Global Annual Review 2026

Advisory

Revenues from our Advisory operations grew by 4.2% to US$25.8 billion or 3.0% when adjusted for changes in business structures. We entered the fiscal year with strong momentum, although growth moderated towards year-end as geopolitical and economic uncertainty affected client investment and demand in several key markets.

PwC’s strength is grounded in the trust we build with clients and our firms’ ability to bring together deep industry knowledge and a broad range of multidisciplinary capabilities across strategy, consulting, managed services, deals, and risk. We continued to strengthen how these capabilities connect across markets and territories, in ways that help clients address increasingly complex challenges.

PwC firms continued to invest in strategic, market-driven alliances that expand capabilities and accelerate sector-led and AI-enabled innovation. Wins through the PwC alliance ecosystem grew strongly in FY26, reinforcing the important role these relationships play in bringing differentiated capabilities to clients and driving growth across our business.

We are redefining Managed Services, moving past traditional outsourcing to deliver what clients actually need: continuous transformation and measurable business outcomes. PwC’s Managed Services 2.0 unites our deep multidisciplinary strength across industries, domains, risk, regulatory, tax, and cybersecurity, and powers it with advanced AI from the world’s leading technology alliance partners. The result sets a new standard for the market: sharper operational efficiency, relentless innovation, and lasting business value.

Assurance

Revenues from member firm assurance practices grew by 0.7% to US$20.5 billion without adjusting for changes in business structures, or 2.6% adjusting for changes in business structures. Our work remains grounded in quality and trust. Growth is accelerating particularly rapidly across new areas of assurance, including trust and transformation services and digital and AI capabilities.

Across Assurance, our services, including audit, risk, capital markets, and accounting advisory offerings, enable us to support clients ranging from the world’s largest organisations to emerging innovators, all with the same commitment to building trust in society. Our audit businesses continue to grow, supported by talent development, investments in technology, and a sustained focus on quality.

In FY26, PwC firms continued to advance their collective US$1 billion investment in the next generation audit programme, driving a fundamental transformation in how PwC delivers audits across technology, methodology, processes, and ways of working. At the heart of this transformation is our AI-native assurance platform and its ecosystem of integrated digital tools, built from the ground up with AI at their core, integrating human judgement, technology, and AI to deliver a more digitised and seamless assurance experience for our clients. This completed its internal development phase in FY26, with the first clients onboarded for the initial use cases in July 2026.

Tax and Legal Services

Revenues from our Tax and Legal Services businesses were up by 6.5% to US$13.8 billion or 6.3% when adjusted for changes in business structures, reflecting continued demand for technology-enabled tax, legal, and workforce solutions as clients responded to an increasingly complex business and regulatory environment.

Demand was particularly strong in areas impacted by increasing regulatory and reporting complexity, including Pillar Two, multiple other areas of cross-border tax, and around our clients’ tax operating models. This reflected client organisations’ work to manage cross-border reporting requirements, global trade developments, and evolving tax regulations while maintaining operational efficiency and governance. Importantly, we are seeing increased recognition and related demand around broad areas of business decision-making where tax elements impact operational and/or financial value generation.

To help clients meet these challenges, we continued to expand technology-enabled capabilities, including client data aggregation and project management platforms, AI-enabled tax research agents, and data-driven delivery models. Our strong results reflect our continued focus on helping organisations address and enhance their tax compliance, improve governance, generate deeper insights, and create greater value from their tax and legal functions.

The importance of Governance

Strong governance enables us to uphold our commitment to integrity, build trust with our stakeholders, and deliver value for our clients.

Our Network Leadership Team (NLT) develops the overall strategy for the PwC network and the standards to which firms agree to adhere. PwCIL’s Global Board is responsible for the governance of PwCIL and the PwC network. Among other things, the Global Board approves strategy, oversees strategy activation by the NLT, and approves network standards. The standards are designed to support consistently high performance across the PwC network. The composition and role of the NLT and the Global Board are described on our governance structures page, available here. During the last financial year, two additional external directors were appointed to the Global Board, taking the total to three. Each PwC firm is required to have a separate local governance body, independent from management, to provide effective and continuing oversight of the firm's leadership, strategy, and operations.

