Fiduciary accounting firm in Luxembourg, authorised, multilingual, predictable fees.
A fiduciary in Luxembourg keeps the accounts of third-party companies and handles their tax, social security and statutory obligations with the ACD, the AED, the CCSS and the RCS. Financial Services Luxembourg is an authorised fiduciary accounting firm (authorisation 10077274), subject to AED supervision for AML/CFT purposes, which also covers company formation, SOPARFI, payroll, substance and fund services.
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A fiduciary in Luxembourg is a firm that keeps the accounts of third-party companies and handles their tax returns, VAT returns, payroll and annual accounts filings. The name fiduciary confers no right to practise: the firm's status does, as an authorised accountant (Law of 2 September 2011) or an expert-comptable (Law of 10 June 1999).
Business permits 10077274/2 (activities ancillary to the expert-comptable profession) and 10077274/0 (accounting), issued by the Ministry of the Economy and subject to AED supervision for AML/CFT purposes; AML framework, law of 12 November 2004. Authorisation publicly verifiable on guichet.public.lu.
Key takeaway
- Financial Services Luxembourg is an authorised fiduciary accounting firm (10077274), subject to AED supervision for AML/CFT purposes, verifiable on guichet.public.lu.
- Accounting: bookkeeping and annual accounts, filed via eCDF and published at the RCS.
- Tax: corporate income tax, municipal business tax and net wealth tax with the ACD; VAT with the AED.
- Payroll: payslips, returns and registrations with the CCSS.
- Status: authorised accountant or expert-comptable; domiciliation is reserved by the Law of 31 May 1999 to certain professions and statutory audit to the approved statutory auditor.
- Licensed accountant since 2017, French and English plus 7 languages by email, predictable monthly retainer and quote within 48 hours.
Further reading: law firm accounting, accountant in Luxembourg and construction company accounting.
What is a fiduciary in Luxembourg?
A fiduciary in Luxembourg is a firm that keeps the accounts of third-party companies and handles their tax, social security and statutory obligations. The firm operates under a regulated status: licensed accountant (comptable, Law of 2 September 2011) or expert-comptable (Law of 10 June 1999). Certification of accounts is a separate profession, the réviseur d'entreprises agréé (approved statutory auditor, Law of 23 July 2016).
The fiduciary is the operational interface between the company and the authorities: ACD (direct taxes), AED (registration and VAT), RCS (register) and CCSS (social security).
Accounting activity requires a business permit issued by the Ministry of the Economy. Financial Services Luxembourg holds permits 10077274/0 (accounting) and 10077274/2 (activities ancillary to the expert-comptable profession), subject to AED supervision for AML/CFT purposes and publicly verifiable on guichet.public.lu.
How should an SME choose a fiduciary accounting firm in Luxembourg?
For a Luxembourg SME, an effective fiduciary does more than enter invoices: it organises bookkeeping, prepares annual accounts and monitors the VAT, tax and payroll obligations covered by the signed engagement. The owner needs a clear list of deliverables, deadlines and the person responsible for the file. Work legally reserved to an expert-comptable or approved statutory auditor is handled by the duly qualified professional according to the entity's circumstances.
The retainer depends principally on transaction and bank-entry volumes, employees, cross-border activity and year-end work. An itemised quotation separates routine bookkeeping, filings, payslips and exceptional assignments. Review our Luxembourg accounting fee schedule and the scope of a licensed accountant's services before comparing providers on price alone.
Sector requirements are different: a construction business needs project-level cost and margin tracking; a self-employed professional usually has different transaction volumes and filing needs. An established SME can follow our accountant handover procedure to plan file transfer and deadlines. Any historical accounting or tax backlog is assessed separately rather than assumed to disappear when the provider changes.
Fiduciary, accountant, expert-comptable: who does what?
The fiduciary is the structure delivering accounting, tax, payroll and governance services. A licensed accountant operates under a business permit granted under the Law of 2 September 2011. An expert-comptable practises a profession organised by the Law of 10 June 1999. Domiciliation is a separate regime, handled by Cerno Law Firm, avocat à la Cour (List I). Roles, thresholds and the cases requiring an approved statutory auditor are set out in our comparison of Luxembourg accounting professions.
Financial Services Luxembourg is a licensed accounting fiduciary; for engagements that specifically require the expert-comptable title or a statutory audit by an approved auditor, we work with the duly qualified professionals. You keep a single point of contact.
What does a fiduciary handle?
The scope covers LuxGAAP bookkeeping, annual accounts and RCS filing, VAT, corporate and personal tax, outsourced payroll and CCSS filings, directorship and substance, and compliance (AML/KYC, DAC6, CRS/FATCA).
