# How to open an accounting, audit or consultancy firm in Moldova

Accounting, legal consultancy and management consultancy are among the simplest firms to open in Moldova: no licence, no minimum capital, no authorisation. The complications come at the edges. Audit has rules on who owns the firm. And the legal professions — lawyer, notary, bailiff, mediator — are not practised through an SRL at all, so the first question is whether what you want to do is a firm or a profession.

## In brief

- **CAEM codes:** Divisions 69 and 70
- **Licence for the firm:** Not required (audit, though, goes into a register)
- **Share capital:** No minimum (not even for an audit firm)
- **VAT on clients abroad:** Not charged in Moldova (the service is supplied at the client’s seat)

## Accounting firm: what the law requires before you keep other companies’ books

Nothing beyond registering the firm. The Accounting Law allows any entity to hand its bookkeeping to another entity under a contract, and does not require the firm taking it on to hold a licence or a certificate or to be entered in a professional register. There is an education requirement, but it falls on the person who runs the client’s accounting: a degree in economics, higher or post-secondary.

| Code | Activity | What it means in practice |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 69.20 | Accounting, bookkeeping and auditing activities; tax consultancy | The code for an accounting, payroll or tax consultancy firm. No permit and no additional registration. |

**Permits:** Class 69.20 does not appear in the nomenclature of permissive acts for bookkeeping or for tax consultancy, and the Tax Code does not recognise any status of “tax consultant”. What applies in place of a permit is a liability rule: the client’s director, not the firm keeping the books, remains answerable for the client’s accounting and for signing its financial statements. It is the service contract that actually divides the risk.

**Who buys it:** Small companies that do not have, and do not want, an in-house accountant. Almost 75,000 economic agents in Moldova report through financial statements, and the vast majority are micro-entities that need someone to file the monthly returns, calculate payroll and close the year. Foreign founders are a segment of their own: they pay better and expect everything to be explained to them in English or Russian.

**What is different about the money:** Revenue comes as a monthly retainer, so it is predictable, and a client stays for years as long as you do not get a return wrong. Capacity, not demand, is the limit: one accountant can handle a finite number of companies, and growth means hiring. The average gross wage in legal and accounting activities was over 20,600 lei at the end of 2025.

## Audit firm: who may own it and which register it goes into

An audit entity may be an SRL or a joint-stock company, but more than half of the share capital must belong to auditors or other audit entities, and the director must be an auditor. The firm is entered in the public register of the Public Audit Oversight Council and covers its professional risk through insurance or through a provision of at least 15% of sales revenue.

| Code | Activity | What it means in practice |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 69.20 | Accounting, bookkeeping and auditing activities; tax consultancy | The same code under a different regime: a firm that performs audits must be majority-owned by auditors, managed by an auditor and entered in the register of the Public Audit Oversight Council. |

- **Authorisation: Auditor’s qualification certificate for general audit** — Public Audit Oversight Council, valid for Unlimited. A personal qualification of the auditor, not a permit for the firm. It is obtained after at least two years of traineeship under an auditor’s guidance and after passing an examination, which is open to candidates with a university degree in economics or law and three years of experience. It is issued free of charge. A recognised international qualification takes the place of the examination.
- **Authorisation: Entry of the audit entity in the public register** — Public Audit Oversight Council. Any firm that performs audits. More than 50% of the share capital belongs to auditors or audit entities, the director is an auditor, and the majority of the executive body are auditors. Professional risk is covered through insurance or through a provision of at least 15% of sales revenue. To audit large and public-interest entities, the firm must employ at least two auditors.

**Who buys it:** Medium-sized and large entities, public-interest entities and groups that prepare consolidated financial statements — for them audit is required by law, so demand does not depend on persuasion. Micro and small entities are not subject to mandatory audit, but they buy one when a bank, an investor or a foreign partner asks for it.

**What is different about the money:** An auditor may not sell an audit client tax consultancy, bookkeeping or management consultancy in the same period. A firm doing both accounting and audit therefore has to separate its clients from the start. For every audit report, the Council collects a payment calculated as a fraction of the forecast average wage for the economy.

