SEC approves $399M PCAOB budget, $346M accounting support fee

The Securities and Exchange Commission today voted to approve the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s 2025 budget and the related accounting support fee. 

The budget totals $399.7 million, which funds 945 positions. The accounting support fee totals $374.9 million, comprising $346.1 million for public company issuers and $28.8 million for registered broker dealers.

The 2025 budget is a 3.8% increase from this year’s budget of $384.7 million in 2024, and the ASF is a 4.5% increase from this year’s $358.8 million.

“Well-functioning financial markets are built on trust,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a statement. “Critical to such trust are disclosures – including financial statement disclosures made by issuers and broker-dealers to the investing public. I have seen since the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley 22 years ago the importance of that law in promoting trust in public company figures. This trust, though, can easily be taken for granted. The PCAOB — an important reform of the George W. Bush Administration — writes the standards for auditors and audits the auditors. That’s the core of what it does, and it’s every bit as important now and into the future.”

“While the 2025 budget assumes a necessary increase in the ASF overall, we anticipate the smallest billable issuers will see no increase, while the median difference per bill for issuers will likely be only $100, “PCAOB chair Erica Williams said in a statement.

Williams added, “This budget enables us to both provide our staff with competitive compensation that acknowledges their extraordinary work on behalf of investors and retain them, as well as attract new, expert talent to help us meet our investor-protection mission.”

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 provides the SEC with oversight responsibility over the PCAOB, including reviewing and approving the PCAOB’s annual budget and accounting support fee.