How long do I need to keep business records for the CRA?

The six-year rule, and what it covers

The CRA's general rule is that you must keep supporting records for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, not six years from the date on the receipt itself. A receipt dated partway through a fiscal year that ended in 2026 needs to be kept until the end of 2032, since the clock only starts once that tax year has closed. This applies to both a corporation's T2 filing and a sole proprietor's business records reported on a T1.

The rule covers the full range of business records: sales invoices, purchase receipts, bank and credit card statements, payroll records, contracts, and the general ledger itself. Our page on what receipts to keep for your business taxes covers exactly which documents fall under this rule. If you object to a CRA assessment or take a matter to appeal, keep every record connected to that issue until the dispute is fully resolved and the normal retention period has also passed, whichever is later. A corporation that dissolves has a shorter window in one respect: its records must be kept for two years after the date of dissolution, though anyone who was a director or officer can still be asked to produce them during that period.

If you have not filed a return for a particular year at all, the six-year clock does not offer the same protection it would for a return that was filed on time, since the CRA's normal reassessment period generally runs from the date a return was actually assessed. In practice this means the records behind an unfiled year should be kept indefinitely until that return is filed and assessed, not just for six years from the calendar year they relate to.

Capital property: why the clock resets on disposal

Records supporting the original cost of capital property — a building, vehicle, or piece of equipment — need to be kept for six years after the year you dispose of the property, not six years after you bought it. The CRA needs to see the original cost when it eventually calculates the capital gain or the recapture on sale, so a purchase invoice from a decade ago can still matter the year the asset is finally sold.

This is one of the most commonly missed retention rules, since owners naturally think of a receipt as old once a few years have passed, when in fact the relevant clock has not even started until the asset leaves the business. The same logic applies to a rental property, a vehicle used partly for business, or shares in another company: whatever the original cost documentation looked like, it needs to survive until well after the eventual sale, which for a long-held asset can mean decades rather than years.

A related trap is home renovations or improvements to a rental or business property. Each receipt for an improvement that adds to the property's cost base needs to be kept using the same disposal-based clock as the property itself, not the six years that would apply to an ordinary operating expense, since these amounts get added together only when the property is eventually sold.

Electronic records: what "keep" actually means

The CRA accepts electronic records, and most small businesses now keep everything in cloud accounting software and a receipt-capture tool rather than paper folders. The requirement is that the records stay readable and accessible for the full retention period and, if you keep them electronically, that they are kept at a location in Canada or that a copy is available to the CRA in Canada on request. A scanned receipt that replaces the paper original is acceptable as long as the image is legible and the underlying software or backup remains accessible.

A cloud platform that could shut down, change owners, or become unreadable in six years is a real risk worth planning around. Exporting periodic backups of your accounting file and receipt images, rather than relying entirely on one vendor staying in business, protects you if a platform disappears before your retention period ends.

Email confirmations, e-transfer notices, and online statements that only exist as a PDF or a web page also count as electronic records, and they carry the same retention obligation as a paper receipt would. A common gap is a business that downloads a bank statement once for its own reference but never retains the underlying transaction detail or the vendor confirmations that would back up a specific expense if it were ever questioned individually.

Can you ever destroy records early

You can apply to the CRA for permission to destroy records before the retention period ends using Form T137, Request for Destruction of Records. The CRA can refuse this request, and it is generally only worth filing when a business genuinely cannot store the volume involved, since the six-year rule is short enough that most businesses simply keep everything until it naturally expires.

How we handle records for clients

We keep client records inside the accounting platform as part of our bookkeeping services, so nothing depends on a shoebox of paper or a folder on someone's personal computer. When a client asks how far back to keep something, we apply the CRA's actual retention rule rather than a rule of thumb, and we flag capital asset purchases specifically so their supporting records are not discarded before the clock on that asset has even started.

Source: CRA — Keeping records.