Business Valuation: Fiduciary & Tax Services

The average Swiss fiduciary and tax services firm is valued at 4.0 - 6.0× EBITDA on a statutory (tax-based) basis and 4.5 - 6.5× EBITDA in actual transactions. The spread between statutory and deal multiples represents an arbitrage opportunity for informed buyers. The current market trend is stable, with an arbitrage gap rated as low. In this niche the multiple rests on standing bookkeeping, payroll and tax mandates, so the price depends on how much revenue recurs each year, how personally clients are tied to the owner, how much comes from tax and advisory work rather than routine compliance, and whether any audit mandates depend on the owner's own licence.

Key valuation drivers include: A large, stable base: 12,772 enterprises in the class in 2024, almost unchanged since 2015, present in every canton; Recurring annual work — accounts, tax returns, payroll and limited audits — that renews with every financial year. Factors that can compress valuations include: Very small firms: 3.5 full-time equivalents per enterprise on average, and 1.6 in Aargau; Slow growth in core fiduciary revenue: BDO's fiduciary services grew 1.1% in 2025. Deal multiples typically range from 4.5 - 6.5× EBITDA, but actual prices vary significantly based on customer concentration, management quality, revenue predictability, and geographic reach within Switzerland's 26 cantons.

The Federal Statistical Office counted 12,772 enterprises in accounting, bookkeeping, audit, tax advisory and fiduciary services (NOGA 692000) in 2024, with 57,411 employees and 44,449 full-time equivalents (BFS STATENT). The class does not separate fiduciary offices from audit firms; separately, 1,670 audit firms held a licence from the Federal Audit Oversight Authority at the end of 2025. Zurich has the most enterprises (2,368), followed by Bern (1,101), Vaud (1,086), Geneva (1,025) and Aargau (884). The ~12,900 firms given in the February 2026 edition of this report was the 2022 count and has been updated.

Succession in fiduciary and tax services is a small-firm question. The average enterprise in the class has 3.5 full-time equivalents, and the commercial register shows the typical exit: a local practice absorbed by a regional or national firm, as BDO, OBT, Balmer-Etienne, PKF and T + R have done. No published source measures owner ages or succession plans among Swiss fiduciary firms. The February 2026 edition used economy-wide figures instead — 52,000 enterprises seeking new leadership, 22% of family firms planning a family handover, 1,800 closures and 14,000 lost jobs a year — which do not describe this sector and are removed. For firms that also audit, the FAOA's licence data show exits directly: 25% of audit firms whose licence expired in 2025 did not renew it. A buyer should check how much revenue comes from standing bookkeeping, payroll and tax mandates; how personally clients depend on the owner; whether any limited-audit mandates rely on the owner's own licence; and how easily the firm's software and processes can be merged into the buyer's. Deal multiples for the sector typically run 4.5 - 6.5× EBITDA.

Four trends define the sector in 2026: (1) More staff, not more firms — The Federal Statistical Office counted 12,772 enterprises in accounting, audit, tax and fiduciary services in 2024, fewer than the 12,949 of 2015 and the 12,878 of 2019. (2) Local practices fold into regional platforms — The commercial register shows mid-tier firms growing by absorption. (3) Revenue shifts from compliance to tax and advisory — BDO, the firm with the most audit mandates, grew revenue 4.2% to CHF 293.6m in 2025, but not evenly: fiduciary services rose 1.1% to CHF 90.6m and audit 2.2% to CHF 98.0m, while tax and legal grew 7.9% to CHF 37.8m and other services, including real estate, IT and deal advisory, 14.1% to CHF 47.8m. (4) Small firms keep the limited audit — Many fiduciary firms also audit. Licensed audit firms outside state oversight performed 66,281 audits in 2025, 63,210 of them limited audits, and firms with no more than two licensed auditors carry out 24.4% of all limited audits, slightly more than the 22.1% performed by firms with at least 21 licensed auditors.

The principal acquisition risks are: (1) No federal licence is needed to offer bookkeeping or tax returns, which keeps price pressure on basic services; (2) Accounting software that automates bookkeeping reduces the hours clients pay for; (3) A thin pipeline of young professionals: only nine licensed auditors are under 26 (FAOA 2025). Buyers should conduct thorough due diligence on customer concentration, regulatory compliance, and key-person dependencies. Deal multiples of 4.5 - 6.5× EBITDA may be discounted for firms with elevated risk profiles.

An indicative cost split for a Swiss fiduciary and tax firm is: Personnel (salaries, social contributions, training): 60%, IT, accounting and payroll software: 10%, Office rent & facilities: 9%, Professional liability insurance & compliance: 4%, Marketing, business development & other: 7%, Profit margin (EBITDA): 10%. Indicative split for a small to mid-sized Swiss fiduciary office; no published source measures cost structures or margins in the sector, and the February 2026 edition's EBITDA margins of 10-15% for well-run firms and 5-8% for subscale firms had no source and are withdrawn. People are the main cost in a class with 44,449 full-time equivalents across 12,772 enterprises (BFS STATENT, 2024), so a firm's margin depends mostly on how many mandates each employee can handle. Firms that also audit carry largely fixed costs for the FAOA licence, quality management and liability insurance, whatever their number of audit mandates. For a buyer, the question is how much of the personnel cost sits with the owner and a few long-serving staff, because in small offices the client relationships usually sit with them too.

Switzerland's fiduciary and tax firms cluster in five regions: (1) Zurich (ZH) — 2,368 enterprises, 18.5% of the national total, with 15,015 full-time equivalents in 2024 (BFS STATENT). (2) Bern, Aargau and Solothurn (BE/AG/SO) — 2,324 enterprises and 4,770 full-time equivalents, about 2.1 per firm: Bern has 1,101 firms, Aargau 884 averaging 1.6 full-time equivalents, and Solothurn 339. (3) Lake Geneva (GE/VD) — 2,111 enterprises — Vaud 1,086, Geneva 1,025 — with 5,915 full-time equivalents. (4) Central Switzerland (LU/ZG/SZ) — 1,555 enterprises and 4,214 full-time equivalents, with 678 firms in Zug, more than Lucerne's 516. (5) Ticino (TI) — 703 enterprises and 2,461 full-time equivalents, 3.5 per firm, in line with the national average. Full-time equivalents per firm are lowest in cantons of small offices — 1.6 in Aargau and 1.8 in Thurgau — and highest where large firms are seated: 6.3 in Zurich and 13.3 in Basel-Stadt.