New Accounting Act: revised bill brings clarifications
The Ministry of Finance has submitted another revised version of the new draft Accounting Act to the government. Its expected entry into effect has thus been postponed again, with January 2027 being the earliest possible date.
The bill was submitted to the government together with an accompanying law on 16 July 2025. Given that both bills must enter into effect on the same date and given the need to allow sufficient time between the date both laws enter into force and the date they enter into effect, the ministry has confirmed on its website that both bills will not become effective before 1 January 2027.
Compared to the previous version of the law from last November, most changes proposed in the new bill do not have a major impact on the content of the bill but mainly clarify and expand its terminology.
However, there are a few key points that have changed more significantly. Regarding company conversions, a new rule has been added that provides that the decisive date cannot be a date prior to the decisive date of another conversion whose legal effects have already occurred. This provision should prevent the chaining of conversions, which often occurred in the past and negatively affected the disclosure value of the financial statements. However, the length of the accounting period of the entities involved in the conversion is unclear, as the provision on extending the individual accounting period in the event of a conversion has been removed from the current version of the bill. Moreover, instead of being helpful, the related explanatory memorandum to the bill is rather conflicting in this respect.
Another novelty is the possibility to define the accounting period by calendar weeks - i.e., 52 or 53 calendar weeks, but only for corporations that are included in the consolidated financial statements.
The current version of the bill also includes more detailed ideas on a decree implementing the act on accounting for entrepreneurs and non-profit entities. This is not a draft legislative text but an illustration of what the various accounting methods will look like or be based on. At first glance, it is obvious that the decree draws inspiration from the interpretations of the National Accounting Board and from the International Financial Reporting Standards.