The implementation of “lifelong accountability” for stateowned enterprise executives for the first time helps to strengthen the compliance and risk awareness of executives, improves enterprise governance structure, and potentially affects auditor risk decisionmaking. This study takes accountability system for illegal operation and investment of stateowned enterprises as a quasiexperiment, and explores the behavioral decisionmaking of auditors from the perspective of audit fees using a DifferenceinDifferences with multiple time periods. The study shows that the accountability system for illegal investment significantly reduces audit fees of enterprises. The mechanism test shows that reducing inherent and control risks, and improving auditing efficiency are important paths for the system to curb audit fees of stateowned enterprises. A further examination shows that the characteristics of managers or external supervision mechanisms or the size of accounting firms or accountability pressure or accountability standards could affect the inhibitory effect on audit fees of enterprises under the function of this system. The study provides empirical evidence from an audit perspective for the effectiveness of the accountability system for illegal business operation and investment, meanwhile it provides policy references for improving and promoting the supervision and accountability mechanism of stateowned enterprises.