Accountant cost in Luxembourg (2026)

A €1 000 net monthly package at TVA 17 % is €1 170 TTC. Always compare on the TTC figure — all three tiers quote net by default.

Cost drivers per engagement:

• Complexity of the accounting base — a services-SARL with 10 invoices a month is faster than a retail client with 300 receipts
• Payroll inclusion — one employee adds roughly €30–€55/month per payslip, including CCSS filings
• VAT filing frequency — monthly VAT adds materially more hours than quarterly
• Cross-border element — a shareholder resident outside LU or a permanent establishment abroad doubles the annual-accounts work

Luxembourg regulates the accounting profession through the Ordre des Experts-Comptables, a statutory body created by the Law of 10 June 1999. A practitioner inscribed at the OEC carries a title (expert-comptable) that unqualified bookkeepers cannot legally use.

The three scopes and who can do each:

• Bookkeeping (saisie, bank reconciliation, simple VAT declarations) — any declared service provider with an Autorisation d'établissement covering "services comptables" can do this work
• Signing off on annual accounts and representing the client before the Administration des contributions directes (ACD) — requires OEC inscription
• Statutory audit of SA, SARL-S and other companies above the statutory-audit threshold — requires réviseur d'entreprises agréé status, a separate and higher qualification than OEC

What to check before engaging:

• The practitioner's OEC inscription number — publicly searchable on oec.lu
• The Autorisation d'établissement reference
• Professional-liability cover (usually €1,5M–€3M minimum for the OEC profession)
• Written engagement letter (lettre de mission) specifying scope, deliverables, fees, access to data and confidentiality
• GDPR data-processing clause when employees or personal data are handled

Why this matters for price:

• A non-OEC bookkeeper at €90/hr may be perfectly competent for data entry — but cannot file the annual accounts on your behalf. You will need to pay an OEC-inscribed professional to review and sign, adding €800–€2 500 at year end.
• A full-service OEC firm at €150/hr absorbs this review work into its fixed-fee package. The hourly number is higher, the total annual cost is often lower.

The safe default for a company with staff is to engage an OEC-inscribed expert-comptable for the full annual cycle, not to split the work between a cheap bookkeeper and an ad-hoc senior at year end.

Monthly fixed fees in Luxembourg are the norm for SARL and SARL-S clients. Read the scope line of the mandate letter carefully — the difference between a €650 and a €1 400 monthly bill is almost always scope, not rate.

Included in a typical €850/month SARL package:

• Monthly data entry of invoices sales and purchases (up to 20 each)
• Monthly bank-account reconciliation (up to 3 accounts)
• Quarterly VAT declaration and payment instruction
• Payroll for up to 2 employees (3 payslips/month including the manager), CCSS filings, employer declarations
• Monthly management reporting (P&L and balance snapshot)
• Annual accounts preparation and filing at the RCS (Registre de Commerce et des Sociétés)
• Annual tax return (IRC, ICC) and representation before ACD on routine queries
• One 60-minute quarterly review meeting with the lead expert-comptable

Usually not included — separate line items:

• Tax audits or structured ACD enquiries — billed at €130–€180/hr depending on seniority
• Transfer-pricing documentation — €2 500–€8 000 per cycle for cross-border companies
• Complex structuring advice (share transfers, mergers, liquidations) — €180–€250/hr
• Monthly VAT filings (vs quarterly) — add €150–€220/month to the base package
• Additional employees in payroll — €30–€55/month each
• Cross-border worker declarations (FR / BE / DE frontaliers) — €8–€15/month each on top of standard payslip

Red flags in a package quote:

• No numeric limit on transactions per month — scope will drift by year 2
• Annual accounts "on a best-efforts basis" — not bindable
• No clause on fee revision — expect a surprise in year 3
• No mention of handover cost — leaving a firm that drafted your chart of accounts should not lock you in

Accounting services are always billed at TVA 17 % when the client is domiciled in Luxembourg. There is no super-reduced 3 % rate on this work — it is reserved for construction work on primary residences.

Key invoice items a compliant quote must include:

• Firm name, address, RCS number and OEC inscription number
• Autorisation d'établissement reference for "services comptables" or "expert-comptable"
• TVA number of the firm
• Clear fee breakdown per service type, with hourly rate and estimated hours where relevant
• TVA line explicit at 17 %
• Payment terms (typically 15 to 30 days)

The cross-border angle:

• A client VAT-registered in another EU country receives an invoice with reverse-charge (autoliquidation) under Article 196 of the VAT Directive, at 0 % LU TVA, with the client accounting for VAT in their own country
• An individual resident in another country but receiving services on their LU property is billed with 17 % LU TVA
• A purely personal-income-tax consultation for a LU resident is also 17 % LU TVA

Rate comparison on a €1 000 net monthly package:

The "pay cash to skip the TVA" shortcut is not available in this profession — the OEC actively monitors undeclared practice and the ITM (Inspection du travail) follows up any complaint that staff are being paid without CCSS declaration. A firm offering a cash rate is either a bookkeeper outside the OEC scope or a non-compliant practice that will cost you an ACD audit sooner than later.

