Towards a transparent audit market: audit fees benchmark of listed public interest entities in the EU

At market level, this transparency should provide factual indicators on the structure of the market, and notably on the level of competition at play. Shining a light on audit fees helps address market deficiencies and contributes to the public debate on ways to improve audit quality. Surprisingly, there is no reference data on PIE audit fees in the EU, which is detrimental for all stakeholders. Forvis Mazars' study aims to provide a starting point to fill this gap.

To obtain an insight into audit costs for PIEs in EU Member States, this study references data covering listed PIE audit fees that are available in the Audit Analytics database and uses the IFAC methodology, which quantifies audit fees as a percentage of revenue. This data covers the whole population of listed entities headquartered in the EU having shares admitted to trading on an EU regulated market (‘EU listed PIEs’) up to 2021. All figures and statistics are fully transparent and can be cross-checked independently. 

This approach aims to provide decision-makers with evidence-based information. Forvis Mazars encourages all stakeholders to verify, refine, and expand the data.

Download 'Towards a transparent audit market: audit fees benchmark of listed public interest entities in the EU' below to find out:

• The cost of audit in the 27 Member States
• Deep dive on the evolution of audit fees in EU Member States since 2012
• The cost of audit by market cap segments in EU Member States
• Who the auditors are of the listed PIEs in the EU