A report by Audit Analytics has found that audit fees in the United States increased by 2.9 percent in fiscal year 2021 after decreasing in the previous year. Total fees (audit, audit related, tax, other) reached $18.9 billion in FY 2021, increasing by 3.3 percent. But Accounting Today reported that the fees still haven’t gone back up to pre-COVID levels.

The report also noted, "While total audit fees are increasing, the audit fee to revenue ratio declined in FY 2021. This is largely due to the decrease in revenues seen during the COVID-19 pandemic." Over five years, the revenue ratio declined from 0.063 percent to 0.059 percent.

According to the report, three factors led to a decrease in average audit fees between 2019 and 2020:

• Impacts on audit work from the COVID-19 pandemic.

• An influx of special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), which pay relatively low audit fees due to their lack of operations. This drove down the average fees by increasing the number of public companies.

• A change in filer status definition reclassified hundreds of companies from accelerated filers to non-accelerated filers. Non-accelerated filers are not required to have their internal controls audited but remain in the company population, further driving down the average.

Accounting Today reported that the total amount of audit fees charged have nearly tripled since 2002, the year when the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed. That figure almost doubled in 2004, when the law was more widely implemented. There was a downturn in 2009 and 2010 during the Great Recession, but the climb has generally been moderate and steady.