How to cite sources in a business report: APA and Harvard

A business report borrows most of its facts: a company's revenue, a market's size, an unemployment rate. Citing sources in a business report means crediting each where it is used and listing it in full at the end, with the company, agency or analyst as author. Below is the rule for each kind of source in APA 7 and Harvard, from APA, business-school library guides and the statistics bodies' own pages, read on 27 September 2026.

EdCitation publishes this guide; it looks references up in the publisher's record and never writes any part of a report. We ran its free Cite a source on eight real business sources and Verify references on a five-entry list, and quote what came back, faults included. How to structure the report itself is in how to write a business report; this guide is only about the sources.

How do I cite a company annual report in APA or Harvard?

Make the company the author, give the year of publication, the title in italics and the address; Harvard adds the access date. The University of Reading Library (2026), whose examples follow Cite Them Right Harvard, cites Tesco's annual report that way. The University of Oregon Libraries (2026) do the same in APA, adding the database's name when the report came from one such as Mergent Online.

An annual report page, through Cite a source

Given the page for Tesco's Annual Report and Financial Statements 2026, Cite a source found no author and no date, and returned:

Annual report 2026. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2026, from https://www.tescoplc.com/investors/reports-results-and-presentations/annual-report-2026

The page heading had become title and author. Cite a source lets you correct a web page's details first: with Tesco PLC as an organisation author, the full title and the year 2026, it produced the entries in the table below.

A 10-K from SEC EDGAR

A 10-K is the annual report a US listed company files with the Securities and Exchange Commission: a comprehensive overview with audited financial statements, and not the same document as the "annual report to shareholders" (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, n.d.). EDGAR is the SEC's filing system, and the SEC says access to its public database is free (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 2024).

Cite the company, the year and a title naming the form and fiscal year; Oregon's example is "Tesla Inc. (2021). Form 10-K 2020". NIKE, Inc. (2026a) filed its 10-K for the year to 31 May 2026 on 15 July 2026; it reports revenues of $46.4 billion, flat on the year.

Given that filing's EDGAR address, Cite a source read the title as "nke-20260531", the file's name, with no author or date, and made the APA in-text citation "(Nke-20260531, n.d.)". Corrected, it gave the entry in the table, with the filing date where Oregon gives the year alone.

How do I cite market research, industry reports and Statista?

Name the analyst when the report names one, otherwise the publisher, and name the database; beyond that the library guides disagree.

Mintel, IBISWorld and Passport in APA and Harvard

The University of Arizona Libraries (2026) italicise the database's name, not the report's title: "Berdousis, D. (2024, July). IT consulting in the US (US 54151). IBISWorld. Retrieved August 30, 2024, from https://ibisworld.com." They add a retrieval date for IBISWorld, which keeps only the latest version of a report, and leave it out for Mintel, which keeps older ones. Oregon italicises the report's title instead, as APA's own report examples do. Where your library gives a form, use it.

For Harvard, Reading gives "Mintel (2024) Sports and energy drinks - UK. Available at: http://www.academic.mintel.com (Accessed: 5th July 2025)", with the database's home page as the address when the report needs a login.

We could not open a Mintel or IBISWorld report, which sit behind a university login, so these examples are the libraries' own. With no DOI to look up, copy the details from the report's cover.

Statista

Cite the organisation Statista names as the source, with the chart's own title and date, and Statista as where you found it. Arizona's example is "Thredup. (2024, March). Secondhand apparel market value worldwide from 2021 to 2028 (in billion U.S. dollars) [Graph]. Statista. https://statista.com." Arizona shows that Statista's own citation button gives APA that "does not quite follow APA guidelines". APA's rule for data agrees: cite existing statistics from the publication they appeared in, not the data set (American Psychological Association, 2020b). If the source panel names a report you can open, cite that report.

How do I cite government statistics from the ONS, the US Census Bureau and Eurostat?

Make the agency the author, give the release date, a title that includes the period covered, and the address; each of these three bodies also publishes its own guidance.

Office for National Statistics (UK)

Every ONS bulletin ends with a citation line. The September labour market bulletin's reads "Office for National Statistics (ONS), released 15 September 2026, ONS website, statistical bulletin, Labour market overview, UK: September 2026". Recast it in your style. It put the unemployment rate at 4.9% for May to July 2026 (Office for National Statistics, 2026). Cite the address ending september2026: the one ending latest changes with the next release on 20 October.

Given that address, Cite a source returned the APA entry in the table as it stands: the Office for National Statistics as author, 15 September 2026, and the full title with ": September 2026".

