Books and Records: The Six-Year Rule and Whether a Photo of a Receipt Counts

You must generally keep business records for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, at your place of business or residence in Canada. A photo of a receipt only replaces the paper if the image meets the national standard - otherwise you have to keep the original.

The 60-second version

Six years from the end of the last tax year the records relate to - and for a corporation the tax year is the fiscal period, not the calendar year.[3]
File late and the clock restarts. If you file an income tax return late, the six years run from the date you filed it.[3]
Some records are kept indefinitely - long-term acquisitions and disposals of property, the share registry, and anything that would affect a future sale or wind-up.[3]
Scanning does not automatically free you. Imaged paper documents replace the originals only if produced, controlled and kept to the latest national standard of Canada. If your process cannot meet it, keep the paper.[4]
Records must be kept in Canada. Records on servers outside Canada that you access electronically from Canada are not records kept in Canada.[3]

What counts as a record

The word "records" is broader than most owners assume. CRA's own list includes ledgers, journals, financial statements, returns, sales invoices, purchase receipts, vouchers, contracts, guarantees, deposit slips, bank statements, cancelled cheques, cash register slips, credit card receipts, work orders, delivery slips, working papers, logbooks, emails, and all correspondence supporting your transactions.[1]

Two of those catch people out. Emails are records when they support a transaction - the message agreeing a price, the message accepting a change order. And working papers are records, which means the spreadsheet behind a number on your return is part of what you are obliged to keep.

The obligation is on any person carrying on a business or engaged in commercial activity, any person who has to file a return, and any person required to collect or remit amounts including payroll deductions.[1] Holding companies and inactive corporations are explicitly included. A dormant corporation with no revenue still has record-keeping obligations.[1]

Six years, measured from where

Subsection 230(4) of the Income Tax Act requires records to be retained "until the expiration of six years from the end of the last taxation year to which the records and books of account relate."[6] The parallel requirement for GST/HST sits in section 286 of the Excise Tax Act, and similar rules apply under the Employment Insurance Act, the Canada Pension Plan, the Excise Act 2001, and the Air Travellers Security Charge Act.[7][3]

The phrase people misread is from the end of the last tax year to which they relate. Not six years from the transaction. Not six calendar years. And for a corporation, the tax year is the fiscal period - so a business with a 30 June year end is not on a December cycle for retention purposes.

Several situations move the date:

Late filing. If you file an income tax return late, keep the records for six years from the date you filed the return.[3]
Objection or appeal. Keep everything until the latest of: the objection or appeal being resolved, the deadline for any further appeal passing, and the ordinary six-year period expiring.[3]
CRA request. A CRA official can require you to keep records longer, in person or by registered mail.[3]
Business ends. An unincorporated business keeps records for six years from the end of the tax year in which it ended. A dissolved corporation keeps them for two years after the date of dissolution.[3]
Amalgamation. The new corporation usually keeps the records of every predecessor for six years from the end of the taxation year to which they relate.[3]

The records you keep forever

This is the part almost no summary mentions, and it is the one that costs money years later.

Where records and supporting documents concern long-term acquisitions and disposals of property, the share registry, or other historical information that would have an effect on the sale, liquidation or wind-up of the business, you have to keep them indefinitely.[3]

Read practically: the purchase agreement for the building, the closing statement, the capital improvement invoices, the share subscription documents, the minute book. Six years after you bought the property is not the end of it - those documents establish adjusted cost base, and adjusted cost base matters on the day you sell, which may be thirty years out.

The same logic reaches the capital cost allowance continuity schedules. A pool that has been running for fifteen years is supported by fifteen years of additions. And it is why the base-year mileage logbook has to survive six years past the last year you relied on it, not six years past the year it documents.

Can a photo of a receipt replace the paper?

The honest answer is: sometimes, and the condition is stricter than most software marketing suggests.

CRA accepts records produced and kept in paper format, in paper format later converted to an accessible and readable electronic format, or in an accessible and readable electronic format.[4] So electronic records are unambiguously acceptable. That is not the question.

The question is whether you may then destroy the paper. For that, CRA's position is specific. When producing an image of a paper document you must ensure:[4]

it is an accurate reproduction, made with the intention of taking the place of the paper document;
it gives the same information as the paper document;
significant details are not obscured by limitations in resolution, tonality or hue.

And reproductions of imaged documents are as acceptable as originals only if you produce, control and keep them according to the latest national standard of Canada - CAN/CGSB-72.34, Electronic Records as Documentary Evidence.[4]

CRA states the consequence in both directions. If you have imaged your books and supporting documents to the CGSB standard, the images become the permanent records and you can destroy the imaged paper. If your business cannot meet the standard when imaging, it has to keep the original documents.[4]

That is the whole test. Meeting it is less about megapixels than about process: consistent procedures, controlled capture, integrity of the stored image, and an audit trail showing the image has not been altered since capture. A phone photo dropped in a folder with no process behind it is a useful convenience and a poor substitute for the receipt.

The rule that surprises everyone

Records and supporting documents originally produced in electronic format must be kept in an electronic readable format, even if you have paper printouts.[4]

This runs the opposite direction to how most small businesses think. Printing your online bank statements, your e-invoices, or your payment processor reports and filing the paper does not satisfy the obligation. The electronic file is the record. The printout is a copy.

Subsection 230(4.1) puts it in the statute: a person required to keep records who does so electronically must retain them in an electronically readable format.[6]

The practical consequence is about software churn. Cancel an accounting subscription and lose access to six years of transactions, and you have not kept your records - regardless of how many binders you printed on the way out. Export before you cancel, in a format that will still open in five years.

