The shareholder record date is the record date as it applies to shares: the date, set by the company, on which a person must appear on the share register in order to receive a dividend, take part in a corporate action or vote at a meeting. The main entry explains how record dates work across all types of securities and how they relate to the other dates in an event.
The phrase is used mainly to distinguish the two purposes a record date serves for shareholders. For distributions, it fixes who is paid, and it works together with the ex-dividend date, which markets set a short time before so that trades have time to settle. For voting, it fixes who may attend and vote at a shareholder meeting; this date is set under company law and may be days or weeks ahead of the meeting, depending on the country.
In both cases the company's registrar takes a snapshot of the share register at the close of business. Investors holding through nominees rely on their custodian's own records at the same point, a step described under position capture date.