Statutory auditing is a profession of public trust: the auditor’s opinion on the financial statements underpins the decisions of banks, investors, business partners and the state. For fifteen years the number of people in this profession in Poland has been falling steadily.
Below we set out the register data for 2010–2026: how many auditors and audit firms there are, where they work, why — in auditors’ own words — they leave the profession, and what may happen over the next decade.
Fewer auditors, fewer firms
In 2010 the register of the Polish Chamber of Statutory Auditors (PIBR) listed 7,482 people; at the end of 2025 it listed 4,873. That is a fall of almost 35%. A one-year rebound in 2025 (of 19 people) did not reverse the trend. The rise in new entries was driven by a transitional route to the qualification, without an examination, linked to sustainability (ESG) assurance — and in the same year 150 people were removed from the register, 121 of them at their own request.
There were 1,811 audit firms; there are now 1,165. Their number fell without interruption over the whole fifteen years. The number of practising auditors — those actually working in the profession — is falling too. It peaked in 2012 (3,632) and stood at 2,568 at the end of 2025, almost 30% lower.
The profession has been shrinking for fifteen years
Show data as table
| year | series | number |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | all statutory auditors | 7,482 |
| 2010 | practising auditors | 3,431 |
| 2010 | audit firms | 1,811 |
| 2011 | all statutory auditors | 7,311 |
| 2011 | practising auditors | 3,606 |
| 2011 | audit firms | 1,784 |
| 2012 | all statutory auditors | 7,104 |
| 2012 | practising auditors | 3,632 |
| 2012 | audit firms | 1,704 |
| 2013 | all statutory auditors | 7,178 |
| 2013 | practising auditors | 3,568 |
| 2013 | audit firms | 1,669 |
| 2014 | all statutory auditors | 7,103 |
| 2014 | practising auditors | 3,083 |
| 2014 | audit firms | 1,647 |
| 2015 | all statutory auditors | 7,086 |
| 2015 | practising auditors | 3,151 |
| 2015 | audit firms | 1,612 |
| 2016 | all statutory auditors | 6,987 |
| 2016 | practising auditors | 3,195 |
| 2016 | audit firms | 1,587 |
| 2017 | all statutory auditors | 6,680 |
| 2017 | practising auditors | 3,136 |
| 2017 | audit firms | 1,563 |
| 2018 | all statutory auditors | 6,061 |
| 2018 | practising auditors | 3,044 |
| 2018 | audit firms | 1,515 |
| 2019 | all statutory auditors | 5,617 |
| 2019 | practising auditors | 2,944 |
| 2019 | audit firms | 1,419 |
| 2020 | all statutory auditors | 5,395 |
| 2020 | practising auditors | 2,820 |
| 2020 | audit firms | 1,405 |
| 2021 | all statutory auditors | 5,238 |
| 2021 | practising auditors | 2,745 |
| 2021 | audit firms | 1,364 |
| 2022 | all statutory auditors | 5,070 |
| 2022 | practising auditors | 2,663 |
| 2022 | audit firms | 1,279 |
| 2023 | all statutory auditors | 4,948 |
| 2023 | practising auditors | 2,570 |
| 2023 | audit firms | 1,230 |
| 2024 | all statutory auditors | 4,854 |
| 2024 | practising auditors | 2,536 |
| 2024 | audit firms | 1,193 |
| 2025 | all statutory auditors | 4,873 |
| 2025 | practising auditors | 2,568 |
| 2025 | audit firms | 1,165 |
Source: PIBR register data.
The 2026 data confirm that the 2025 rebound was a one-off. From January to August, 29 people were entered in the register and 97 were removed — more than three removals for every new entry. The number of auditors in the register fell to 4,805, and the number of those practising continues to fall.
Source: PIBR monthly lists of statutory auditors, 31 December 2025 – 31 August 2026.
The PIE segment is shrinking faster
The biggest change is in the market for audits of public-interest entities (PIEs): banks, insurers and listed companies. The number of audit firms auditing them fell from 67 in 2021 to 48 in 2025, a decrease of 28.4%. Over the same period the total number of audit firms fell from 1,364 to 1,165, a decrease of 14.6%. The PIE segment is therefore shrinking twice as fast as the market as a whole.
Source: PIBR register data, PANA reports.
Fewer firms means less choice for the entities being audited and greater concentration.
Who will audit a small business?
