Retention periods are set by several different rules at once — tax, company law, VAT, and sometimes sector regulation — and they don't agree with each other.
The practical answer is that the longest applicable period governs, so the useful exercise is finding which of the overlapping rules is longest for you rather than looking up a single number.
This is general guidance rather than advice on your situation. Periods change, and the rules for your business depend on where you're established and what you do — worth confirming with your accountant once and then documenting the answer.
Roughly where the main jurisdictions sit
United Kingdom. Company records are generally kept six years from the end of the accounting period they relate to. VAT records are also generally six years. Where a return was filed late or is under enquiry, the period runs longer.
Germany. Substantially longer — invoices and accounting records generally ten years, under the commercial and tax codes. Germany also has specific requirements about how digital records are stored and made auditable, and its e-invoicing mandate adds a separate obligation to be able to receive structured invoices at all.
France. Accounting records generally ten years. Commercial documents supporting them carry their own periods.
United States. The IRS baseline for most records is three years from filing, extending to six or seven in defined circumstances, and indefinitely where no return was filed. State requirements sit on top and vary.
Ireland, Netherlands and much of the EU cluster around six to seven years for tax, with national variations.
Two consequences worth drawing out. If you operate across borders, the longest period applying to any entity is the practical standard — running different retention rules per country is more trouble than keeping everything for the longest. And these are minimums, not maximums.
The clock often starts later than you think
The common error is measuring from the invoice date. Most rules run from the end of the accounting period the record belongs to, or from the filing date of the related return.
An invoice from early in a financial year can therefore need keeping for close to a year longer than its date suggests. Retaining by financial year rather than by document date avoids the arithmetic entirely, and it's why year-based folders beat date-based ones.
Periods also extend where a return is under enquiry, filed late, or where there's an open dispute. If HMRC or an equivalent opens an enquiry, retain everything related until it closes regardless of what the standard period says.
Some documents need keeping longer
Retention rules for invoices aren't the whole picture:
- Asset purchase invoices are worth keeping for the life of the asset plus the standard period, because they support the cost basis and any capital allowances claimed
- Property and lease documents run far longer, often decades
- Anything supporting a claim, dispute or warranty is kept until well after it resolves
- Records relating to grants or funding frequently carry their own longer conditions
A reasonable simplification for a small business: keep general purchase invoices for the standard period, and keep anything relating to an asset, a property or a dispute indefinitely. The volume is small and the cost of storage is negligible next to the cost of not having it.
Digital copies are generally acceptable
Most tax authorities have accepted digital storage of originally-paper invoices for years, and increasingly expect digital. The conditions are broadly consistent, whatever the jurisdiction:
Complete and legible. The whole document, readable, including anything on the reverse.
Faithful to the original. Not altered, and content preserved rather than just the data extracted from it. A CSV of extracted values isn't a substitute for the document, which is why the source file has to stay alongside the extraction rather than being discarded once the fields are read.
Available on request within a reasonable time, in a form the authority can read.
Retained for the full period, which means your storage has to outlive your current software.
Germany's requirements are stricter than most on how digital records must be stored and audited — worth specific advice if you have a German entity rather than assuming a general approach covers it.
Some jurisdictions still have specific categories requiring paper originals. Rare, but worth confirming before disposing of anything.
The practical failure isn't the period
Almost nobody deletes records too early. The common failures are different:
Records trapped in software you've stopped paying for. The most likely real-world failure. Your retention obligation outlives your subscription, and an export you can't read isn't retention. Before leaving any system, take the documents and the data in a format that doesn't need that system.
Documents in personal inboxes that leave when the person does.
Backups nobody has tested. An untested backup isn't a backup.
Files nobody can find. Technically retained, practically useless. If producing an invoice from three years ago takes an afternoon, you have a filing problem that will become a compliance problem the moment someone asks.
A workable approach
Keep everything for the longest period that applies to you, rather than running different rules per document type. Storage is cheap; classification errors are not.
Organise by financial year, which matches how the rules work and how anyone will ask.
Attach documents to transactions in your accounting system, so retrieval is by transaction rather than by memory.
Confirm you can export both documents and data in bulk from whatever system holds them — and test it once rather than assuming.
Write down the rule you're following and when it was last checked. Two lines. It's what turns "we think six years" into something defensible.
Cribble keeps the original document alongside the extracted data, and both can be exported in bulk — documents and data — so your records aren't dependent on staying a customer. Worth asking of any system holding your accounting records, including this one.