Systemic corruption is generally seen as the primary obstacle to economic and political development in any country where it prevails. This is because corruption distorts economic incentives to invest, undermines public institutions, redistributes wealth and power to the undeserving, promotes asset stripping and the illegal export of resources and generates distrust within society (see e.g. Everett et al., 2007; Klitgaard, 2006; Rothstein & Varraich, 2017). The World Economic Forum1 estimates that the cost of corruption is US$ 2.6 trillion, which equals more than 5% of global GDP, and that corruption increases the cost of doing business by up to 10% (see e.g. Thomson, 2017). The annual cost of bribery alone is estimated to around 2% of global GDP (IMF, 2016). Thus, there are good reasons for governments and business to increase the fight against corruption. Auditing is considered one of the eight pillars of a national integrity system, which can protect against corruption (Dye and Stapenhurst, 1998). Auditors have a unique position within firms as public interest representatives, monitoring and reporting on an organization’s compliance with established criteria. In addition, the scope and extent of auditing in society is increasing (Power, 1997). Auditors are therefore in a particularly good position to participate in the fight against corruption, in case this is required. However, the role of auditing in the fight against corruption has so far been hesitant. Auditors are from time to time accused of not detecting corruption, for instance in the latest FIFA2 scandal (Browning, 2015), and there appears to be an “expectation gap” (Porter, 1993) regarding the responsibility of auditing to detect corruption, at least in some parts of the world. While private sector financial auditing has generally neglected corruption as a potential source of material errors in financial statements, public sector auditing has, to some degree, accepted responsibility for the prevention of corruption (Dye and Stapenhurst, 1998). This paper examines the arguments for the limited role of auditing in combatting corruption and analyses the potential for auditing to play a more direct role in the fight against commercial and political corruption. A proactive role may reveal the level of corruption at the micro level of firms and organizations and thus force governments and business to react. It may also benefit the auditing profession itself by supporting its claim to work in the public interest and thereby strengthen its professional recognition by society. Auditing work to prevent and/or detect corruption also has the potential to become an important new service for the auditing profession. Consequently, there are good reasons to take a closer look at the potential role of auditing in the fight against corruption.