How we identify and manage network risks

At PwC, robust risk management is fundamental to sustaining the trust and confidence of our clients, regulators, and other stakeholders. Our network Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) programme draws on a wide range of network information to develop a connected and forward-looking view of the risks facing the PwC network. This supports earlier identification of changing risk exposures and more informed decisions about where network-wide attention and action are most needed.

Our governance and oversight structure supports firms’ risk awareness, decision-making, and accountability across the network:

• Global Board of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited (PwCIL): Approves the network’s ERM approach and oversees the Priority Network Risks identified under it.
• Risk Committee: The Global Board Risk Committee provides continuing oversight of risk and quality across the network, including the operation of the ERM framework and compliance with network standards, policies, and legal and regulatory requirements.
• Network Leadership Team: Develops the network’s strategy and sets the standards that PwC firms agree to adhere to, including matters related to ERM and Priority Network Risks.

We identify Priority Network Risks (PNRs) from the broader network risk landscape. PNRs are the risks requiring the greatest network-wide focus at a point in time because of their potential impact, interconnected nature, or ability to escalate across PwC firms. They provide a common focus for understanding how significant risks may develop and for coordinating appropriate responses across the network.

Ethics and compliance

The PwC Global Code of Conduct (the Code) and PwC purpose and values describe the values and behaviours that guide how we conduct ourselves. We are all responsible for maintaining high standards of ethical behaviour and acting with integrity to maintain the trust that our clients, communities, and people place in us.

The Code reinforces the importance of how we conduct business within professional standards, laws, and regulations.

The Code has five major sections:

• Speaking up. We prioritise speaking up as foundational to our ethical culture. It enables our people, clients, and third parties to feel comfortable and safe raising a question or concern. Speaking up when something doesn’t seem right shows our integrity and courage to do the right thing. We explore when and how to express concerns and report situations that don’t seem right. There are many channels of reporting, including a confidential PwC Ethics Helpline within each PwC firm. Reports are investigated in an appropriate, timely, and objective manner, and we have a strict non-retaliation policy.
• We build trust in how we do business. We define what’s expected of us as professionals and uphold our reputation by maintaining professional standards, adhering to laws and regulations, and fulfilling ethical obligations—all while delivering high-quality, innovative work.
• We build trust in how we use information. We respect the privacy and confidentiality of information of our clients, our people, and others we do business with. We protect personal and confidential information in all forms, and we don’t misuse it. We exercise good judgement on social media.
• We build trust in our communities. We focus on how we present ourselves to the world and markets we operate in. We aim to earn the trust of our stakeholders by demonstrating care, openness, and honesty, and by maintaining a strong focus on ethics and quality.
• We build trust with each other. Trust is essential to working effectively with our colleagues and serving our clients. It begins with each of us treating each other with care, courtesy, dignity, fairness, and respect.

The Code and our ethical framework are based on the fundamental principles set out by the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA).

PwC firms must comply with our network standards, which cover areas related to ethics and compliance, including business conduct, independence, anti-money laundering, antitrust and fair competition, anti-corruption, information protection, sanctions laws, and insider trading.

Partners and staff are required to complete mandatory training that covers the ethics and compliance standards as part of new hire training when they join their local firm and on an annual basis thereafter. They must also submit an annual compliance confirmation covering applicable network and territory policies, regulations, and compliance requirements.

In order to monitor and reinforce our ethics and compliance requirements, each PwC firm has an accountability framework that sets out consequences for behaviour that is inconsistent with our policies and procedures.

