PCAOB budget and salaries slashed

The SEC has approved the 2026 PCAOB budget—with some major cuts.

The board’s calendar-year budget will be reduced to $362.1 million, 9.4% lower than last year, the agency said in a press release. Board salaries have also been slashed, the chair’s by 52% and board members’ by 42%. PCAOB members had recommended a 20% cut to board salaries in a proposed budget they submitted in October 2025, per the Wall Street Journal.

In a January 22 statement, SEC Chair Paul Atkins, who has taken the agency in a more deregulatory direction, couched the move as placing “a crucial check on the considerable authority that the Board holds over audit firms and the risks of potentially excessive burdens.”

The PCAOB chair previously received a salary of $672,676 and board members earned $546,891, per Thomson Reuters. PCAOB salaries, which have not changed since 2009, are hefty “in part to attract people with private-sector expertise in accounting and auditing,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

Atkins, who criticized PCAOB members’ high salaries during his previous tenure as SEC commissioner, described the budget cut as “fiscal discipline” and the salary reductions as a means of “aligning PCAOB board pay more closely with the ethos of public service.”

The SEC has also reduced the total accounting support fee (ASF), a sum paid by companies audited by PCAOB-registered firms and SEC-registered broker-dealers, by 18.4%, to $306. million. The ASF is the board’s primary source of funding. Atkins asserted that the ASF “functions as a tax on public companies and broker-dealers” and that the board must exercise “responsible stewardship” over it.

More changes ahead: The future composition of the PCAOB remains uncertain. The board narrowly escaped being eliminated in June 2025 when the Senate parliamentarian struck down a provision in the OBBBA that would have dissolved the board and had its functions taken over by the SEC. For now, Atkins appears to want to preserve the PCAOB, albeit in a different form. Some observers, including AICPA President and CEO Mark Koziel, suggest that means Atkins intends to replace the other board members before their terms expire.

“They opened up applications for five seats on the PCAOB before there were five seats available, which was a clear indicator for those who were still on the PCAOB board that they probably wouldn’t still be there when this was all over,” he said during a January 21 speech to the Accountants Club of America, Accounting Today reported.

Other changes may be afoot. SEC Chief Accountant Kurt Hohl stated in the press release that “this year’s budget decrease represents progress,” and said that the SEC and PCAOB had initiatives in place that would “reassess the PCAOB’s strategic plan, operations, and budget.”