How long you need to keep tax records in the UK depends on who you are. Non-business individuals must hold onto records for 22 months after the end of the tax year the return covers. Self-employed people and business partners keep them for five years after the 31 January filing deadline. Limited companies must keep accounting records for six years from the end of the financial year. Those periods stretch further if you file late, HMRC opens an inquiry, or the records relate to capital assets, offshore income, or inheritance tax.
Self-Employed and Business Partnerships: Five Years After 31 January
If you are self-employed or in a business partnership, you must keep records for at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline of the relevant tax year.1GOV.UK. Business Records if You’re Self-Employed – How Long to Keep Your Records From the end of the tax year to the expiry of that window works out at roughly five years and ten months.
Take the 2024/25 tax year as an example. It ends on 5 April 2025. The filing deadline is 31 January 2026. Five years after that is 31 January 2031, and that is the earliest date you could safely destroy those records — assuming you filed on time and HMRC has not opened an inquiry.
The rule comes from section 12B of the Taxes Management Act 1970, which draws a line between individuals carrying on a trade or business and those who are not.2Legislation.gov.uk. Taxes Management Act 1970, Section 12B
Employees, Pensioners and Investors: 22 Months
If your income comes from employment, pensions, savings, or investments and you do not run a business, the retention period is much shorter. You should keep records for at least 22 months after the end of the tax year the return covers.3GOV.UK. Keeping Your Pay and Tax Records – How Long to Keep Your Records For the 2024/25 tax year that ended on 5 April 2025, records must be kept until at least 31 January 2027.
Plenty of employees hold onto paperwork for years longer than they need to, assuming the five-year rule applies to everyone. It doesn’t. The statutory basis is the same Act, but for non-business individuals the retention deadline is the first anniversary of 31 January following the tax year, not the fifth.2Legislation.gov.uk. Taxes Management Act 1970, Section 12B
One caveat. The 22-month window only holds if you filed on time and no inquiry has been opened. Change either of those, and the retention period extends.
Limited Companies: Six Years
Limited companies must keep accounting records for six years from the end of the company financial year they relate to. This obligation sits under section 388 of the Companies Act 2006 and is separate from the tax record rules.4Legislation.gov.uk. Companies Act 2006, Section 388 A company with a financial year ending 31 March 2025 must keep those records until at least 31 March 2031.
Some records sit outside the six-year rule entirely. Board minutes, shareholder resolutions, and share allotment documentation should generally be retained for the life of the company. Directors are personally liable for compliance failures, and many keep company records longer than the minimum for that reason.
Payroll and PAYE Records: Three Years
Employers, including companies, must keep payroll and PAYE records for three years from the end of the tax year they relate to. That covers pay and deductions, reports submitted to HMRC, tax code notices, records of taxable expenses or benefits, and employee leave and sickness absences. Failing to produce them when HMRC asks can result in HMRC estimating your liability and charging a penalty of up to £3,000.5GOV.UK. PAYE and Payroll for Employers – Keeping Records
Construction Industry Scheme Records: Three Years
Contractors operating under CIS must keep records for at least three years after the end of the tax year they relate to. That means the gross amount of each subcontractor payment, any deductions made, and material costs invoiced. The penalty for failing to produce CIS records is also up to £3,000.6GOV.UK. What You Must Do as a CIS Contractor – Record Keeping
VAT Records: Six Years
VAT-registered businesses must retain all VAT documentation for six years. The starting point of that six-year clock varies with the type of record. Individual documents like invoices run from their date of issue. Summary documents like a balance sheet or trading account run from the date they were prepared. Ledgers and daybooks run from the date of the last entry.7HM Revenue & Customs. Compliance Handbook CH15200 – Record Keeping: VAT: Determining the 6-Year Period
Records to keep include all VAT invoices issued and received, evidence supporting zero-rated or exempt supplies, and the completed VAT returns themselves. Under Making Tax Digital for VAT, all VAT-registered businesses must keep these records digitally and file returns using compatible software.8HM Revenue & Customs. VAT Notice 700/22 – Making Tax Digital for VAT The digital link between source data and the submitted VAT return must be maintained and auditable for the full six-year period.