Independence

PwC member firms must comply with the PwC Global Independence Policy, which aligns with the IESBA International Independence Standards and additional jurisdictional requirements, such as the SEC, PCAOB, and EU Audit Regulation requirements. The policy sets minimum requirements, including prohibitions, for maintaining independence from assurance clients, addressing the interests and relationships of PwC firms and their partners and staff, including financial interests and arrangements, employment, the provision of services, use of technology, and business relationships with assurance clients.

In accordance with Global Independence Policy, PwC firms identify and evaluate threats to independence arising from services and relationships with assurance clients. Where threats to independence cannot be addressed through designing and implementing safeguards that either eliminate the threat or reduce it to an acceptable level, firms must decline the relationship or services giving rise to the threat. Such threats include self-interest such as acting in a management capacity or having business relationships with shared risks and rewards, acting as an advocate for an audit or assurance client, or providing assurance over the results of other services the PwC firm has provided.

Local regulation may add further restrictions, which vary by country and may include additional prohibition of certain services or caps on the revenue a PwC firm may earn from them as a proportion of audit fees. Where local requirements include additional restrictions, those are applied.

As a member of the PwC network, each PwC firm has access to systems and tools that support firms, and their partners and staff, in executing and complying with our independence policies and procedures.

PwC firms implement Independence Accountability Requirements and Guidelines, which put independence standards into practice at the level of the individual partner or staff member—translating the firm’s policy on financial interests, employment, service provision, and business relationships into personal compliance obligations.

Our approach to quality

Delivering quality work is the foundation of trust in the network and forms the basis of our reputation.

Quality is a benchmark by which we measure our own performance. Our focus on quality influences every aspect of our work—from the way we engage with clients to the solutions we develop. This includes how we develop, deploy, and use AI. Our Network AI Policy establishes shared principles for responsible AI, including human accountability and review, testing and validation, and appropriate governance to support quality, reliability, and responsible innovation.

PwC invests, and monitors performance in, areas critical to delivering quality, including:

• Governance
• Organisational culture and accountability
• Ethics, integrity, and objectivity/independence
• Reporting and compliance with both external requirements and internal policies
• Certified and experienced professionals
• Frameworks for quality management
• Controls, policies, processes, and monitoring
• Technologies

Leaders throughout the PwC network are expected to reinforce PwC's focus on quality through setting the right tone at the top, communicating expectations to PwC people, proactively investing in and monitoring quality, learning from any mistakes, and holding themselves and PwC people accountable as appropriate.

PwC’s values and the behaviours we expect of our people—in particular our commitment to quality and integrity—set clear expectations for how people carry out their work. By embedding these values into leadership, culture, and everyday conduct, PwC aims to consistently deliver quality for clients and stakeholders.

The section that follows sets out how each line of service delivers quality.

Approach to quality by line of service

Delivering quality work is the foundation of trust in the network and forms the basis of our reputation. This page provides additional information on our approach to quality within each line of service. It accompanies our Global Annual Review which sets out our overall approach to governance, risk, and quality. To learn more about our wider approach to these topics across lines of service, see Transform Today, Build Tomorrow, our Global Annual Review 2026.

Advisory

PwC Advisory works with clients during critical moments that matter to them, driving sustained value.

Our global, multidisciplinary capabilities span strategy, consulting, managed services, deals, and risk, alongside assurance, and tax and legal services. That breadth lets us bring the right combination of skills to a client’s challenge. We manage quality consistently across different solutions delivered by teams with a variety of professional backgrounds.

PwC Advisory’s professionals focus on stakeholder expectations by enhancing quality through three lenses:

• The quality of our people. We continuously upskill and invest in our people—including developing our people’s capabilities and empowering them to responsibly integrate the latest technologies—so we can create sustained value for our clients.
• The quality of delivery. We proactively identify, manage, and mitigate risks associated with complex transformations. In addition, we use leading methodologies and AI-powered innovation to enable consistency and quality while delivering measurable impact.
• The quality of client experience. We combine capabilities, technologies, industry expertise, and functional know-how, so that our clients receive solutions they value, and we look to long-term collaborations as evidence of our lasting impact.