Domiciliation and registered office are a separate regulated activity: we entrust them to Cerno Law Firm, avocat à la Cour (List I) and coordinate the engagement. Beyond execution, a good fiduciary adds advice: structure choice, controlled optimisation, preparation of financing, an acquisition or a sale, from formation to consolidation.
Can a fiduciary provide domiciliation services in Luxembourg?
Yes, if the firm practises as an expert-comptable, réviseur d'entreprises, lawyer or financial sector professional. The Law of 31 May 1999 on the domiciliation of companies reserves domiciliation to these professions only. A firm operating as a licensed accountant cannot act as a domiciliation agent.
Financial Services Luxembourg arranges domiciliation for its clients with Cerno Law Firm (Me Cora Maglo, avocat à la Cour). Cerno Law Firm signs the domiciliation agreement with the company. Accounting, tax and statutory deadlines remain handled by Financial Services Luxembourg: one point of contact, two separate agreements.
Who supervises a fiduciary in Luxembourg?
The AED supervises a fiduciary operating as a licensed accountant; the professional body of experts-comptables supervises one operating as an expert-comptable. This allocation follows from Article 2-1 of the Law of 12 November 2004 on the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing. The AED is the supervisory authority for professionals that fall neither under the CSSF nor under a self-regulatory body.
Financial Services Luxembourg operates as a licensed accountant and is therefore subject to AML/CFT supervision by the AED. The obligations this creates for your files are set out on the AML and KYC compliance in Luxembourg page.
How do you verify a fiduciary's licence in Luxembourg?
The business licence issued by the Ministry of the Economy and AML/CFT oversight by the AED impose an ethical framework, client due diligence obligations and professional liability. For an international or wealth client base, it is a mark of security, and a criterion banks look at on onboarding.
Always check your provider's authorisation: ours (10077274) is verifiable in one scan on guichet.public.lu.
How to choose your fiduciary in Luxembourg
Seven criteria, in the order we suggest checking them, plus an eighth for an international client base. 1. The business permit, verifiable on guichet.public.lu, and AED AML/CFT supervision: the prerequisite for everything else.
2. The breadth of work performed in-house (LuxGAAP bookkeeping, tax, VAT, payroll, funds, directorship) and what is entrusted to partners, domiciliation included, handled for us by Cerno Law Firm.
3. Price and its readability: a published fee schedule, a monthly retainer that states what it covers and what it excludes, a written quote before any out-of-scope work.
4. Deliverables and their date. Our published commitment: “P&L and KPIs delivered on the 15th of each month, based on the documents received at closing”.
5. Liability: an engagement letter and general terms that set the scope, the best-efforts obligation and the liability cap, rather than a verbal promise.
6. Response times and deadlines. Our published commitments: “First reply within 24 working hours, from a named adviser” and “VAT, CIT, MBT, NWT, CCSS payroll and annual accounts tracked deadline by deadline, with an alert before each due date”.
7. Reversibility: engagement term, notice, early-exit indemnity and file-return deadline, written into the engagement letter. Our published commitment: “The engagement ends at the financial year-end on three months' written notice, with no indemnity; an early exit carries a flat indemnity of three months' retainer, equal to the notice period; the file is handed over within 15 working days in a usable format”.
For an international client base, the eighth point is the ability to support cross-border work: working languages, tax-treaty practice, substance. Our verifiable proof and references and our public client reviews cover the first point and our handled cases; the scope of each retainer is set out in our fee schedule.
Switching fiduciary is simple: file audit, history recovery, VAT and payroll handover without a gap, first reporting by the 15th of the following month. The full document-by-document procedure is set out on the switching accounting firm page.
An AI-augmented fiduciary
We combine a licensed accountant with AI-assisted workflows (automated collection, OCR entry, intelligent bank reconciliation). Automation makes execution reliable and fast; decisions and advice stay human, supervised and signed.
The result: accounts filed on time, clear visibility on your numbers and a controlled cost.
Who this is for
- Entrepreneurs and SMEs seeking a fiduciary accounting firm in Luxembourg
- Holdings, SOPARFIs and international investors
- Family offices and clients requiring a premium standard
- Foreign companies setting up a Luxembourg subsidiary
What our fiduciary does
- Accounting, annual accounts and eCDF filing (Lux GAAP, IFRS)
- Tax: CIT, MBT, NWT, VAT, transfer pricing
- Company formation, SOPARFI, holding; domiciliation through Cerno Law Firm, avocat à la Cour (List I), a qualified law firm
- Payroll, CCSS, substance and directorship
- Fund services and ecosystem coordination
Ready to structure your fiduciary accounting firm?
