Third-country sustainability auditors get simpler Lithuanian listing

The Audit, Accounting, Property Valuation and Insolvency Management Service (AVNT) has eased registration for third-country auditors and audit firms that assure sustainability reporting for Lithuanian issuers under the transitional regimeE TAR. Order No. V3-21 of 7 October 2026 amends the 2017 procedure (Order No. V3-13)E TAR on entering third-country auditors and firms into the auditor and audit-firm lists, covering sustainability-assurance conclusions published for financial years starting 1 January 2025 through 31 December 2030.

The core relief is documentary. Auditors and firms registered in third countries that apply under the transitional registration procedure for those sustainability-assurance conclusions may omit the documents otherwise required by points 5.1 and 5.2 of the procedure — the annexed forms that differ depending on whether the European Commission has recognised the home country's oversight, quality-review, investigation and disciplinary systems as equivalent — where they instead file the completed form in new Annex 11E TAR.

In exchange, a new point 7(1) lists the information such applicants must give AVNT in Lithuanian and in the original language: the auditor's or firm's name, address and legal form; a statement that the third-country auditor signing the sustainability-assurance conclusion holds sustainability-reporting and assurance knowledge, with its level; where the firm belongs to an audit network, a description of that network; which sustainability-assurance standards and independence requirements were applied; a description of the firm's internal quality-management system and the standards it follows; and the date, results and competent authority of the most recent quality review or equivalent procedure in the third country.

AVNT keeps its five-working-day decision clock, now running on the information in points 6, 7 and the new 7(1): it lists equivalent-regime auditors and firms and informs the Lithuanian Chamber of Auditors, lists other applicants once satisfied the information is correct, or asks the applicant or the competent authority for missing informationE TAR. The lists must state whether each entrant is registered for statutory audit, sustainability assurance, or both, and whether registration used the transitional procedure, in the separate “Trečiųjų valstybių auditoriai” and “Trečiųjų valstybių audito įmonės” sections. Auditors and firms listed via new point 5.3 are exempt from the Chapter III quality-review, investigation and sanction requirements of the procedure.

Legal basis: AVNT Director Order No. V3-21 of 7 October 2026 amending the procedure approved by Order No. V3-13 of 13 March 2017, new points 5.3, 7(1), 9(1) and Annex 11, restated points 8–9.