Accountant limited company fees vary more than most directors realise — and not always for good reasons. The range in the UK market is genuinely wide. A one-director contractor company paying for year-end accounts and Corporation Tax could be quoted anywhere from £600 to well over £1,500 annually, depending on the firm, the location, and what’s actually bundled in.

What we find, working with contractors and small limited companies, is that confusion around pricing tends to go one of two ways: people are either paying too much for a package that doesn’t reflect the size of their business, or they’ve gone for the cheapest option only to discover that VAT, payroll, and bookkeeping all cost extra. Neither situation is ideal.

So here’s our honest take on what you should expect to pay in 2026, what a fair package looks like, and the questions worth asking before you commit to any accountant.

Before talking numbers, it’s worth being clear on what a standard compliance package for a limited company actually includes — because firms bundle things differently, and the headline fee can be misleading without knowing what’s in it.

A solid baseline package for a one-director limited company should include:

• Preparation and filing of the annual statutory accounts with Companies House
• Corporation Tax return (CT600) filed with HMRC
• Confirmation Statement (annual return) filed with Companies House
• Self-Assessment tax return for the director
• Ongoing access to your accountant for questions throughout the year

Some firms include all of this in a single monthly fee. Others quote for the year-end work alone and charge separately for the director’s personal tax return. Neither model is wrong — but you need to know which one you’re looking at.

Services like bookkeeping, payroll (including your own director’s salary), VAT returns, and IR35 advice are typically priced separately, either as add-ons to a base package or as standalone work. If any of those apply to your business, factor them in when you’re comparing quotes.

Based on what we’re seeing in the market and broader industry data, here’s a reasonable picture of accountant limited company fees in 2026:

One-director limited company (contractor or consultant, no employees)

A compliance-only package — year-end accounts, Corporation Tax, Confirmation Statement, and director’s Self-Assessment — typically runs between £600 and £1,500 per year if billed annually, or £75 to £150 per month on a monthly retainer. Where you land in that range depends mainly on the firm’s size, location, and how much of the work is still done manually versus through cloud software like Xero.

Small limited company with payroll and VAT in scope

Add quarterly VAT returns, monthly payroll, and bookkeeping support and you’re looking at more like £150 to £300 per month — or £1,800 to £3,600 annually. That’s a more complete managed service, not just year-end compliance.

Growing SMEs with more complexity

For businesses with higher turnover, multiple employees, or more complex structures, fees can exceed £5,000 per year. But that’s not the audience most small contractor limited companies sit in.

If you’re a one-person limited company paying significantly above £200 per month for a basic compliance package with no payroll or VAT, it’s reasonable to ask what you’re getting for the extra.

How your accountant charges is just as important as the headline number. Most modern small business accountants work on fixed fees, and we think that’s the right model for limited company clients — for a straightforward reason: you can budget for it.

With a fixed fee agreed upfront, you know exactly what you’ll pay each year. There are no surprises because you emailed a question in November, or because your year-end took an extra hour to reconcile. The fee is the fee.

Hourly billing works differently. You’re charged for every unit of time the accountant spends on your work — including time you might not even know about. If your records are slightly messier than usual one year, or if you need a bit more guidance on a particular issue, the invoice goes up. For a small business trying to plan ahead, that unpredictability is a real problem.

There’s also an incentive issue. A firm billing hourly has no reason to be efficient — slower work means more revenue. A fixed-fee firm, on the other hand, benefits from being organised and using good technology, because that keeps their own costs down while delivering the same result for you.

When you’re comparing accountant limited company fees, check whether the quote is a fixed annual or monthly fee, or an estimate based on expected hours. The estimates tend to drift.

There are a handful of factors that genuinely move the dial on what you’ll pay, and they’re worth understanding so you can ask sensible questions when you get a quote.

Things that increase your fee

• Higher transaction volumes. A company with hundreds of monthly transactions takes longer to reconcile than one with a dozen client invoices. The more activity in your accounts, the more work involved.
• Being VAT registered. Quarterly VAT returns add meaningful work to the year, particularly if your scheme requires careful reconciliation (standard rate with mixed income, for example).
• Running payroll. Even just for yourself as a director. Monthly RTI submissions, pension auto-enrolment compliance, and P60s at year-end all add time.
• Messy or incomplete records. If your bookkeeping is behind or your bank reconciliation hasn’t been touched in months, someone has to sort it before the accounts can be prepared. That takes time.

Things that keep your fee manageable

• Using cloud accounting software (Xero, QuickBooks, or similar) and keeping it reasonably up to date
• Having a simple, low-transaction business model
• Being organised about supplying information promptly at year-end

The single most effective thing most contractor directors can do to keep their accounting fees reasonable is to use Xero and keep their records clean throughout the year. It takes twenty minutes a week and materially reduces the work at year-end.

Price matters — but it’s not the only thing worth scrutinising. A firm charging £120 per month that never responds to emails, sends your accounts out in January when your year-end was in March, and hands you off to a different junior every time you call is not cheap. It’s expensive, because you’re absorbing costs elsewhere: your time chasing them, your stress around deadlines, and the risk of something being missed.

When you’re assessing whether your current accountant limited company fees represent fair value, these are the questions we’d ask:

• Do you speak directly to the person who actually does your accounts?
• Do they respond within a working day when you have a question?
• Are your returns filed well before the deadline — not the night before?
• Do they flag things proactively, or do you have to ask?
• Is your fee fixed and agreed in writing before any work starts?

If the answer to most of those is no, the fee — whatever it is — probably isn’t buying you what it should. A slightly higher fee from an accountant who is genuinely on top of your affairs and reachable when you need them tends to work out better in practice than a slightly cheaper one who isn’t.