PwC firms implement programmes to monitor and promote quality across Advisory engagements. These include regular reviews of completed and in-flight engagements performed by teams independent of the engagement. The engagement reviews assess whether the work met our standards and feed findings back into methodology, training and, where necessary, individual accountability.

Assurance

PwC is dedicated to meeting expectations around assurance quality, which is fundamental to building trust and confidence in financial and non-financial reporting. To do that effectively, assurance must be consistent with professional standards and meet the increasingly complex expectations of a growing group of stakeholders. That’s why our firms are committed to continuous improvement in the quality of our assurance services, supported by the responsible use of technology and grounded in independence and objectivity, the ethical requirements of our profession, and in accordance with the applicable professional standards. In doing so, we help our clients and their stakeholders navigate complexity, respond to change, and create sustainable value.

Focusing on audit and assurance quality

We welcome increased public focus on audit and assurance quality, and the dialogue about how auditors and assurance practitioners, investors, and other stakeholders can work together to increase the level of confidence in financial and non-financial reporting and support growth. We actively contribute to this dialogue with audit committees, boards, regulators, and standard-setters worldwide, both directly as PwC, and also collaboratively as a profession—through organisations like the Global Public Policy Committee and the Center for Audit Quality in the US.

Delivering quality audits and assurance engagements is central to our purpose. We address instances of sub-standard engagements with utmost seriousness, assessing and mitigating their impact, identifying the root cause(s), and using the experience as an opportunity to learn and enhance quality for future audits and assurance engagements.

Member firms emphasise the importance of quality—both in outcomes and behaviours—in the evaluation, recognition, and accountability of partners and leadership teams. Quality is a key factor in our performance evaluations and career progression decisions for our partners and people. 

Framework that enables quality

The quality of our audit and assurance engagements is built on having the appropriate culture and the right people, supported by effective methodologies, governance, processes, and technologies. PwC’s Assurance quality management framework—Quality Management for Service Excellence (QMSE)—requires each firm to assess specific risks to quality and respond appropriately in line with its individual circumstances. Our approach integrates quality management into how each firm runs its audit and assurance business and manages risk rather than viewing quality and risk management as standalone activities.

The QMSE framework is designed to enable member firms to meet the objectives and requirements of International Standard on Quality Management (ISQM) 1, an objectives-based standard that expects firms to have a system of quality management (SoQM) that operates in a continuous and iterative manner taking into consideration the conditions, events, circumstances, actions, and inactions that impact a firm’s ability to deliver quality engagements. It sets expectations regarding each firm’s responsibilities around monitoring and remediation, emphasising the need for proactive, real-time monitoring of the SoQM, an effective and timely root cause analysis process, and timely and effective remediation of deficiencies.

Under ISQM 1, each firm is required to conclude whether its SoQM provides the firm with reasonable assurance that the objectives of the SoQM are being achieved. The QMSE framework and related guidance also support member firms that are registered with the US PCAOB in meeting the objectives and requirements of the PCAOB’s standard on a firm’s system of quality control.

We amended the framework and its guidance to support registered member firms implementing the PCAOB's new quality control standard, QC 1000, which takes effect on 15 December 2026.

