Germany · VAT 19%
Germany accounting market
Germany combines a regulated tax-adviser profession with a separately regulated audit profession. Tax advice and bookkeeping for third parties in return for payment are protected activities …
Research guide An independent accounting comparison and research guide. We publish informational comparison content about accounting providers; we do not provide accounting, tax, payroll or financial advisory services.
European markets
Twenty European markets explained one at a time: the accounting environment, the professional titles used locally, the software landscape and the providers that publish information about their services.
Editorial role and limits
Independent accounting comparison and research guide. This website is editorial. It is not an accounting firm, not a bookkeeper, not a payroll bureau and not a tax adviser, and it is not an official directory operated or endorsed by any government, regulator or professional association. It does not provide accounting, tax, payroll or financial advisory services, and it does not collect financial, personal or login information from visitors.
Its purpose is research, comparison, verification and shortlisting. Provider information is recorded from each provider's own published pages, with the source and the date it was checked. The final decision is yours, and it is taken on the provider's own website and terms.
20 European markets · local titles, registers and software
Short editorial notes on the accounting environment in each market
Germany · VAT 19%
Germany combines a regulated tax-adviser profession with a separately regulated audit profession. Tax advice and bookkeeping for third parties in return for payment are protected activities …
Austria · VAT 20%
Austria regulates both professions through a single statutory chamber, the KSW, and grants the Wirtschaftstreuhandberufe (public accounting professions) as a combined authorisation. A firm t…
Switzerland · VAT 8.1%
Switzerland splits the market between fiduciary firms, which handle accounting, payroll and VAT administration, and licensed audit firms, whose right to sign an audit opinion is granted by t…
France · VAT 20%
France has one of Europe's most tightly regulated accountancy markets. Bookkeeping and the review of accounts for third parties are reserved to the expert-comptable, a state-recognised profe…
Netherlands · VAT 21%
The Netherlands has a two-track accounting profession: registeraccountants (RA) and accountant-administratieconsulenten (AA), with the NBA as the statutory professional body and a separate r…
Belgium · VAT 21%
Belgium regulates the accountancy and tax-adviser profession through the ITAA, whose membership is mandatory for anyone using the protected titles of accountant or tax adviser, and the audit…
Luxembourg · VAT 17%
Luxembourg's market is small, multilingual and heavily shaped by cross-border structures. The title expert-comptable is protected and requires OEC membership; statutory audit is reserved to …
Ireland · VAT 23%
Ireland has several recognised accountancy bodies whose members may practise, with IAASA supervising the bodies and the audit profession. Annual returns and financial statements are filed pu…
What each service means, what to compare, what to ask, how it is priced
Service category
Recording and reconciling day-to-day transactions
Service category
Salary processing, social contributions and employer reporting
Service category
VAT determination, reporting and cross-border filings
Service category
Corporate, income and withholding tax filings
Service category
Reporting for decision-making inside the business
Service category
Statutory financial statements and filing
Service category
Reporting under national GAAP or IFRS for groups and lenders
Service category
Online ledgers, direct bank feeds and remote collaboration
Service category
Implementation, configuration and platform training
Selection criteria by company size, without declaring any provider the best
Business size
One-person businesses, usually with no employees and simple transaction volumes.
Business size
Young companies, often funded, usually needing reporting for investors as well as compliance.
Business size
Owner-managed companies with a handful of employees and routine reporting.
Business size
Businesses that have outgrown their first provider and now need scale and depth.
Business size
Larger private companies with departments, budgets and internal control expectations.
Business size
Groups with entities, employees or sales in more than one European country.
Every profile shows its source and last-checked date
Austria
Not publicly confirmed
Austria
Not publicly confirmed
Austria
Not publicly confirmed
Belgium
Not publicly confirmed
Belgium
Not publicly confirmed
Belgium
Not publicly confirmed
Belgium
Not publicly confirmed
Czech Republic
Annual accounts, Financial reporting, Bookkeeping, Business advisory
Czech Republic
Not publicly confirmed
Practical reading for buyers, written to be applied to the provider records
Method · 11 min
A workable method for turning a long list of providers into a shortlist you can defend.
Method · 9 min
Selection criteria that hold up across European markets, from scope to software.
Method · 8 min
A structured question set covering scope, staffing, data, deadlines and exit.
Scope · 7 min
Where recording ends and compliance, reporting and advisory begin.
Pricing · 8 min
The pricing models used across Europe and what each one rewards.
Structure · 8 min
Trade-offs between proximity, coverage and coordination when your business crosses borders.
Informational answers only, never accounting advice
Every provider is stored as a structured record with the same fields: country, coverage, services, business sizes served, languages, software, remote support, office model and pricing model, together with the official website, the source used and the date it was last checked. Filters and the comparison table read those fields directly. When you apply filters, the site shows the providers whose recorded attributes match the criteria you selected. It does not rank them, score them or choose on your behalf.
Providers are included when they are real organisations that publicly describe accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, tax-compliance, cloud-accounting or related services for businesses in a European market, and when they publish enough information for a factual profile to be written. Inclusion is not an endorsement, is not paid for, and is not a quality judgement. The dataset does not claim to include every provider in any market; it covers the organisations recorded in the directory, and the methodology page explains how to check a provider that is not listed.
Almost entirely from the provider's own website: service pages, business-size pages, locations, software and tools pages, pricing pages where they exist, and legal or imprint pages. Where a provider publishes nothing about an attribute, the profile records 'Not publicly confirmed' rather than an assumption. Every profile shows the source and the date it was last checked, and each profile links to the provider's own website so that you can verify anything that matters to you.
Every record carries the date on which it was last checked, shown on the profile and in the comparison table. Because provider websites change without notice, a check date is a statement about when the information was read, not a guarantee that it is still current. Where you spot a change, the corrections page explains how to tell us, and corrections are made against a fresh reading of the provider's own site.
Yes. Accounting fees depend on transaction volumes, headcount, the number of entities, the software used and the scope agreed in the engagement letter, and most providers do not publish prices at all. Where a provider does publish a starting price, the profile records the figure, the source and the date, and states that current pricing must be confirmed directly with the provider. No price on this site should be treated as a quotation.
Start with the obligations your business actually has in the country where it is registered, including which tasks are reserved to a holder of a statutory professional title. Then choose the attributes that matter to you, filter the directory on those attributes to build a shortlist, and compare the profiles side by side. The how-to-choose page and the guides go through the criteria in detail, and the question sets can be used directly in a conversation with a provider.