First reply within 24 working hours, from a named adviser. Firm quote within 48 working hours once the scope is defined. NDA on request before any confidential document.
Official sources and verification
This page is published under the editorial responsibility of Mickaël LOC for Financial Services Luxembourg (business permit 10077274). The rules cited should be checked against competent authorities and the circumstances of the case.
Frequently asked questions
What is a fiduciary in Luxembourg?
A fiduciary in Luxembourg is a firm that keeps the accounts of third-party companies and handles their tax, social security and statutory obligations. The firm operates under a regulated status: licensed accountant (comptable, Law of 2 September 2011) or expert-comptable (Law of 10 June 1999).
Is Financial Services Luxembourg an authorised fiduciary?
Yes. Financial Services Luxembourg holds authorisations 10077274/2 (activities ancillary to the expert-comptable profession) and 10077274/0 (accounting), subject to AED supervision for AML/CFT purposes. The authorisation is publicly verifiable on guichet.public.lu.
Difference between a fiduciary and an expert-comptable?
The fiduciary is the authorised structure delivering accounting, tax and payroll. An expert-comptable practises a profession regulated by the Law of 10 June 1999. Financial Services Luxembourg is a licensed accounting fiduciary; it relies on qualified experts-comptables and approved auditors for engagements that require them, and on its partner Cerno Law Firm for domiciliation.
Who supervises a fiduciary in Luxembourg?
The AED supervises a fiduciary operating as a licensed accountant; the professional body of experts-comptables supervises one operating as an expert-comptable, under Article 2-1 of the Law of 12 November 2004. Financial Services Luxembourg is subject to AML/CFT supervision by the AED.
Can a fiduciary provide domiciliation services in Luxembourg?
Yes, if it practises as an expert-comptable, réviseur d'entreprises, lawyer or financial sector professional: the Law of 31 May 1999 reserves domiciliation to these professions. A licensed accountant cannot act as a domiciliation agent. Financial Services Luxembourg arranges domiciliation with Cerno Law Firm, which signs the domiciliation agreement.
How many languages do you work in?
Meetings and calls in French and English; in German, Luxembourgish, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese and Russian, correspondence is in writing: your messages are translated and the reply is sent to you in writing. We do not present these seven languages as spoken by an adviser: every meeting is held in French or English.
Trust: definition, and how does it differ from a fiduciary?
A trust is an Anglo-Saxon legal arrangement in which a settlor transfers assets to a trustee who manages them for beneficiaries. Luxembourg's civil-law equivalent is the fiducie (Law of 27 July 2003). A fiduciaire, by contrast, is an accounting and corporate services firm, not to be confused with a trust.
What should be included in an SME accounting retainer?
An SME quotation should specify bookkeeping, reconciliations, closing and annual accounts, plus the VAT and tax filings actually included. Payroll, cross-border transactions, historical catch-up work and exceptional assignments must be separately priced or explicitly excluded. The legal scope of the provider's licence also matters.
How much does a fiduciary cost in Luxembourg?
The budget depends on the scope entrusted: legal form, document volume, payroll, VAT and level of advice. Our monthly retainers start at EUR 250 excl. VAT for a low-volume SARL or a passive holding. The fee for each service, company formation included, is published on our fee schedule, the only up-to-date reference, accessible from the Pricing menu.
How do I change fiduciary in Luxembourg?
In four steps: notice of termination to the current provider under the contractual notice period, recovery of the permanent file (articles, general ledger, trial balances, filed returns), opening balance and continuity check, then takeover of the filings in progress. VAT and payroll are taken over without a gap, first reporting by the 15th of the following month. On request, our standard confidentiality agreement is signed before any confidential document is shared.
Can you take over the accounts mid-year?
Yes. A mid-year takeover is common and does not require waiting for the close. We start from the trial balance at the takeover date, check the entries of the elapsed period and ensure continuity through to the annual accounts and their filing. VAT returns in progress are taken over without interrupting the filing calendar.
Do you file the annual accounts through eCDF?
Yes. We prepare the annual accounts under Lux GAAP or IFRS and file them electronically through eCDF, together with the periodic and annual VAT returns. Deadline monitoring is part of the monthly retainer.
Do you work with Odoo?
Yes. We work on Odoo environments for Luxembourg accounting and tax compliance: chart of accounts set-up, VAT returns, eCDF filing, FAIA export and Lux GAAP reporting, including migrations from Sage, BOB, Winbooks or Horus.
Request a quote: Fiduciary accounting firm
First reply within 24 working hours, from a named adviser. NDA on request before any confidential document.