In previous papers hierarchical matrices were introduced which are data-sparse and allow an approximate matrix arithmetic of nearly optimal complexity. In this paper we analyse the complexity (storage, addition, multiplication and inversion) of the hierarchical matrix arithmetics. Two criteria, the sparsity and idempotency, are sufficient to give the desired bounds. For standard finite element and boundary element applications we present a construction of the hierarchical matrix format for which we can give explicit bounds for the sparsity and idempotency.