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This study explores the causes of delayed mandatory annual report filings of private companies in Estonia.

The authors use an online survey targeting companies that had submitted annual reports for 2017 late (late-filers) or failed to submit these by July 2020 (non-filers). The responses of 492 late-filers and 122 non-filers are analysed with exploratory factor analysis, Mann–Whitney U-Test and logistic regression.

Annual report filing decisions of both, late-filers and non-filers, are strongly driven by administrative costs attached to the preparation and submission of reports with non-filers perceiving these to be significantly greater. The relevance of other disclosure-related costs and benefits remains similar for both late-filers and non-filers. While proprietary and privacy concerns remain rather unimportant, benefits of timely disclosure, in the form of access to financing and possibilities to continue ordinary business activities, remain important disclosure timing drivers.

Policy interventions should focus on preventive measures that hinder companies' ordinary business activities in case of non-compliance to reporting deadlines. Monetary sanctions can be used to strengthen the desired behaviour alongside broader clarification of the purpose of mandatory reporting and available exemptions.

The authors propose an empirically testable comprehensive one-period model of disclosure timing decisions of private companies differentiating late-filers and non-filers. The authors address the limitations of previous studies through a survey that allows the authors to draw direct inferences about the trade-offs between different decision drivers and the motivations behind managers' disclosure timing decisions.