The amendments to the Civil Code that is enforceable from 24 May 2019 eliminate several requirements regarding the external financial audit and public dsiclosure of financial statements.

Under the amendments, micro businesses and small businesses are exempted from mandatory external audit. Moreover, these exempted businesses who operate in the form of joint stock companies, are further relieved from publicly publishing their annual reports and financial statements. Previously, by law, all businesses had to invite external auditor and open audit opinion annually for the annual financial statements; in addition, all joint stock companies had to publicly disclose and publish their annual reports and financial statements.  

To remind, the criteria of businesses in Azerbaijan are as follows:

Categories of businesses	Average number of employees	Annual income (AI) (1000 AZN)
Micro Businesses	1-10	AI ≤ 200
Small Businesses	11-50	200 < AI>
Medium Businesses	51-250	3 000 < AI>
Large Businesses	251 and more	30 000 < AI>