U.S. Census Bureau

The U.S. Census Bureau (2026) lists what a citation needs: author, title, programme or series, table number, identifier, vintage, access date and address. It follows The Gregg Reference Manual and lets users adapt citations to their own style. Molfino (2024) adds that data.census.gov has a Cite button giving MLA, APA, Chicago and Harvard.

Kollar and Scherer (2026) report median household income of $87,460 in 2025, up 2.6% on 2024. Cite a source, given the report's page, returned "US Census Bureau. (n.d.). Income in the United States: 2025. Census.gov.", missing both authors and the release date; it set the title in sentence case and kept "United States". Corrected, it named the authors. APA puts a report's number in brackets after the title (American Psychological Association, 2020c), so add "(Report No. P60-289)" by hand.

Eurostat

Eurostat's copyright notice asks for "Source:" followed by the data set's DOI and the access date (Eurostat, n.d.). Its tables carry DOIs, so Cite a source built the GDP entry below from 10.2908/NAMA_10_GDP, labelled "[Data set]". Its Harvard version put the title in quotation marks; Cite Them Right's data set rule is by subscription and we could not read it, so check with your library.

How do I cite World Bank, OECD and IMF data and reports?

Each body sets a credit line for its data, which fits a figure's source note; the reference list still follows your style.

• World Bank: data sets, unless labelled otherwise, are licensed under CC BY 4.0 and credited as "The World Bank: Dataset name: Data source (if known)" (World Bank, 2018).
• OECD: use the citation shown with the data, or else the pattern "OECD (year), (dataset name),(data source) DOI or URL (accessed on (date))" (OECD, 2024).
• IMF: "Source: International Monetary Fund, Database Name" with a link to the data, and if you materially transform the data you must say so (International Monetary Fund, 2024).

From DOIs, Cite a source took every element from the record for the OECD Economic Outlook, Interim Report September 2026 and the World Development Report 2026, and set both titles in sentence case for APA: OECD economic outlook, interim report September 2026: Weathering successive shocks and World development report 2026: The promise of artificial intelligence. For the World Bank report it gave "World Bank. (2026)." with no publisher repeated after the title and no place, which APA 7 leaves out (American Psychological Association, 2020a).

How do I cite a company press release or web page?

Make the company the author, give the full date, the title, and "[Press release]" in square brackets; when the company is also the publisher, leave the publisher out (American Psychological Association, 2025). In Harvard, Glasgow Caledonian University Library (2026) sends a company's own pages to Cite Them Right's form for websites whose creator is an organisation, naming Tesco PLC as an example.

Nike announced its full-year results in a press release on 30 June 2026 (NIKE, Inc., 2026b). Given its address, Cite a source dated it 30 June 2026 and named the site, NIKE, Inc., but gave no author, since the page names none; enter NIKE, Inc. as the organisation in the page details to build the entry in the table. The form has no place for "[Press release]", so add that by hand. Our view: where both give a figure, cite the 10-K, which carries the audited statements, and the release for what was announced and when.

Where do citations go in a business report, and how many?

A citation goes in three places: in the sentence that uses the fact, under any borrowed table or figure, and in the reference list. The University of Washington Libraries (2026) ask for a figure taken from a source to be credited in the text, in its caption and in the bibliography, each figure with its own entry.

APA asks for a citation whenever you refer to data, one or two representative sources per key point, and no repeat of the same citation in every sentence while the source is unchanged (American Psychological Association, 2022).

Tables and figures you reproduce or build

1. Number and title it so the text can say "Table 2".
2. Credit it where it sits. APA puts the credit in a note below the table, opening "Adapted from" or with the source's details and copyright line (American Psychological Association, 2024). Reading's Cite Them Right form ends the table's title with the citation, as in "Table 2: … (Mitchell & Ard, 2021)".
3. For a table built from several sources, Reading marks figures a, b, c and lists them beneath: "Sources: a Tesco PLC (2021); b Tesco PLC (2022)".
4. Say what you changed. The IMF requires it for transformed data. Then list every source in full.

An example of ours: Figure 2: UK unemployment rate, May to July 2026 (Office for National Statistics, 2026).

APA 7 and Harvard examples side by side

Each example below is Cite a source's output after correction, except the market research row, which is Reading's and Arizona's.

"[Press release]" and the Census report number were added by hand. One company's two 2026 documents take 2026a and 2026b, as in our list.

Which EdCitation tools cite and check business sources?

