Records

What you must keep, and for how long

Seven years is the main rule. The more important question is what falls under it — and that is more than the invoices.

In short

In the Netherlands a seven-year retention obligation applies to your records. That covers not only your sales and purchase invoices, but also your bank statements, your general ledger, your cash and journal entries, contracts and the underlying calculations. Digital storage is allowed, as long as the documents stay legible and auditable and cannot be changed unnoticed. During an audit the Tax Administration can request your entire financial year in a single standard file: the audit file, in XAF format.

The essentials

Retention period: Seven years for the records as a whole. A longer term applies to data concerning immovable property.
Format: Digital storage is allowed, provided the records remain legible, accessible and auditable — and cannot be altered unnoticed.
During an audit: The audit file (XAF) contains the complete journal of a financial year. XAF 4.0 is the Tax Administration's standard from 1 January 2026; 3.2 is the older version.

What the retention obligation covers

The obligation reaches further than the invoices you sent and received. Your bank statements, your general ledger with all journal entries, your cash records, your journal postings, your contracts and the calculations a booking rests on all fall under it. In short: everything that shows how you arrived at a figure.

That last point is the heart of the rule. An auditor must be able to walk back from a figure on your return to the document it comes from. If that path is missing, the records are not auditable at that point — and that is a problem separate from whether the figure was correct.

How long, and from when

The main rule is seven years. That term does not start on the document's date but at the end of the financial year it belongs to: an invoice from March 2026 must therefore be kept until the end of 2033, not until March 2033.

A longer term applies to data concerning immovable property, because the VAT on it can be revised over a longer period. Selling or winding up your business does not end the obligation: the term simply keeps running.

Storing records digitally

Digital storage is allowed and is the norm in practice. The requirement is not the format but the property: the records must stay legible, accessible and auditable for seven years, and nothing may change in them unnoticed. Accounting software that keeps a change log and does not let entries be silently amended satisfies that by design.

You may scan a paper invoice and keep it digitally, provided the scan is a faithful reproduction and all authenticity features carry over. With a digital invoice, keep the original file too — a PDF you reprinted from your own package is not the same document as the file your supplier sent.

What gets requested during an audit

During a books inspection the Tax Administration usually does not ask for individual documents but for your entire financial year in one standard file: the audit file in XAF format. That file contains your company details, your relations, your chart of accounts, your VAT codes, your periods, your opening balance and every entry of that year.

From 1 January 2026 XAF 4.0 is the standard; the older version 3.2 still exists for recipients who remain on it. The contents are the same in both cases — only the file's layout differs. If you cannot supply such a file, the audit becomes a manual exercise in which you carry the burden of proof.

Updated August 25, 2026. General explanation of the Dutch rules, not tax advice — for your own situation, decide together with your accountant or the Dutch Tax Administration.

Frequently asked questions

May I throw away paper receipts after scanning them?

For most documents you may, provided the scan is a faithful and complete reproduction and stays legible for seven years. That does not hold for a limited set of documents; check before destroying originals.

What if my accounting package shuts down or I switch?

The retention obligation rests with you, not with your supplier. Make sure a switch takes a full export with you — the audit file for every financial year plus your documents — and not just access to an old account.

Does the obligation also apply under the small businesses scheme?

Yes. The exemption concerns charging and deducting VAT, not your records. You must still be able to show how you arrived at your turnover figure — if only to demonstrate that you stayed below the threshold.

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