How long should you keep bank statements? UK, US, Australian and Canadian rules

The short answer is longer than you think, and the bank won't keep them for you. Tax authorities set a minimum retention period for anything that supports a return; banks keep statements available for a while and then don't; and the gap between those two numbers is where a compliance check turns into a problem. Here are the rules for four countries, what counts as keeping a statement, and the one habit that makes the whole question disappear.

The rules

United Kingdom

HMRC's periods depend on why you file.

• Self-employed, partners and landlords — anyone with business or property income on a Self Assessment return — keep records for 5 years after the 31 January filing deadline of the tax year they relate to. Records for the 2025/26 return (due 31 January 2027) must be kept until 31 January 2032.
• Self Assessment without business income — for instance, employees filing for other reasons — at least 22 months after the end of the tax year.
• Limited companies — 6 years from the end of the financial year they relate to, and longer if the records cover a transaction spanning several years, you filed late, or HMRC has opened a compliance check.
• VAT — 6 years, as a general rule.

Digital copies are fine. HMRC has accepted scanned and electronic records for years, and Making Tax Digital positively expects them. What they need to show is the original information, unaltered and legible.

United States

The IRS frames it as "until the period of limitations runs out" for the return the record supports:

• 3 years from the date you filed, in the ordinary case.
• 6 years if you under-reported gross income by more than 25%.
• 7 years for a claim of worthless securities or a bad-debt deduction.
• Indefinitely if you never filed, or filed a fraudulent return.
• 4 years for employment tax records, after the tax is due or paid.

Records relating to property — purchase, improvements, depreciation — are kept until the limitations period runs out for the year you dispose of it, which can be decades. Most advisers round the whole thing up to seven years and stop thinking about it, which is a reasonable policy. Electronic records are accepted provided they're complete and readable.

Australia

The ATO's general rule is 5 years, counted from when you lodged the return or from when the record was prepared, obtained, or the transaction completed — whichever is later. Records for capital gains tax assets run 5 years from disposal, and companies keep financial records for 7 years under the Corporations Act. Electronic copies are accepted if they're a true and clear reproduction.

Canada

The CRA asks for 6 years from the end of the last tax year the records relate to — and, because a record can relate to several years, the practical answer is six years from the latest one. Destroying records earlier needs written permission. Electronic records are acceptable, and if they're stored outside Canada you may need the CRA's approval for that too.

Elsewhere, briefly

Ireland and Singapore are broadly six years; New Zealand seven; South Africa five. India keeps books of account for six years after the relevant assessment year, with GST records running six years from the annual return's due date. If you're in a market not listed, the pattern holds: five to seven years from the return, never from the statement.

Why the bank's archive isn't your filing system

Every one of those periods is longer than you'd like to rely on a bank for. Most high-street banks offer somewhere around six or seven years of statements online; app-only banks vary; and the moment you close an account the online archive goes with it. Banks retain records after closure for their own regulatory reasons — in the UK, at least five years under the money-laundering regulations — but getting a copy means a written request, a fee, and a wait, and the retention is theirs to shorten. How to get old bank statements covers the process when it comes to that; the point of this article is that it shouldn't.

Personal reasons push the same way. A mortgage application wants the last three to six months, a dispute with a supplier wants the month the payment left, an insurance claim wants proof of purchase from years ago, and a divorce or probate wants everything.

What "keeping" means

Keep the statement, not a transcription of it. A spreadsheet you typed from the statement is your working record; the bank's PDF is the evidence, with the bank's name on it and the balances that prove it's complete. If you convert statements to CSV or Excel for the books — and you should, because re-keying them is where errors are born — keep the original PDF next to the converted file. The converted data is for working; the PDF is for proving.

Paper statements can be scanned and the paper disposed of, in all four countries, provided the scan is complete and legible. Scan them the day they arrive; a shoebox is a retention policy only until the first flood.

The habit

1. Download every statement the month it's issued, as PDF, from the bank. Not just the ones you need for the books — every account, every month.
2. File by account and year: Business current / 2026 / 2026-08.pdf. Boring names you can search.
3. Keep two copies — a cloud folder and an offline backup. The cost is nothing; the alternative is the letter to the bank.
4. Convert for the books, keep the PDF alongside. NoRekey turns a statement into verified CSV or Excel in seconds and deletes the uploaded PDF as soon as it's processed — so the copy that lives for six years is the one in your folder, where it belongs.
5. Never cull. Storage is free; the retention periods above are minimums; and a statement you deleted in year six is the one HMRC asks about in year seven.

Do that, and "how long should I keep them?" stops being a question. The answer is all of them, forever, and it costs you nothing.

Retention rules change and your circumstances may extend them; treat the periods above as the floor and check the current guidance for your tax authority.