Most Polish audit firms are small practices, often run by a single person, which audit the financial statements of local businesses, cooperatives and foundations. They are the ones leaving the market fastest.
At the end of 2025 the six largest of the 24 regional branches accounted for 76.1% of all auditors, and Warsaw alone for 32.2%. The seven largest branches accounted for almost 78% of practising auditors. At the other end of the list were Suwałki with 16 auditors, Tarnów with 28 and Legnica with 29. For a small business owner outside a large city, finding an auditor is becoming increasingly difficult.
Source: PIBR list of statutory auditors as at 31 December 2025. In 2026 the branches in Toruń, Tarnów and Kielce were merged into larger branches.
The question of who will audit a small business is also discussed in an article in Rachunkowość (2026).
Why are they leaving?
The register data show the scale of the phenomenon, but not its causes. There are many causes: demographics, regulatory costs, competition from the large networks. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that the way oversight is exercised is an important factor. Many of the auditors we talk to say they are leaving not because they cannot audit, but because they cannot predict the yardstick by which their work will be judged.
Tomorrow’s leaders
After 2030, hundreds of graduates of new training routes may enter the profession. The register itself may therefore start to grow again. The question is how many of them will actually practise.
Even now, only one in two registered auditors (52.5%) practises the profession. Whether the number of practising auditors rises by 40% or by 80% over the decade depends on how many young auditors decide to sign audit reports. That decision is not made in a vacuum. A young auditor who sees that almost every inspection ends with deficiencies being found, and that proceedings take years, has alternatives: the finance department of a company, advisory work, internal control. The most able have the most alternatives.
The economist Albert Hirschman described this mechanism half a century ago. When members of an organisation cannot make effective use of their voice, what remains to them is exit. The first to leave are those who care most about quality and who have somewhere to go. Those who remain in the profession are those who do not mind checklist-driven work.
Our research shows that voice among auditors is already muted: auditors avoid criticising oversight in public, even though in private they speak about it openly. If this mechanism extends to the new generation, the profession will lose not only the experienced auditors who are leaving today, but also the leaders of tomorrow who will never start practising. The register may then grow while the profession grows weaker.
Who will teach them?
The number of new auditors is only half the question. The other half is what they will learn. University provides knowledge, but it does not teach the practice of auditing. Professional judgement cannot be acquired from a textbook: it is formed on real engagements, under the eye of an experienced auditor who shows not only what to do but also why.
This is where the difficulty begins. Not every audit firm is ready to take on and train a trainee. For a small practice this costs time and, under the current oversight regime, also carries risk: any audit file on which an inexperienced assistant has worked may be selected for inspection. The fewer small firms there are, the fewer places there are to learn the profession outside the large networks.
When a firm does take on a trainee, a second danger arises: it will pass on not only knowledge but also its own experience of inspection, and with it the emotions — fear of a particular inspection and anticipatory anxiety about an assessment whose criteria cannot be predicted. The young trainee takes these on before ever encountering oversight themselves. An auditor who has worked for years in fear of assessment will above all teach the trainee how to protect themselves. They will teach how to document for the inspection, not how to think about risk. This is how a generation emerges for which defensive auditing is not a reaction to oversight but the only way of working it knows.
There is no good way out of this situation. If no one takes on trainees, there will be no successors. If they are taken on by firms that themselves work in fear, the successors will inherit that fear along with the craft. That is why action is needed now, before the first large cohorts enter the profession after 2030.
Summary
The future of the profession will be decided neither by the numbers in the register nor by the number of graduates. It will be decided by the culture of the profession — what experienced auditors teach younger ones, and in what climate they do so. Oversight helps to shape that culture. An inspection can teach: point out what to improve, explain why, and allow time for change. Or it can mainly punish. In the first case it is part of the way the profession trains its people; in the second it becomes a source of fear that is passed down from one generation to the next.
The working environment is where every auditor, young and experienced, weighs up every day whether it is worth it. If the balance comes out in favour of putting their own mental health before practising the profession, the choice is rational — and its cost is borne by the audited entities, the market and the public interest that oversight is meant to protect.
That is why inspection needs a human face: a predictable yardstick for assessment, a fair procedure, dialogue and educational elements instead of a punitive reflex. This is not leniency towards those under oversight. It is the condition for experienced auditors wanting to teach, and for young ones wanting to learn and stay in the profession. These elements make up the four areas of the foundation’s proposals, which together form a humane standard of inspection.