
- 14 March 2025: compliance dates are extended by six months
- 18 February 2026: N-PORT items are deferred, N-PORT amendments are proposed and the staff FAQs gain four answers dated that day
- 24 April 2026: the comment period on the N-PORT proposal closes
- 11 June 2026: compliance date for fund groups with $1 billion or more
- 11 December 2026: compliance date for smaller fund groups
- 17 November 2027 and 18 May 2028: compliance dates for the N-PORT Names Rule reporting items, if the SEC doesn’t remove them first
What to do now
- Check every name against the 2023 scope, looking again at funds that use growth, value, ESG and similar terms and confirming that each has an 80% policy and a prospectus definition, or a documented reason it doesn’t need one.
- Test the monitoring as well as the policy by running the quarterly basket review on real holdings, with derivatives at notional, and confirming that the 90-day clock and the records work as intended.
- Line up the documents, so that prospectus definitions, renamed funds, notices and marketing descriptions match and downstream feeds carry any new names.
The 80% rule itself isn’t new, but from 11 June larger groups will need to show, quarter after quarter, that their portfolios continue to match their names.
For us, the Names Rule is a reminder that a fund’s name is data, and data has to agree everywhere it appears. When prospectus definitions, strategy descriptions, factsheets and fund website content all draw on one governed record of fund data covering the fund’s name, terms and policy, a change is made once and flows through with an audit trail behind it. If you’d like to talk about how that works in practice, get in touch.
Sources: SEC Release IC-35963 (18 February 2026), SEC press release 2023-188 on the Names Rule amendments, 17 CFR 270.35d-1, Form N-PORT Reporting proposal, Federal Register, 23 February 2026, SEC staff 2025-26 Names Rule FAQs, as at 1 June 2026.
About this article
This article reflects the position at 1 June 2026 and was checked against the primary sources available at that time. Thomas Bjerkén, our regulatory reporting and fund data specialist, joined Kurtosys after it was published and now looks after our regulatory content. Some details may have changed since it was published.
