Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Costs: Size Matters, Burden Differs

GAO’s June 2025 report GAO-25-107500 reveals that Sarbanes-Oxley section 404 compliance costs scale higher in dollars for big firms but hit smaller public companies harder proportionally, with audit fees spiking 13 percent when firms lose their exemption. Exemptions free cash but correlate with weaker controls and more restatements, raising investor-confidence questions.