Bundestag set to pass audit-profession reform; in-house title dropped

The Bundestag was scheduled to pass the law modernising the professional law of auditors in second and third reading on 12 November 2026WPK, after the economics and legal-affairs committees settled their positions on 11 November 2026. The next possible Bundesrat session would be 20 November 2026WPK, so the statute could theoretically still enter into force this year. The WPK, which first pushed for an amendment of the Wirtschaftsprüferordnung (WPO) almost ten years ago, welcomed the prospect of the long-sought reform finally concluding.

The reform modernises establishment rules as the WPK demandedWPK. Wirtschaftsprüfer and vereidigte Buchprüfer (WP/vBP) will be able to offer their services more flexibly across the country without a WP/vBP necessarily being established at each local officeWPK. Firms can plan branch coverage and staffing around the new Niederlassungsrecht rather than maintaining a locally established title-holder at every site.

Audit and book-audit firms also gain a retention tool the WPK proposedWPK. Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaften and Buchprüfungsgesellschaften will be able to bind long-standing professional staff who are not WP/vBP by offering them an equity stake in the firmWPK. The participation is a corporate-law instrument for keeping experienced non-title staff, not a licensing change.

Two expansions of the powers of the Abschlussprüferaufsichtsstelle (APAS) that the WPK opposed are to be droppedWPK. APAS will not receive authority to pass the results of its inspections at statutory auditors on to the audited companies, nor investigative competences in the non-PIE areaWPK. Firms under APAS inspection and the companies they audit therefore keep the existing information boundaries.

The WPK regrets the loss of the employed-professional title. The Bundestag economics committee rejected the introduction of a Syndikus-WP/vBP, which would have let qualified accountants work employed in industry while keeping the professional titleWPK. The WPK, backed by the IDW, had lobbied for the title since the economics ministry published a welcome draft in autumn 2024 and the bill entered the Bundestag in April 2025, warning of a forecast 12 percent decline in membership by 2036. The committee's recommendation justifies the rejection with the fear that too few auditors, especially for statutory audits, would remain available to the audit market. The WPK counters that the title remains attractive, that the interested WP/vBP are often those already distant from audit work who would otherwise leave the market entirely, with many threatening to give up the title altogether, and that the employed title would attract young people to the WP examination who also want a career in industry open — noting Germany is the only individual G20 member barring employed practice of the profession.

The pending instrument is the bill to amend the Wirtschaftsprüferordnung (WPO)WPK — the Gesetz zur Modernisierung des Berufsrechts der Wirtschaftsprüfer — per the Beschlussempfehlung und Bericht des Ausschusses für Wirtschaft und Energie of 11 November 2026 (BT-Drs. 21/9138).