Abstract: The high risks of derivative financial instruments, the elasticity of accounting standards and the complexity of the relevant accounting treatment may act on the audit fee through affecting audit costs and auditor’s litigation risks. Based on the data of all A-share non-financial listed companies from 2007 to 2016, this paper empirically examines the impact of derivative financial instruments on audit fees. The findings show that the audit fees paid by the companies using derivative financial instruments are generally higher than that paid by the companies not using derivative financial instruments. When dividing the companies using derivative financial instruments into the hedging companies and the speculation arbitrage companies according to the holding purposes of the management, it can be found that the above-mentioned premium has a concentrated expression among the speculation arbitrage companies. The findings of the analysis which takes further considerations of the numbers of kinds of derivative contracts show that the audit fee at a premium is more prominent among the companies using multiple kinds of derivative financial instruments. This implies that the companies using derivative financial instruments have higher audit risks and higher audit costs, so that the audit firms would charge cost reimbursement and risk premium.

Key words: derivative financial instruments; audit fees; speculative companies; companies using multi derivatives