Retention period for administrative documents

Running a business requires a certain amount of formality in your bookkeeping, administrative and other official documents. Whether available in print or online, these documents require a minimum retention period. This varies according to the type of document.

Here are the main ones, listed by shelf life:

1 year

employee timekeeping

2 years

Warranty for goods or services for individual consumers

insurance policy (after termination of contract)

3 years

customs declaration

for your company, attendance sheet and powers of the Board of Directors

for your company, manager's report or Board of Directors' report

statutory auditors' report on your company

for your employees: social security charges and payroll taxes, for your employees: accounting for days worked by fixed-rate employees

5 years

commercial correspondence

commercial contracts / agreements

bank documents

lawyer's file (after end of mandate)

for your company, articles of association and amendments (after deregistration)

for your company, acts related to the operation

for your company, register of AGM and BOD minutes

for your employees: pay slips

for your employees: single personnel register (after the employee has left the company)

for your employees: employment contracts, salaries, bonuses, allowances, final pay, pension schemes

for your employees: documents from the labor inspectorate and the social and economic committee

for your employees: declaration of accidental injury to CPAM

6 years

any declarations, documents and exhibits that may be requested by the tax authorities for inspection. The deadline runs from the last modification to the document.

In particular, documents relating to the following taxes:

income tax (IR)

corporation tax (IS)

BNC or BIC au réel

local taxes (property taxes, etc.)

CFE and CVAE

VAT and other sales taxes

10 years

(from year-end)

Contract concluded electronically with a private individual

Book and ledger

all accounting documents, in particular

purchase orders,

delivery slips,

customer invoices,

supplier invoices

all the above-mentioned tax documents in the event of tax fraud, concealed work, failure to declare, illegal activity, etc.

annual accounts: balance sheet, income statement, notes...

30 years old

contracts for the acquisition or sale of real estate and land assets

50 years

employees' digital pay slips (or up to 6 years after retirement age)