Capital Gains: The Clock Starts When You Sell
Capital gains records are the ones that trip people up, because the retention clock does not start ticking until you dispose of the asset. Buy a rental property in 2005 and sell it in 2030, and the original purchase receipt, records of improvement works, and incidental expenses from 2005 all need to survive until the normal retention window following the tax year of disposal has closed.9HM Revenue & Customs. Compliance Handbook CH14650 – How Long Must Records Be Retained For: Capital Gains or Losses
HMRC’s guidance is explicit that records relating to the acquisition and improvement of a chargeable capital asset must be kept for the appropriate retention period following the period of disposal. For a self-employed person, that is five years after the 31 January deadline for the tax year of the sale. For a non-business individual selling personal shares or a second home, the 22-month window applies from the tax year of disposal — though most advisers recommend keeping capital asset records for longer given the amounts at stake.
The rule covers property, shares, valuable personal items, and any other asset subject to capital gains tax. A single purchase receipt could realistically need to sit in a drawer for decades before it matters.
Gifts and Inheritance Tax: The Rolling Seven Years
Gifts made during your lifetime can become subject to inheritance tax if you die within seven years of making them. Whoever manages your estate will need to identify every gift made in that window, so keeping records of what you gave, who received it, its value, and the date is essential.10GOV.UK. Inheritance Tax – Rules on Giving Gifts
There is no fixed “retention period” here in the same sense as income tax records, because the seven-year window is always rolling. As a practical matter, keep gifting records indefinitely during your lifetime, or at least until seven full years have passed since each gift. If you die within that window, your executors will need those records to calculate any inheritance tax correctly.
When the Standard Period Gets Extended
Several situations push retention well beyond the standard timelines.
Filing Late
A late return extends how long you must keep records. For non-business individuals, records must be kept for at least 15 months after the date the return was actually submitted, rather than 22 months from the end of the tax year.3GOV.UK. Keeping Your Pay and Tax Records – How Long to Keep Your Records For the self-employed, HMRC states that records must be kept longer if a return is filed late.11HM Revenue & Customs. A General Guide to Keeping Records for Your Tax Return If you filed late, hold onto records until you are certain the inquiry window for that return has closed.
HMRC Inquiries
If HMRC opens a formal inquiry into your return, you must keep all relevant records until the inquiry is officially closed and any appeal period has expired.2Legislation.gov.uk. Taxes Management Act 1970, Section 12B Inquiries can run for months or years where complex transactions are involved. Destroying records while one is ongoing is one of the worst mistakes a taxpayer can make.
Discovery Assessments
Even after the normal inquiry window closes, HMRC can issue a “discovery assessment” if it believes tax has been underpaid. The time limits depend on the taxpayer’s behaviour:
- 4 years: the normal time limit after the end of the relevant tax period.
- 6 years: where the loss of tax was caused by carelessness on the part of the taxpayer or their representative.
- 12 years: for income tax, capital gains tax, and inheritance tax involving offshore matters or offshore transfers.
- 20 years: where the loss of tax was brought about deliberately, or the taxpayer failed to notify HMRC of their liability to tax.
The 12-year offshore window is a relatively recent addition and easily overlooked. The 20-year window for deliberate underpayment means anyone who has been less than honest with HMRC should keep records essentially indefinitely. In practice, the discovery assessment timelines are the real ceiling on record retention, not the standard periods.
What Happens If You Can’t Produce Records
HMRC can charge a penalty of up to £3,000 for each failure to keep or preserve adequate records in relation to a tax return.13HM Revenue & Customs. Enquiry Manual EM4650 – Penalties: Failure to Keep or Preserve Records “Each failure” means one penalty per return, so if you failed to keep records for three separate tax years, that could be three separate penalties. The penalty is discretionary and can be set below the maximum, but the maximum is a hard ceiling.
The practical consequence is often worse than the direct penalty. When you cannot produce records to back up your return, HMRC can estimate your tax liability based on whatever information it holds. Those estimates tend not to be generous. The burden of proof sits with the taxpayer, and without records, there is no effective way to challenge HMRC’s figures.
Storing and Destroying Records Safely
HMRC accepts digital copies of records provided they are legible and accurately reflect the originals. For most people, scanning paper documents and keeping them with a reliable backup system is the most practical approach. Digital files should be encrypted and password-protected, with backups stored separately from the originals.
Physical records need a dry, secure location protected from damage and unauthorised access. Once the retention period has expired and no inquiry is open, you can destroy them. Paper records should be shredded with a cross-cut shredder or sent to a professional confidential waste service. Digital files should be securely deleted using methods that overwrite the data rather than simply moving files to the recycle bin.
Before destroying anything, check whether you hold capital assets whose eventual sale would require those records. A box of receipts from a home renovation might look like clutter, but if you sell the property, those records become the foundation of your capital gains calculation.