Where the records have to live

You must keep records at your place of business or your residence in Canada, unless CRA gives you written permission to keep them elsewhere.[3]

Then the sentence that matters in an era of cloud software: records kept outside of Canada and accessed electronically from Canada are not considered to be records kept in Canada.[3]

Logging into a US-hosted accounting platform from a desk in New Brunswick does not make those records Canadian-resident for this purpose. CRA may give permission to keep electronic records outside Canada, and may accept copies where it is satisfied they are true copies, they are made available to officials in Canada in a format readable by CRA software, and they show enough detail to support the returns filed.[3] If your records sit on foreign servers, you must be able to access them - or arrange for staff to - and produce what CRA officials require.[3]

Contracting a third party to hold your electronic records does not shift the obligation. The records must still be available to CRA officials when asked.[4]

Destroying records early

You cannot simply decide six years is too long. To destroy books of account and records before the end of the retention period you need CRA's permission, requested on Form T137, Request for Destruction of Records.[5]

Where a legal representative of a deceased taxpayer or a trust has received a clearance certificate, the records may be destroyed after that - Form TX19 for income tax, Form GST352 for GST/HST registrants.[3]

CRA also advises getting legal advice before destroying paper you have imaged, if there is any doubt.[4] That is reasonable: tax retention is a floor, not a ceiling. Limitation periods for contract disputes, employment claims and product liability run on their own schedules and are frequently longer.

A retention policy that actually works

Four buckets covers almost every small business.

Permanent. Minute book, share registry, incorporation documents, real property purchase and sale documents, capital improvement invoices, CCA continuity schedules, anything bearing on adjusted cost base.
Six years past the last relevant tax year. General ledger, journals, bank statements, sales invoices, purchase receipts, payroll records, GST/HST working papers, logbooks - measured from the fiscal year end, and reset if the return was filed late.
Native electronic, exported. Anything born digital, exported out of the platform that created it in a readable format before any subscription lapses.
Held pending resolution. Everything touching an objection, appeal, or an open CRA request, regardless of age.

Write the policy down and date it. The value of a retention policy in an audit is not only that it kept the documents - it is that it demonstrates a system, which is the difference between a gap and a pattern.

Frequently asked questions

How long do I have to keep business records in Canada?

Generally six years from the end of the last tax year the records relate to. For a corporation the tax year is the fiscal period; for an individual it is the calendar year. If you filed the return late, the six years run from the date of filing instead.

Can I throw out paper receipts if I scan them?

Only if the imaging is done to the latest national standard of Canada, CAN/CGSB-72.34, Electronic Records as Documentary Evidence. CRA states that where documents are imaged to that standard the images become the permanent records and the paper can be destroyed, and that a business which cannot meet the standard has to keep the originals.

Is a photo of a receipt on my phone acceptable to CRA?

It is acceptable as an electronic record, and an accurate, legible image that gives the same information as the paper is what CRA asks for. Whether it lets you destroy the paper depends on whether your capture and storage process meets the CGSB standard, which is about controlled procedures and image integrity rather than image quality alone.

Can I keep my accounting records on a cloud service hosted outside Canada?

Records must be kept at your place of business or residence in Canada unless CRA gives written permission otherwise, and records kept outside Canada that you access electronically from Canada are not considered kept in Canada. CRA may grant permission and may accept copies where they are true copies, readable by CRA software, available to officials in Canada, and detailed enough to support the returns filed.

Which records do I have to keep forever?

Records concerning long-term acquisitions and disposals of property, the share registry, and other historical information that would affect the sale, liquidation or wind-up of the business must be kept indefinitely. In practice that includes real property documents, capital improvement invoices, the minute book and anything establishing adjusted cost base.

How long does a dissolved corporation keep its records?

Two years after the date of dissolution, covering all records and supporting documents needed to verify its tax obligations and entitlements. That is shorter than the general six-year rule, and it is measured from dissolution rather than from a tax year end.

Sources cited in this article

CRA - What are records, who has to keep them, and why it is important
CRA's list of what constitutes a record, including emails and working papers, and the list of persons obliged to keep them.
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/keeping-records/what-records-who-keep-them.html
CRA - Your responsibilities and the requirements associated with records
The general obligations attaching to books and records the law requires you to keep.
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/keeping-records/your-responsibilities-requirements-associated-records-law-requires-you-keep.html
CRA - Where to keep your records, for how long, and how to request permission to destroy them early
The six-year rule and every variation quoted above: late filing, objections and appeals, indefinite retention, dissolution, amalgamation, and the requirement that records be kept in Canada.
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/keeping-records/where-keep-your-records-long-request-permission-destroy-them-early.html
CRA - Acceptable format, imaging paper documents and backing up electronic files
The imaging conditions, the CAN/CGSB-72.34 national standard, the rule that documents born electronic must be kept electronically, and the treatment of third-party record keepers.
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/keeping-records/acceptable-format-imaging-paper-documents-backing-electronic-files.html
CRA - Form T137, Request for Destruction of Records
The form used to ask CRA for permission to destroy records before the end of the retention period.
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/forms/t137.html
Income Tax Act - section 230
Subsection 230(1) on keeping records at a place of business or residence in Canada, 230(4)(b) on the six-year period, and 230(4.1) on retaining electronic records in an electronically readable format.
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/i-3.3/section-230.html
Excise Tax Act - section 286
The parallel books-and-records requirement for GST/HST registrants.
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-15/section-286.html
CRA - Keeping records: GST/HST and payroll records
The additional record-keeping specific to GST/HST registrants and employers remitting source deductions.
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/keeping-records/gst-hst-payroll-records.html

All sources verified 2026-08-13. Spotted a link that has moved? Email support@mapleexpense.com and we will correct it.