Invoice questions › How long do I have to keep an invoice?
How long do I have to keep an invoice?
Every EU country sets its own retention period. Six to ten years covers almost all of them.
Your tax authority can audit your records, so you have to keep them for a while. EU rules leave the length to each member state, and in practice it runs from six to ten years. The Netherlands, for instance, is seven years, and ten for anything to do with immovable property. Look up the figure for your own country and keep to that one.
It cuts both ways: the invoices you send, and the invoices you receive and enter into your books.
Digital is fine and paper is fine. What matters is that the invoice stays readable, complete and findable for the whole period, and that you can show it has not been altered since it was issued. A sent pdf, kept as it was sent, does that.
The pdf from the editor stays exactly as it was sent, ready to sit in your records for as long as your country asks. No account needed to look around.
Create an invoiceRelated
- Correcting a mistake on an invoice you already sent
- Invoicing from the United States
- What is an e-invoice (Factur-X)?
- When do I have to send an invoice?
This page is a summary, not legal advice. Invoicing is set at EU level but the details are national, so check with the European Commission or your own tax authority if your situation is unusual.