## Legal consultancy through an SRL: what you can do without being a lawyer

You can give legal advice and opinions, draft contracts, articles of association and other legal documents, and represent clients before public authorities, notaries and bailiffs. The Law on the Bar penalises only two activities carried out by someone who is not a lawyer: representation in court and participation in criminal proceedings. Everything else can be sold through an ordinary SRL.

| Code | Activity | What it means in practice |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 69.10 | Legal activities | The code for a legal consultancy SRL: advice, drafting documents, representation before the authorities. No permit. Representation in court remains with lawyers. |

**Permits:** Class 69.10 requires no permit when practised by a company. In place of a permit stands a limit: representation in court and assistance in criminal cases are reserved for lawyers, and anyone who provides them without that status is liable, unless the law provides otherwise. A legal consultancy firm with clients in litigation therefore works together with a lawyer, not in their place.

**Who buys it:** Companies with no in-house legal adviser that need contracts, internal policies, data protection compliance or support in dealing with the authorities. Foreign founders, who open a company and then buy everything that comes after it. And large companies, which outsource part of their repetitive legal work.

## Lawyer, notary, bailiff, mediator: professions not practised through a company

For each of them, the law states explicitly that the activity is not entrepreneurial. The lawyer works in a lawyer’s office or an associated law office, the notary and the bailiff in an individual or associated office, the mediator in a mediation office. All are registered with the Ministry of Justice, not the Public Services Agency, and access runs through an examination and a licence or attestation — with a law degree for lawyers, notaries and bailiffs.

| Code | Activity | What it means in practice |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 69.10 | Legal activities | The work of lawyers, notaries and bailiffs is classified here too — but their forms of organisation are registered not with the Public Services Agency but with the Ministry of Justice. |

- **Licence: Licence to practise as a lawyer** — Ministry of Justice, valid for Unlimited. A law degree, a traineeship of up to 24 months with a lawyer who has at least five years of practice, and a qualifying examination before the Licensing Commission. The licence costs 450 lei. The profession may be practised only after taking the oath and registering the lawyer’s office or associated law office with the Ministry of Justice, no later than 60 days after obtaining the licence.
- **Licence: Licence to practise as a notary** — Ministry of Justice, valid for Unlimited. A law degree, an 18-month traineeship, a qualifying examination and winning the competition for a vacant post in the chosen territory. The licence costs 450 lei; appointment by order of the Minister and professional liability insurance follow.
- **Licence: Licence to practise as a bailiff** — Ministry of Justice, valid for Unlimited. A law degree, age under 65, a traineeship of at least 18 months and an examination for admission to the profession. The licence costs 450 lei. Appointments are made in order of average examination score and choice of territory, and liability insurance is mandatory.
- **Authorisation: Mediator’s certificate** — Ministry of Justice, valid for Unlimited. A university degree in any field, initial training with a provider accredited by the Mediation Council, and a certification examination. The certificate costs 450 lei. The mediator works in a mediation office or in a mediation organisation, which is a non-commercial legal entity.

**Who buys it:** Lawyers and mediators find their clients on the market. Notaries and bailiffs have a market defined by law: the Ministry of Justice sets the number of notaries for each territory, and for bailiffs the law provides one post per 22,000 inhabitants. Here you do not open a business when you choose to, but when a post falls vacant.

**What is different about the money:** The justice-sector professions have a tax regime of their own: income tax of 12% of annual taxable income, calculated annually and paid quarterly, and their activity is exempt from VAT without the right to deduct. Associated law offices and associated bailiffs’ offices are tax-transparent — each member pays tax on their own income.

## Management and public relations consultancy: no permit, with one tax exception

Business and management consultancy, public relations consultancy and the activity of a head office require no permit. The one particularity is tax: public relations consultancy is the only class in divisions 69 and 70 that can also be carried on under the independent entrepreneur regime, with a single tax of 15% on income of up to 1.2 million lei a year.

| Code | Activity | What it means in practice |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 70.22 | Business and other management consultancy activities | Consultancy on strategy, organisation, finance, human resources, business plans. No permit. |
| 70.21 | Public relations and communication activities | Public relations and communication. No permit, and the only class on the page also open to the independent entrepreneur regime. |
| 70.10 | Activities of head offices | The head office that runs other companies in the same group. It is not the code for a holding company: holding companies have class 64.20, in the financial section. |

**Permits:** No class in division 70 appears in the nomenclature of permissive acts. There is no protected title of “consultant”, no register of consultants and no education requirement. What counts in place of a permit is the contract: what you deliver, by when, and who owns the rights to the reports, strategies and materials produced.