Values, judgement, objectivity, and professional scepticism

Performing quality audit and assurance engagements requires more than just the right tools and processes. It also depends on a strong culture of quality, integrity, and accountability. In the context of a financial statement audit, the auditor’s role is to reach a professional judgement based on reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements prepared by the entity’s management are, as a whole, free of material misstatement and present a fair picture of the entity’s financial performance and position in accordance with the appropriate financial reporting framework. To carry out this assessment effectively, PwC auditors apply professional scepticism, objectivity, specialist skills, and judgement. PwC’s values guide our people in working with clients and performing engagements, behaving ethically, and operating in a trustworthy manner, as outlined above in the Ethics and Independence sections. We aim to recruit, train, develop, and retain people who are values-driven and who share our strong sense of responsibility for delivering quality services. To prepare people and partners for the delivery of quality audit and assurance services, our people have access to a comprehensive curriculum of formal and informal learning and technical courses, with a particular focus on professional scepticism, risk assessment, independence, ethics, data, technology and AI skills. We also develop and support our people through coaching, on-the-job training, and development learned through diverse experiences and by providing access to expertise through our multidisciplinary model, which brings together varied expertise across a portfolio of disciplines and deep industry knowledge.  

Internal and external inspection activities

Internal inspection activities: Engagement Compliance Reviews (ECRs) are carried out by PwC firms for a selection of completed engagements. These periodic reviews are designed to determine whether an engagement was performed in compliance with PwC Audit guidance, applicable professional standards, and other applicable engagement-related policies and procedures.

ECRs are led by experienced and objective Assurance partners supported by teams of directors, senior managers, and specialists. Review teams are resourced to reflect the specialist knowledge or experience needed to objectively assess the selected engagements and are independent from those who are either subject to the review or are potentially affected by the results.

For the 2026 inspection cycle, of the 1,699 audit engagement reviews completed by PwC firms through their internal inspection processes, 96.7% were rated as Compliant, and 56 (3.3%) were rated as Non-Compliant. In addition to understanding and responding to the impact of any quality findings on the audit engagement, firms assess whether those findings indicate a deficiency in their SoQM and, if so, determine appropriate remediation actions.

At a network level, we undertake periodic reviews to evaluate certain elements of firms’ SoQMs. These reviews are led by experienced and objective Assurance partners supported by teams with specialist knowledge and experience. Findings from these reviews are assessed by the firms and remedial actions, as appropriate, are determined and actioned.

We continue to invest in enhancing audit quality through this process, and we remain fully committed to a culture of continuous improvement. 

External inspection activities: At PwC, our commitment to audit quality is reinforced through monitoring and external inspections conducted by audit regulators and professional bodies. The rigorous scrutiny applied by regulatory authorities helps to align our audits with professional standards and regulatory requirements. This external oversight not only holds us accountable but also provides the public and our clients with additional confidence in the reliability and integrity of our audit services. Regulatory authorities publish inspection results of PwC firms and, where relevant, PwC firms publish summary information about those results in their own transparency reports. The network does not aggregate external inspection results because regulatory inspection timing, scopes, criteria, and rating scales vary across jurisdictions. 

Tax and Legal Services

Tax and Legal Services provide advice for clients leveraging technical expertise grounded in quality and reflecting our professional standards. In FY26, Tax and Legal Services continued to strengthen quality via a more integrated, evidence-based, and business-facing risk and quality model.

Our quality standards are reinforced by a culture of accountability and anchored in PwC's Global Tax Code of Conduct. They are delivered through a territory governance model that embeds ethics, risk considerations, and professional judgement into the way in which the network serves clients. This extends from the way engagements are accepted and delivered, through how complex matters are reviewed, monitored, and improved over time, with a focus on identifying risk early, applying professional judgement, and helping clients understand the wider context in which they operate.

In addition to our network standards and risk management policies, our Tax Policy Panels support sensitive, complex, and cross-border engagements, bringing together experienced partners and subject matter experts to provide holistic advice that considers the broader business and societal context. Consultation with a Tax Policy Panel is applied to these categories of engagements, and a panel may recommend additional safeguards or may decline to support a proposed position.

In FY26, we continued to focus on extending our standardised, data-driven approach to reviewing engagement quality, supporting consistent escalation, and enabling proportionate action plans.

Together, these steps support earlier involvement, accountability, and continuous improvement across the network, supporting clients as they create and protect value in an increasingly complex environment.