# CRA record-keeping rules for receipts, and how long you have to keep them

> The CRA requires business records to be kept for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to. Electronic images of paper receipts are acceptable provided they are readable, complete and can be produced on request — you do not have to keep the paper once you have a faithful copy. Records must be kept in Canada, or made available here, unless the CRA has given written permission otherwise.

Source: https://simpleloonie.ca/guides/cra-receipt-record-keeping
Published: 2026-09-15 · Last reviewed: 2026-09-26

## Key facts

- **Retention period:** Six years from the end of the tax year
- **Digital copies:** Acceptable if readable and complete
- **Where records live:** In Canada, or available to the CRA here
- **Language:** English or French
- **If you object or appeal:** Keep records until the matter is resolved
- **Missing receipts:** Deduction or credit can be denied

## How long do you have to keep business receipts in Canada?

Six years from the end of the last tax year the records relate to. For a corporation with a 31 December year end, records for 2026 have to survive until the end of 2032. For a sole proprietor the tax year is the calendar year, so the same arithmetic applies.

"Last tax year they relate to" is doing more than it looks. A piece of equipment you depreciate over several years produces a purchase record that relates to every one of those years, so the six-year clock starts at the end of the last year the asset appears in your capital cost allowance schedule, not the year you bought it.

- Filed late? The six years run from the end of the tax year in which the return was actually filed, not the year it covers.
- Filed an objection or an appeal? Keep everything connected to it until the matter is fully resolved and the appeal period has run out.
- Winding up a corporation? Records generally have to be kept for two years after dissolution.
- Want to destroy records early? That takes written permission from the CRA, on form T137.

## Are photos and scans of receipts acceptable?

Yes. The CRA accepts electronic records, including images of paper documents, as long as the image is readable, complete, and can be produced when asked for. Once you have a faithful electronic copy of a paper receipt, you are not required to keep the paper as well.

That matters more for receipts than for almost any other document, because thermal paper is not an archival medium. A till receipt kept in a warm car or a wallet can fade to an unreadable grey rectangle inside a year — well within the six-year window it is supposed to survive. A photograph taken on the day of purchase is, in practice, more durable than the original.

> **Readable means readable.** A blurred photo with the tax line cut off is not a record; it is a picture of one. Capture the whole document, including the supplier's GST/HST number and the tax breakdown, and check it before the paper goes in the bin.

Electronic records also have to stay accessible in an electronically readable format for the full period. A proprietary export you can no longer open is a compliance problem, which is an argument for keeping images in ordinary formats — JPEG, PNG, PDF — and for being able to get your data out of whatever system holds it.

## Do records have to be kept in Canada?

The requirement is that records be kept at your place of business or residence in Canada, or otherwise be made available to the CRA in Canada, unless the CRA has given you written permission to keep them elsewhere. In practice, records held on a foreign server are generally acceptable where they can be accessed and produced in Canada on request — but the safe reading is that it is access and production in Canada that the rule is about, not the physical location of a disk.

If this question matters to your business specifically — a regulated sector, a client contract that says otherwise, or a policy that records cannot leave the country — the answer is to pin the infrastructure down rather than to interpret the rule. SimpleLoonie's shared service runs on Google Cloud in the United States and sends receipts to AI providers in the United States and the European Union, which is set out provider by provider in our privacy policy. Where that is not acceptable, we deploy a private instance in the region you specify, against a database and object storage you own and your own AI provider key.

## What does a receipt actually have to show?

For an income-tax deduction, a record needs to establish that the expense was incurred, how much it was, and that it was for earning business income. For a GST/HST input tax credit the bar is more specific, and it rises with the amount of the purchase.

*Supporting-document requirements for a GST/HST input tax credit*
| Purchase total | Required on the document |
| --- | --- |
| Under CA$100 | Supplier name, date, total amount |
| CA$100 to CA$499.99 | The above, plus the supplier's GST/HST number and the tax charged or the rate it is included at |
| CA$500 and over | The above, plus your name or trading name, payment terms, and a description of what was supplied |

Two documents that routinely get mistaken for receipts and are not: the credit-card terminal slip, which shows a total and no tax breakdown, and the bank statement, which shows that money moved and nothing about what it bought. Keep the itemised receipt from the till.