**Who buys it:** Medium-sized companies growing faster than their internal processes, grant-funded projects that need consultants for business plans and reporting, and foreign investors who want a local partner before entering the market.

**What is different about the money:** Division 70 paid an average gross wage of over 23,200 lei at the end of 2025, more than any other division on this page. It is an activity with low fixed costs and per-project income, and therefore volatile: a month with two projects and a month with none are equally ordinary.

## How the sector got here

- **19 July 2002 — Law 1260/2002 on the Bar.** Parliament adopts the law that fixes the two forms in which the profession is practised — the lawyer’s office and the associated law office — and reserves representation in court and assistance in criminal cases for lawyers. Advice and the drafting of legal documents remain outside that reservation.
- **1 January 2019 — Law 287/2017 on accounting and financial reporting.** The law comes into force. It allows any entity to hand its accounting to another entity under a contract and sets the thresholds for micro, small, medium-sized and large entities — that is, who files what and who is subject to mandatory audit.
- **1 January 2027 — Law 86/2026.** The thresholds for the categories of entities go up. A micro-entity will be able to have assets of up to 8.5 million lei and revenue of up to 17 million, and the limit for medium-sized entities rises to 480 million lei in assets and 960 million in revenue. Fewer companies will fall under mandatory audit.

## What the field earns and how big the market is

For 2025, 2,468 firms in division 69 — legal and accounting activities — and 1,316 in division 70, management consultancy, filed financial statements. Together that makes almost 3,800 firms, with around 5,800 people and sales revenue of almost 3.5 billion lei. Their number grew compared with 2024 in both divisions, by more than 400 firms in all.

On average, a firm here has fewer than two employees. That, in practice, sums up the whole sector: people working on their own account or in very small teams, with loyal clients and low fixed costs.

Wages are above average. At the end of 2025, average gross monthly earnings were roughly 20,600 lei in legal and accounting activities and 23,300 in management consultancy, against about 16,400 for the economy as a whole. The tiles above show neither wage, because the page covers both and the gap between them is almost 2,700 lei.

Lawyers, notaries and bailiffs are not in these figures. Their offices are not firms registered with the Public Services Agency, and the statistics do not count them as such.

## First decide whether you have a firm or a profession

It looks like a formal question, but it decides where you register, how you are taxed and whether you need us.

**A firm** means accounting, tax consultancy, legal consultancy without representation in court, audit, management consultancy and public relations. All of them are opened like any SRL: name, CAEM codes, articles of association, a file at the Public Services Agency. None requires a licence. Audit adds a register and rules on ownership, but it remains a firm.

**A profession** means lawyer, notary, bailiff, mediator and authorised insolvency administrator. For each of them, the law states explicitly that the activity is not entrepreneurial. Their forms — lawyer’s office, individual office, associated office, mediation office — are registered with the Ministry of Justice, and the right to practise comes from a licence or a certificate, after a traineeship and an examination.

The line is not always where a client would expect it. An experienced legal adviser can open an SRL and sell advice, contracts, compliance and representation before the authorities. They cannot plead in court and cannot defend anyone in a criminal case. From the moment a client has a dispute, the firm works together with a lawyer.

## The legal professions, one by one

### The lawyer: a lawyer’s office or an associated law office, nothing else

The Law on the Bar allows exactly two forms: the lawyer’s office, in which the lawyer works alone and acts in legal relations as an individual, and the associated law office, made up of at least two lawyers, which is a legal entity and tax-transparent. A lawyer may found only one of the two.

The road there: a law degree, an admission examination for the traineeship, a traineeship of up to 24 months with a lawyer who has at least five years of practice — the qualifying examination can be taken after 12 — and the licence, issued by the Ministry of Justice for 450 lei, for an unlimited term. Anyone who has worked for ten years as a judge or prosecutor is exempt from the traineeship.

After the licence you have 60 days to register the office. Missing the deadline triggers disciplinary liability, and the profession cannot be practised without a registered form of organisation. All lawyers are members of the Bar Association.

A lawyer may employ specialists — legal advisers, accountants, assistants — but they do not have a lawyer’s rights and cannot provide legal assistance on their own.

### The notary: a vacant post, not just an examination

Notarial practice is the only profession on the page where being qualified is not enough. Every three years the Ministry of Justice sets the number of notaries for each territory, based on population, area and economic needs, and the posts are filled by competition.

