Following the 2013 Accounting Directive, small European Union (EU) companies are no longer required to have a statutory audit. However, the EU legislation allows Member States to impose an audit on their small companies based on their specific circumstances.

This publication follows up on our 2016 factsheet and presents the current audit exemption thresholds in Europe and how several countries have recently amended them.

Our survey results show that four EU countries have lowered their audit exemption thresholds while four countries have increased them between 2016 and 2020. Overall, there was no clear upward or downward trend in the development of the thresholds in this period. We also found diverging national policies and views on auditing smaller entities.