Record Retention Periods for Documents at a Glance

For business records in Germany, three retention periods apply in essence: 10 years for books, records, annual financial statements, and inventories; 8 years for accounting records such as invoices (shortened from the previous 10 years by the Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act); and 6 years for business correspondence sent and received. The key regulations are primarily § 147 of the Tax Code and § 257 of the German Commercial Code.

Retention Periods Overview

Period	Typical Records
10 years	Books and records, inventories, annual financial statements, management reports, opening balance sheet including work instructions
8 years	Accounting records – particularly incoming and outgoing invoices, receipts, bank statements
6 years	Business correspondence received and sent, other tax-relevant records

Important: The reduction of the record retention period to 8 years is relatively new. How it applies to existing holdings and whether longer periods apply in your case (for example, in ongoing proceedings or provisional tax assessments) is best clarified with your tax advisor.

When the Period Begins

The period typically does not start on the document date, but rather at the end of the calendar year in which the document was created, the last entry was made, or the statement was prepared. An invoice from March runs for the same duration as one from December of the same year – in practice, you think in terms of annual batches, not individual dates.

Digital Records Follow the Same Rules – Plus One

Electronic records are subject to the same periods as paper. There is one additional requirement: electronically created originals – such as e-invoices in XRechnung or ZUGFeRD format – must be retained in their original format. Throughout the entire retention period, the requirement for immutability applies. For details on what this means in practice, see the article GoBD-Compliant Archiving.

Managing Retention Periods in Practice Rather Than Memorizing Them

No one wants to memorize individual retention periods for thousands of documents. It becomes practical with three principles:

1. Classify upon filing: When a document is classified as an invoice or business letter, the retention period category follows from that classification.
2. Anchor the period in the process: In webRichtung documents, you retain completed documents in the archive and keep them findable via archive search. You assign the appropriate retention period category according to your documented process.
3. Remain findable: Retention alone is not enough – during an audit, you must be able to produce records. documents serves as a knowledge base in which you reliably locate archived records.

This turns the abstract retention period table into a workflow that runs as a reliable operational function: document in, check retention period, store in the knowledge base – done.

Three Practical Rules to Close

1. When in doubt, keep longer: Storage is cheap; a missing record during an audit is expensive.
2. Think in annual batches: Since retention periods begin at year-end, you can archive holdings by annual batch and review them collectively after the deadline expires.
3. Make destruction decisions deliberately: Before deleting or shredding old annual batches, briefly verify (or have verified) whether ongoing proceedings or open assessments require longer retention.

This keeps retention periods a solved administrative matter – rather than a lurking risk in the background.

This article provides general information and does not replace legal or tax advice.