The conditions: Moldovan citizenship and residence, a law degree, an 18-month traineeship — three months for doctors of law — and a qualifying examination, held no more than twice a year. The licence costs 450 lei. Appointment by order of the Minister follows, with professional liability insurance.

The notary’s office is not a legal entity: it is simply the place where the notary carries on their work. A notary may not advertise and may not take on any other paid activity apart from teaching, scientific, creative and mediation work.

### The bailiff: one post per 22,000 inhabitants

Only a licensed and appointed bailiff may carry out enforcement. The law limits their number to one bailiff per 22,000 inhabitants and to at least two in the district of each court.

The conditions include a law degree, age under 65, a traineeship of at least 18 months, one month of it at the National Institute of Justice, and an admission examination whose results are valid for one year. The trainee is paid at least the minimum wage. The licence costs 450 lei. Appointments are made in order of average examination score and choice of territory.

A bailiff works in an individual or associated office. The associated office is a legal entity, tax-transparent, and can be formed only by bailiffs from the same district. Liability insurance is mandatory.

### The mediator: the profession with the easiest access

A mediator needs neither legal studies — any bachelor’s degree will do — nor a vacant post. What they need is initial training with a provider accredited by the Mediation Council, a certification examination and the certificate issued by the Ministry of Justice, again for 450 lei. The profession is compatible with any other, unless the law governing that other profession says otherwise, and it is open to foreign nationals too.

A mediator works in a mediation office, which has no legal capacity, or in a mediation organisation. The mediation organisation is the only form across all the legal professions that registers with the Public Services Agency — but it is a non-commercial legal entity, with the approval of the Mediation Council and at least two mediators on its list. An SRL cannot be a mediation organisation.

One limit worth remembering: a mediator may not give legal advice in the dispute they are mediating.

### The authorised insolvency administrator

This is the fifth profession in the family and the one closest to the world of accounting: the law accepts a degree in law, economics or a technical field, with three years of experience. Then come a 12-month programme of theory and traineeship, an examination before the Authorisation and Disciplinary Commission, and authorisation from the Ministry of Justice, for 450 lei. The administrator works from an office, alone or associated with other administrators, and must hold professional insurance.

### How the legal professions are taxed

Lawyers, notaries, bailiffs, authorised administrators and mediators have a tax regime separate from that of companies: income tax of 12% of annual taxable income, after deductible expenses, calculated for the year and paid quarterly. Their activity is exempt from VAT without the right to deduct. Books are kept by single entry on a cash basis, and no financial statements are prepared.

## Audit: the firm you cannot control unless you are an auditor

What separates it from an accounting firm is not the registration procedure but the ownership structure. More than 50% of the capital must belong to auditors, the director must be an auditor, and the majority of the executive body must be auditors too. An entrepreneur who wants to build an audit firm without being an auditor can only be a minority shareholder.

The auditor’s certificate is obtained after at least two years of traineeship, employed by an audit entity, under the guidance of an auditor. The examination is open to candidates with a university degree in economics or law and three years of experience, two of them in traineeship; fifteen years of experience take the place of the traineeship. The examination covers auditing, financial and management accounting, financial management, law and information technology. The certificate is free and does not expire.

Once it is operating, the firm faces a few rules that shape its business:

- **Two auditors for large clients.** Auditing large entities, public-interest entities and state enterprises requires at least two auditors on the payroll. A firm with a single auditor can audit medium-sized entities but cannot compete for the large clients.
- **Rotation.** The auditor in charge of the engagement changes after seven years with the same client and does not return for two years.
- **Separation of services.** An audit client cannot buy bookkeeping, tax consultancy or management consultancy from the same firm in the same period.
- **Quality control.** Every auditor undergoes an external review at least once every six years, or every three years if they audit public-interest entities.

Payments to the Public Audit Oversight Council — for registering the firm, for each audit report, and the auditor’s annual contribution — are set as fractions of the forecast average monthly wage for the economy, so they change from year to year.

## The client answers for its accounts, you answer through the contract

One thing every accounting firm must put in the contract from day one: the law leaves liability for keeping the accounts and for financial reporting with the client’s director, and the financial statements are signed by the same people. The fact that someone else keeps the books does not shift that liability.

What shifts the risk between you is the service contract: which documents you receive and by when, who answers for a fine caused by a delay, what happens to the archive when the engagement ends. An accounting firm working without a well-drafted contract is in effect taking on the client’s risk without being paid for it.

