How Long Do You Have to Keep Your Records?

The periods differ by entity

Individuals filing Self Assessment and companies have different retention periods, and both run from a reference point that is not the date on the receipt. For companies it runs from the end of the accounting period; for individuals it runs from the filing deadline.

The periods extend where a return was filed late or where an enquiry is open. Check the current requirement for your situation on GOV.UK, and if a period is close to expiring while anything is unresolved, keep the records.

The clock does not start at the transaction date. It starts from the filing deadline or period end, so a receipt from early in a year is kept longer than you might assume.

What counts as a record

More than receipts. Sales invoices, purchase invoices, bank statements, VAT records, records of goods taken for personal use, and the workings behind any apportionment you claimed.

That last one is the commonly missing item. If you claimed a proportion of household costs, the basis for the proportion is part of the record, not a private note.

Digital copies are fine

HMRC accepts digital records provided they are legible and complete, and under Making Tax Digital keeping them digitally moves from acceptable to expected.

A photograph of a receipt that shows the whole document clearly is a record. A blurred corner of a till roll is not, whatever format it is in.

The practical version

Capture at the point of the transaction, keep everything digitally, and let retention take care of itself. The failure mode is almost never keeping things too briefly by design; it is not capturing them in the first place.

If you change software, keep access to the old records for the retention period. They do not all need to live in the same product.