Luxembourg's accounting year for most SARL runs January to December, with a specific calendar of deliverables that drives fee peaks.

The key dates your accountant works against:

• 15th of the following month — monthly VAT declaration where applicable, monthly payroll filing with CCSS
• 15 February — quarterly VAT declaration for Q4 of the prior year
• 15 February / 15 May / 15 August / 15 November — quarterly VAT declarations for other companies
• 31 March — deadline for declaring the prior-year personal income tax (form 100), extendable to 31 December via the expert-comptable
• 31 May — deadline for filing the prior-year annual accounts at the RCS, extendable by 6 months on written request
• 31 July — deadline for paying the prior-year IRC and ICC balance on the tax notice received from ACD

How billing typically follows the calendar:

• Monthly fixed fee — paid by direct debit or standing order, covers base operations
• Year-end accounts fee — billed between April and July, 3 to 5 times the monthly base
• Personal tax return fee — billed between March and June, separate invoice
• Ad-hoc work — ACD correspondence, bank audits, shareholder changes, billed at hourly rate

Cash-flow planning for the client:

• Roughly 9 to 11 monthly fees across the year
• Plus one year-end lump in Q2 or Q3 for the annual-accounts work
• Plus occasional hourly billing for out-of-scope requests
• A mid-size SARL paying €850/month in fixed fee budgets around €13 500/year all-in with the year-end spike

Setting this in the annual cash-flow plan from the start avoids the classic "the accountant's bill was a surprise" conversation that derails otherwise well-run small businesses.

Accounting fees scale with hours on the file. Anything that reduces the hours without shifting risk onto the accountant reduces the bill.

Five practical levers:

• Use a cloud accounting tool (BOB 50, Zucchetti, Odoo, Sage BOB, QuickBooks localised) — giving read-only access to the accountant saves 2 to 4 hours a month of data entry and supports a reduction of €80–€150/month on a typical SARL package
• Deliver receipts monthly, not annually — a shoebox of 12 months' invoices at year end is billed at senior hourly rate as "rescue work"; monthly delivery runs at the cheaper junior rate and under fixed fee
• Match bank statements to invoices yourself — labelling each bank line with the invoice reference or reason cuts reconciliation time by about half
• Separate personal and business accounts — the single biggest source of wasted hours in a small SARL is the mixed-use account that the accountant must untangle
• Ask for a quarterly, not monthly, VAT cycle where eligible (typical turnover threshold under €620 000 for the EU-harmonised rule and LU-specific thresholds applying) — roughly €150–€220/month saved on the standard package

Two levers that look like savings but are not:

• Hiring a non-OEC bookkeeper and adding a review at year end — the senior review at year end often costs more than the savings during the year, and the handover between two providers introduces risk on the annual accounts
• Switching firms every 2 years to chase lower fees — handover hours in the first 3 months of a new firm are €800–€2 000 and are typically billed on top of the first monthly fee

One lever that saves real money but is rarely used:

• Renegotiate the fixed fee after 12 months on actual data — if the monthly volume came in 20 % below the package ceiling, the firm will often rebase the fee downward rather than lose the mandate. A simple written review on the 13th month is worth requesting.

Accounting quotes are hard to compare head-to-head because the scope is rarely identical. A tight brief handed to three firms turns a €650 versus €1 100 versus €1 850 spread into a real comparison.

The seven checks that matter:

• OEC inscription of the lead signer — not every staff member needs it, but the person who will sign the annual accounts does
• Number of invoices and bank accounts included — the single most common source of undisclosed overage
• Payroll headcount included — is the managing director (gérant) counted, or added separately?
• VAT filing frequency — monthly vs quarterly, stated in writing
• Access model — does the firm hold the books in its system only, or will it give you real-time read-only access?
• Fee revision clause — annual inflation-linked or review-based?
• Exit terms — handover pack, timing, cost

A clean briefing pack to send to three firms:

• Company form (SARL, SARL-S, SA), year of incorporation, turnover range
• Monthly volume of invoices sales and purchases
• Number of bank accounts and currencies
• Employee headcount and the frequency of payroll events (monthly only, or plus commissions, plus bonuses)
• VAT status and current filing cycle
• Cross-border context (foreign shareholders, foreign customers, foreign permanent establishment)
• Required deliverables and cadence (monthly P&L, quarterly dashboard, etc.)
• Your current accounting software, if any

Firms pricing from the same pack land within ±20 % on the monthly package. Wider spreads almost always trace back to a scope read difference — a short call before selecting typically reveals which firm is underscoping and which is overscoping.