Audit companies in Lithuania

Changes in the number of audit firms in Lithuania

An audit company is a company registered in the list of audit companies. Pursuant to the provisions of the Law on the Audit of Financial Statements of the Republic of Lithuania, a company may start auditing activities only when it is entered into the list of audit companies by the decision of the Chamber of Auditors of Lithuania. The list of audit companies may include companies registered in the Republic of Lithuania and audit companies of member states that have established branches of the Republic of Lithuania, as well as other audit companies of member states that wish to perform audits in accordance with the procedure established by legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania.

In the Lithuanian audit market, a decreasing trend of audit companies can be observed. As indicated in the 2021 audit market overview presented on the website of the Chamber of Auditors of Lithuania, in 2021 there were 162 audit companies in Lithuania. 154 audit companies are included in the list of Lithuanian audit companies presented by the Chamber of Auditors of Lithuania for October 2023 (https://www.lar.lt/audito-imones/4). During the year 2022-2023, audit companies decreased by almost 5 percent. In addition, it is important to note that not only the number of audit firms decreases every year, but some of the audit firms included in the list did not perform a single audit in 2021. There were 16 such audit companies.

The decrease in the number of audit firms is directly related to the decrease in the number of auditors in Lithuania. The majority of audit firms employ 1 auditor (about 60 percent of all audit firms) or 2 auditors (22 percent of all auditors). The share of such small audit firms is 82 percent of all audit firms in Lithuania.

A decrease in the number of auditors in Lithuania has been observed for more than ten years. In 8 years, the number of auditors in Lithuania decreased by almost 13 percent. As the number of auditors decreases, so does the number of audit firms.

It is likely that the decrease in the number of auditors is mainly related to the increase in the average age of the auditor. The average age of auditors in 2021 was 52.84 years, in 2022 - XX years. It is likely that the average age of auditors in 2023 will be higher than in 2021 and 2022.

Another possible reason for the decline of audit firms is the increasing requirements for audit firms, especially in the area of quality assurance. The activities of auditors are controlled by the Chamber of Auditors of Lithuania and the Audit, Accounting, Asset Valuation and Insolvency Service (hereinafter - AVNT), whose websites provide information on fines imposed on auditors and audit companies due to identified audit performance deficiencies. After carrying out inspections of audit companies and auditors, AVNT imposes penalties. Below are some of the statistics on penalties imposed.

The most common penalties are the preparation of a plan for identified deficiencies, its coordination with AVNT and the implementation of the prepared plan, as well as a warning.

Analyzing the penalties by target, most of them are targeted at specific auditors rather than audit firms.

The largest audit companies in Lithuania

The major part of the audit market consists of the 4 largest audit companies in Lithuania, which are also the largest in other countries: Ernst&Young, PriceWaterHouseCoopers, KPMG and Deloitte. These companies are the largest in terms of revenue, but not in terms of the number of auditors they employ, or the number of audits they perform per year. The 2021 review of the Lithuanian auditors' market lists the top ten audit companies based on the number of auditors who worked for them the most. It should be noted that this list changes every year. According to the information provided by the Chamber of Auditors of Lithuania in October 2023, the majority of auditors are already working in some other audit companies.

It should be noted that part of the audit companies with the largest number of auditors employ those auditors (10 auditors) who work in more than one audit company. There are also cases where one auditor works for even three audit companies. According to the information provided by the list of audit companies in Lithuania (according to data published in the 10th month of 2023), as many as 32 auditors work in more than one audit company. It can be concluded that this is the reason why the list of the largest audit companies by the number of auditors changes every year.