The thresholds in the Accounting Law decide what each client files and whether it is subject to mandatory audit. From 1 January 2027 they go up, which means that some of today’s medium-sized entities become small and drop out of mandatory audit, and some of today’s small entities become micro-entities. For an accounting firm, this is a change in reporting for its clients. For an audit firm, it is a change of market. The obligations a newly opened company has in its first months, from the client’s point of view, are set out in full in the [guide to accounting in the first months](/en/blog/accounting-first-months).

## Which legal form to choose: SRL, sole trader or joint-stock company

For an accounting, legal consultancy or management consultancy firm, an SRL. Liability stays limited to the share capital, there is no minimum capital, the form admits foreign founders, and it is the one corporate clients expect when they sign a long-term service contract.

Setting up as a sole trader is tempting for anyone who works alone, but it has a flaw that weighs heavily here: unlimited liability, with all of your personal assets. In a line of work where a wrong return or a badly drafted contract can cost the client a large sum, personal exposure is not theoretical.

For audit, the law takes the choice away: an audit entity is an SRL or a joint-stock company. The same goes for the legal professions: their forms are those set out in each profession’s own law, and the SRL is not one of them.

Public relations consultancy has one more option. Class 70.21 is the only class on the page included in the list of activities open to the independent entrepreneur regime, with a single tax of 15% on income of up to 1.2 million lei a year and 35% above that. The other classes — accounting, audit, legal activities, management consultancy — are not on the list.

We can handle the choice of codes, the articles of association, registration with the Public Services Agency and opening the bank account, and from the first month we can also take over your company’s accounting. What each service includes and what it costs is set out on the [corporate services](/en/corporate-services) page.

## Frequently asked questions

### Do you need a licence to open an accounting firm in Moldova?

No. The nomenclature of permissive acts contains no licence, authorisation or certificate for keeping other entities’ books, and the Accounting Law does not require the firm providing the service to be entered in a register or to be a member of a professional association. What the law does require is that the person who runs an entity’s accounting hold a higher or post-secondary degree in economics.

### Who can open an audit firm?

An audit firm may be an SRL or a joint-stock company, but more than half of the share capital must belong to auditors or other audit entities, and the director must be an auditor. An investor who is not an auditor can therefore come into the firm, but only as a minority shareholder. There is no minimum share capital. Before its first contract, the firm must be entered in the register of the Public Audit Oversight Council.

### Can an SRL provide legal services?

Yes, within a precise limit. The Law on the Bar lists seven forms of legal assistance, but when they are provided by someone who is not a lawyer, it penalises only two: representation in court and participation in criminal proceedings. Advice, legal opinions, drafting contracts and representation before public authorities, notaries and bailiffs can be offered through an SRL registered under code 69.10.

### Can a lawyer open an SRL to practise law?

No. A lawyer’s work is, by law, not entrepreneurial activity, and the profession is practised only in a lawyer’s office or an associated law office. Practising without a registered form of organisation is prohibited. The office is registered with the Ministry of Justice no later than 60 days after the licence is obtained, and the extract from the register serves as the registration document with the tax authority and the bank.

### Can a foreign lawyer work in Moldova?

Yes, if they have their status as a lawyer certified in their home state and are entered in the special register kept by the Council of the Bar Association. They work under a contract within a lawyer’s office or an associated law office in Moldova and may assist the local lawyer. They cannot, however, represent clients in court or before public authorities, except in international commercial arbitration.

### Do you charge VAT to a client abroad for consultancy or accounting?

Not Moldovan VAT. For the services of consultants, lawyers, accountants and consultancy offices, the Tax Code places the supply at the client’s seat. If the client is abroad, the service is not supplied in Moldova. The threshold for mandatory VAT registration remains 1.7 million lei in any 12 consecutive months, and voluntary registration is possible below it as well.

### Which CAEM code should a holding company choose?

Not 70.10, as is often assumed. Class 70.10 is the activity of head offices — the central office that actually runs the group’s companies. A holding company that only owns stakes in other companies has class 64.20, in the financial services section. The difference matters for tax too: dividends received from another resident legal entity are not taxed at the level of a resident holding company.

Choosing the CAEM codes, drafting the constitutive documents and filing with the Public Services Agency are part of the registration service.