How long to keep your documents: the rules for private individuals in Germany

How long to keep documents: the short answer

Unlike businesses, private individuals generally don't have to keep their documents at all. There's one exception. It can catch anyone: invoices for work on a property.

The rest is common sense. What governs it is the limitation period: claims generally expire after three years, counted from the end of the year in which they arose, and for as long as somebody can still demand something from you, you want to be able to show that you paid.

Two years: trade invoices and work on a property

If a tradesperson carries out work on your property, house or flat, you must keep the invoice for two years; that applies to tenants as well as owners, whether or not you claim the cost on your tax return. The period starts at year end.

This obligation has teeth. If you can't produce the invoice, you risk a fine. The rule exists to discourage undeclared work, which is why a proper tradesperson's invoice carries a note about it.

• Renovation, painting, flooring
• Heating, plumbing, electrical work
• Roof, facade, windows
• Garden work on the property

Three years: anything you've paid for

No rule obliges you to keep receipts, bank statements and ordinary invoices. There's a good reason to anyway: the receipt is what proves you paid, and since the standard limitation period is three years, that's also the sensible window for everyday paperwork. Three years, then.

Bank statements matter most here. Many banks keep them available online for a limited time only and charge handsomely for a later copy, sometimes several euros per statement. Save them quarterly and the problem disappears.

When does the retention period start?

This is where most people miscount. Almost every period in this guide runs from the end of the calendar year in which the document arose. The date printed on the paper does not start the clock.

An example: the tradesperson's invoice dated 3 March 2026 has to be kept for two years. The period starts on 31 December 2026 and ends on 31 December 2028, not back in March. The three-year limitation period for claims works the same way. In practice: tidy up in January, and everything you throw out has cleanly expired.

Till receipts: two years, five for anything built in

On things you buy you have two years of statutory warranty from handover (§ 438 BGB). For anything that becomes part of the building it's five: the new heating, the fitted kitchen, the roof. For that long the receipt is worth real money, because without it a complaint turns into a debate.

In the first year after purchase the burden of proof is on your side: if a defect shows up in that time, it's presumed to have been there from the start (§ 477 BGB). Since 2022 that's a full year, and two for goods with digital elements; older guides still print six months. After that you have to show the fault existed at handover.

One detail trips people up: thermal paper fades. The receipt from the electronics shop is often blank after two years in the binder, exactly when you need it. Photograph it on the day you buy. And don't confuse Garantie with Gewährleistung: the statutory warranty is your legal right against the seller, a guarantee is a voluntary promise, usually from the manufacturer.

Tax records: keep them until the assessment is final, and preferably longer

You no longer submit receipts with your German tax return, but you do have to produce them on request. So keep them at least until your assessment becomes final, which is after the one-month objection period has passed.

In practice a longer window is safer, because an assessment can be issued subject to review or changed later. Four years is the common rule of thumb. People with very high income face a separate, longer obligation; whether it applies to you is a question for your tax adviser or the tax office.

For life: the papers you can't get again

Some documents won't be needed for decades. Then suddenly they are. That goes above all for anything supporting your pension: gaps in your insurance record are very hard to close without evidence once a former employer no longer exists.

• Birth, marriage and death certificates, family record book
• School, training and employment references
• Employment contracts, payslips and social insurance records
• Pension statements and your insurance record
• Purchase contracts and land registry extracts for property
• Medical findings for chronic conditions, vaccination record
• Will, certificate of inheritance, power of attorney and living will

What your heirs will need

Nobody enjoys thinking about this part, and it decides weeks of work later. Anyone settling an estate in Germany needs the death certificate, a certificate of inheritance or a notarised will with the opening record, documents proving the family relationship, plus bank paperwork, insurance policies and, for property, the land registry extract. Anything missing starts a search through somebody else's folders.

One deadline is surprisingly short: heirs must report the inheritance to the tax office within three months of learning about it (§ 30 ErbStG). With property, business assets or assets abroad that holds even when a court has opened the will.

Your online accounts are part of the estate too. In 2018 Germany's Federal Court of Justice ruled that a user account and its contents pass to the heirs like any other contract (judgment of 12 July 2018, III ZR 183/17). That helps little if nobody knows which accounts exist, so a list of the important ones belongs with your documents. A power of attorney or living will can be recorded in the Zentrales Vorsorgeregister run by the Federal Chamber of Notaries, so that courts and doctors can find out it exists at all.

For a deceased person's paperwork there's no fixed period. Keep it for as long as somebody could still raise a claim or the tax office could still ask, then destroy most of it.

For as long as the contract runs: insurance, tenancy, providers

Keep insurance policies, tenancy agreements and provider contracts for as long as they're in force, plus roughly three years afterwards. With a flat, two documents cause most of the arguments: the handover protocol and the service charge statements. Keep those until the deposit is settled.

What you can throw away

Most of a typical binder can go: advertising, older bank statements with no open claims, expired warranties, till receipts for things long since used up, insurance quotes you never accepted, and phone contracts cancelled years ago.

Anything showing account numbers, health details or a signature belongs in a shredder, not the paper recycling. No rule says so. It just saves you trouble.

How do I destroy old documents safely?

Only put things in the paper recycling that are no use to anybody. Anything with an account number, a policy number, health data, a date of birth or a signature is useful to a fraudster, and the paper bin in the courtyard stands open.

A simple cross-cut shredder costs little and is enough for home use; strip-cut output can be reassembled by anyone patient. Without one, tear pages across the writing and split the halves between two collection dates. For whole moving boxes it is worth using a document-destruction firm, and many towns offer the same at their recycling centres.

Two things tend to be forgotten. Old hard drives, USB sticks and phones carry the same data as the paper; deleting rarely suffices there, while secure overwriting or physical destruction does. And before you destroy anything, check briefly that the scan really is in your archive and readable.

Is a digital copy enough?

Nothing prescribes the form in which private individuals keep documents. A legible scan therefore does the same job as the sheet of paper. You can search it and back it up too.

Two things are worth keeping as originals: notarised documents and official certificates such as a birth or marriage certificate, references or a land registry extract. Those papers aren't merely evidence; they're the document itself. So do both, the original in a binder and the scan in your archive, and the content is then always to hand without anyone hunting through the shelf for it.

Special case: letting a flat, or a little self-employment on the side

Everything above applies to a purely private household. The moment you let out a flat or do something self-employed on the side, the standard changes, and by different amounts.

Income from letting is calculated as a surplus, which generally keeps you outside the GoBD, the tax administration's record-keeping rules. Income from a trade or from self-employed work is different: it comes with a cash-basis profit statement or full accounts, and the GoBD apply.

That matters for scanning too. Destroying paper after scanning it, so-called ersetzendes Scannen, is expressly allowed under the GoBD, but they require a Verfahrensdokumentation: a written description of how you capture, check and file. The Federal Chamber of Tax Advisers publishes a model document for it. The GoBD themselves come from a Federal Ministry of Finance letter of November 2019, last amended in July 2025.

If you fall into this group, settle the details with your tax adviser. The point here is only that you know the difference: purely private, you can scan and bin almost everything; with business income, rules apply.

Frequently asked questions