## What happens if a receipt is missing?

The deduction or credit can be denied. The burden of proof sits with the taxpayer, and "the bank statement shows I paid it" does not establish what was bought or how much tax was on it. In a review, unsupported claims are the ones that get adjusted, and an adjustment can come with interest and penalties.

If a receipt genuinely cannot be recovered, reconstruct as much as you can and keep the reconstruction: the supplier, the date, what was purchased, the amount, and any corroborating document such as a delivery note, an email confirmation or a statement line. It is weaker evidence than the receipt, and it is far better than nothing. Many suppliers will also reissue a copy on request, which is worth trying first.

> **The cheapest fix is capture, not recovery.** Almost every missing receipt was in someone's hand at some point. Photographing it at the moment of purchase — before it goes into a pocket, a car or a drawer — removes the entire problem.

## A record-keeping system that survives six years

1. Capture at the point of purchase. A photo on the day beats a scan in April.
2. Keep the image with the data. A row in a spreadsheet with no attached document is not a record.
3. Store the fields separately: supplier, date, subtotal, each tax, total, currency, province. Merged fields cannot be un-merged later.
4. Make it exportable. Six years is longer than most software relationships; you need to be able to take everything with you in an open format.
5. Back it up somewhere that is not the same system. Two copies in one account is one copy.
6. Review once a year. A missing month is much easier to fix in January than in year five.

SimpleLoonie keeps the original image attached to every transaction alongside the extracted fields, holds supplier, date, subtotal, each tax, total, currency and province as separate values, and exports the lot to Excel or CSV whenever you ask. If the six-year archive has to sit in a database you own, a private instance is how that is arranged.

## Frequently asked questions

### How long do I have to keep business receipts in Canada?

Six years from the end of the last tax year the records relate to. For a 31 December year end, 2026 records must be kept until the end of 2032. If you filed late, the period runs from the end of the year you actually filed in, and if you have filed an objection or appeal, keep everything until it is resolved.

### Can I throw out paper receipts if I have photos of them?

Yes, once you have an electronic image that is readable and complete. The CRA accepts electronic records, including images of paper documents. The condition is that the image can be produced on request and shows everything the original did — including the tax breakdown and the supplier's GST/HST number.

### Does the CRA accept photos taken on a phone?

Yes, provided the photo is legible and captures the whole document. Given how quickly thermal paper fades, a phone photo taken on the day of purchase is often a more durable record than the receipt it came from.

### Do my records have to be stored in Canada?

Records must be kept at your place of business or residence in Canada, or otherwise made available to the CRA in Canada, unless the CRA has given written permission to keep them elsewhere. In practice the requirement is about access and production in Canada. If your own policies or contracts require the data itself to stay in a particular place, that is a question of which infrastructure holds it, not of which software you use.

### What happens if I lose a receipt?

The related deduction or input tax credit can be denied, because the burden of proof is yours. Ask the supplier for a copy first. Failing that, reconstruct the detail — supplier, date, what was bought, amount — and keep any corroborating document. It is weaker than the receipt and much better than an unexplained line.

### Is a credit card statement enough to support a deduction?

No. A statement shows that a payment was made; it does not show what was purchased or how much GST/HST was charged. It is useful for confirming you have captured everything, not for supporting the claim itself.

### How long should I keep records for an asset I am depreciating?

Until six years after the end of the last tax year the asset appears in your capital cost allowance schedule. The purchase record relates to every year you claim CCA on it, so the clock does not start in the year you bought it.

## Sources

- [Canada Revenue Agency — Keeping records](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed-income/keeping-records.html)
- [Canada Revenue Agency — Business expenses](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed-income/business-expenses.html)
- [Canada Revenue Agency — Claim input tax credits](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/gst-hst-businesses/claim-input-tax-credits.html)