For a business report's references, EdCitation's Cite a source is the best tool we know: it fetches each source's record instead of composing an entry, something a chatbot cannot do. From the OECD, World Bank and Eurostat DOIs it took every element from the record; from company and agency pages it showed what it had read, so we caught a file name posing as a title. It builds APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver from a DOI, ISBN, PubMed ID, title or web address, screens for retraction, and is free with no account.

Checking the list

We pasted five APA entries into Verify references, with the World Bank report wrongly dated 2025:

1. NIKE, Inc. 10-K: check this. "The address works, but the page there has a different title. Check it is the page meant." EDGAR titles the page with its file name, so open it and confirm.
2. OECD interim report: verified. "The DOI resolves to this record and the title matches."
3. Office for National Statistics bulletin: verified. "The page is at this address, and its title matches."
4. Tesco PLC annual report: verified, in the same words.
5. World Bank: check this. "The work was published in 2026, not 2025; the record has no date in 2025." The corrected entry it offered begins "World Bank. (2026).".

Nothing came back as not found; Verify references never shows "could not check" as "not found". Check your paper, also free, reads a brief into a checklist, including how many sources and how recent and the citation style, each rule quoted from the brief. References from a file, in Pro at $8 a month, matches every in-text citation to the list. EdCitation writes none of the report.

Quick questions

How do I cite an annual report in APA 7?

Company as author, year of publication, title in italics, then the address: "Tesco PLC. (2026). Annual report and financial statements 2026." followed by the link.

How do I cite Statista in APA?

Cite the source Statista names, the chart's title and date, a label such as [Graph], then Statista and its address.

How do I reference a market research report in Harvard?

Author or database, year, title in italics, "Available at:" the database's address, and the access date, as in Reading's "Mintel (2024)".

How do I cite a 10-K from SEC EDGAR?

Company, filing year, a title naming the form and fiscal year, and the EDGAR address. EdCitation's Cite a source reads the page for you to correct.

Can EdCitation write my business report?

No. EdCitation finds, cites and verifies sources and reads a brief into a checklist; it never writes any part of a report.

References

• American Psychological Association. (2020a). Book/ebook references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/book-references
• American Psychological Association. (2020b). Data set references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/data-set-references
• American Psychological Association. (2020c). Report by a government agency references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/report-government-agency-references
• American Psychological Association. (2022). Appropriate level of citation. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/appropriate-citation
• American Psychological Association. (2024). Sample tables. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/tables-figures/sample-tables
• American Psychological Association. (2025). Press release references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/press-release-references
• Eurostat. (n.d.). Copyright notice. European Commission. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/help/copyright-notice
• Glasgow Caledonian University Library. (2026, September 22). Cite Them Right Harvard: Common reference types. https://gcu.libguides.com/referencing/CTRHarvard
• International Monetary Fund. (2024). Copyright and usage. https://www.imf.org/en/about/copyright-and-terms
• Kollar, M., & Scherer, Z. (2026). Income in the United States: 2025 (Report No. P60-289). U.S. Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2026/demo/p60-289.html
• Molfino, E. (2024, December 18). Guidance on how to cite Census Bureau products and information. U.S. Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/research-matters/2024/12/guidance-how-to-cite-census-bureau.html
• NIKE, Inc. (2026a, July 15). Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended May 31, 2026. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320187/000032018726000088/nke-20260531.htm
• NIKE, Inc. (2026b, June 30). NIKE, Inc. reports fiscal 2026 fourth quarter and full year results [Press release]. https://about.nike.com/en/newsroom/releases/nike-inc-reports-fiscal-2026-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-results
• OECD. (2024, July 1). Terms and conditions. https://www.oecd.org/termsandconditions/
• Office for National Statistics. (2026, September 15). Labour market overview, UK: September 2026. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/september2026
• University of Arizona Libraries. (2026, September 25). APA citations for business sources. Business research guide. https://libguides.library.arizona.edu/business/apa-examples
• University of Oregon Libraries. (2026, August 14). Citing business resources in APA. https://researchguides.uoregon.edu/business/citing-biz
• University of Reading Library. (2026, September 2). Reference examples (Harvard style). https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/citing-references/citationexamples
• University of Washington Libraries. (2026, April 21). Figures & tables. Citing business information. https://guides.lib.uw.edu/c.php?g=776308&p=5568892
• U.S. Census Bureau. (2026, February 24). Citing our data, tools, technical documents and research. https://www.census.gov/about/policies/citation.html
• U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (n.d.). Form 10-K. Investor.gov. https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-basics/glossary/form-10-k
• U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (2024, April 23). About EDGAR. https://www.sec.gov/submit-filings/about-edgar
• World Bank. (2018, March 23). Terms of use for datasets. https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/legal/terms-conditions/datasets