GmbH Record Retention Periods 2026: 8 Years Instead of 10 — What Founders Must Know

Under Germany's Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act (BEG IV), retention rules changed effective January 1, 2025: accounting receipts (Buchungsbelege) only need to be kept for 8 years instead of 10. For your GmbH, this means less paper but a new set of deadlines to track. 2026 is the first full year under the new regime. Here's what actually matters.

GmbH retention periods 2026 at a glance

Effective from 2025/2026, your GmbH must keep:

• 10 years: balance sheets, opening balance sheets, inventories, annual accounts, management reports, group accounts, booking instructions, work instructions.
• 8 years (new): accounting receipts — including incoming and outgoing invoices, receipts, bank statements, delivery notes.
• 6 years: incoming and outgoing commercial and business correspondence, other tax-relevant documents, business-relevant emails.

Legal basis: §147 AO (Tax Code) and §257 HGB (Commercial Code), both amended by BEG IV in October 2024.

What counts as a Buchungsbeleg?

Accounting receipts are all documents underlying a booking. In practice:

• Incoming and outgoing invoices
• Cash register receipts
• Bank and credit card statements
• Contracts that affect bookings
• Payroll records
• Travel expense reports
• E-invoices (XRechnung, ZUGFeRD)

For more on receipt obligations, see our guide on digital receipt management in Germany.

When does the retention period start?

The clock starts at the end of the calendar year in which the document was created or last entered.

Example: an incoming invoice dated March 15, 2026 is booked. The 8-year period starts December 31, 2026 and ends December 31, 2034.

For your VAT return, the supporting receipts for the 2026 VAT filing must be kept until end of 2034.

Transition rules — what about older receipts?

Important: the shortening from 10 to 8 years applies only to receipts whose original 10-year period had not yet expired by December 31, 2024:

• Receipts from 2014 or earlier: original 10-year rule still applies — can be destroyed after expiry.
• Receipts from 2015–2016: hinge on the December 31, 2024 cutoff; usually allowed to destroy after 10 years.
• Receipts from 2017 onward: benefit from the new 8-year rule.

When in doubt, keep documents one year longer rather than destroy too early. Open tax audits or pending procedures extend the retention period automatically.

Digital, GoBD-compliant, audit-proof

In 2026, retention means a digital archive — not a basement of file folders. The German GoBD rules require:

• Immutability (audit trail, no retroactive edits)
• Completeness and legibility over the full period
• Traceable storage and a process documentation (Verfahrensdokumentation)
• Machine-readable export for the tax authority

A folder of PDFs in Google Drive is not enough. You need a system that meets these requirements end-to-end. Norman handles all GoBD obligations automatically — see also our guide to receipt scanner apps.

What happens if you violate the rules?

Missing records have real consequences:

• Estimated tax assessment by the tax office (§162 AO) — usually well above your actual numbers
• Fines up to €10,000 (§379 AO)
• Criminal proceedings for willful destruction (tax evasion)
• In insolvency: personal liability for the managing director

Practical playbook for 2026

• Capture receipts digitally from day one — phone scanner, OCR app, or direct e-invoice import.
• Set up a process documentation (Verfahrensdokumentation) once and review yearly.
• Configure retention rules in your system with automatic expiry after 8 or 10 years.
• With Norman's AI bookkeeping, receipts are categorized correctly on capture and the archive meets GoBD out of the box.

Conclusion

In 2026, your GmbH keeps accounting receipts for 8 years, balance sheets and annual accounts for 10 years, and business emails for 6 years. The new rule reduces real overhead — but only if your archive is digital, GoBD-compliant, and audit-proof from the start. Set this up cleanly now and you save yourself stress for the next decade.