How long must a charity keep its records?

England and Wales: This page sets out the position in full. Scotland: partly covered — the company-law rows in the table below (accounting records for a company, and both sets of company minutes) apply identically to a Scottish charitable company, but the charity-law retention position for an unincorporated charity or SCIO has not been established; do not assume the England and Wales position carries across. Northern Ireland: partly covered, on the same basis — the company-law rows apply identically, but the charity-law retention position has not been established.

Is the 6-year figure the rule for every record?

No. 6 years is quoted so widely that most charities adopt it for everything and consider the job done. But it is one row among many. The schedule sits beside your annual compliance calendar.

For a charitable company, that single figure is both too short and too long. It is too short for minutes, where the statutory period is more than half as long again. And it is twice as long as company law asks for accounting records.

The periods below come from six different instruments and count from four different starting points. There is no way for the trustees of a charity in England and Wales to collapse them into one number without being wrong somewhere. Where the law is silent, the Charity Commission’s guidance is the reference point.

Charity record retention periods by record type

The table lists each record, how long to keep it, the provision that sets the period and whether that period is statutory.

What does each retention period count from?

Most periods run from the date of the record or the end of the financial year. Two do not. This is where schedules quietly go wrong.

The Gift Aid period runs from the end of the tax year in which the declaration was given. It does not run from the donation, or from the claim. PAYE records run from the end of the tax year. Working time records run from the date the record was made.

The Gift Aid records themselves are covered where you set up your Gift Aid record-keeping and audit trail.

If your schedule has one “delete after” column and no note of what it counts from, it will delete some things early.

Accounting records: the 6-year period is now statutory

The period for an unincorporated charity’s or a CIO’s accounting records is now a legal requirement, not guidance. 6 years used to be the honest but slightly awkward answer. It was true in practice, but it rested on Commission guidance, not a traced statutory provision.

Section 130 of the Charities Act 2011 sets the duty to keep accounting records. On its own, it does not say for how long. Section 131 does.

Section 131 requires the charity’s trustees to preserve those records for at least 6 years. The period runs from the end of the financial year in which they were made. This is a clean, unconditional duty. It applies to every charity that is not a company.

So this row is now a plain legal requirement, on the same footing as the company-law rows in the table. It is not a Commission recommendation dressed up as one.

Safeguarding records: no statutory minimum

No statutory minimum was found at all for safeguarding records. That is not permission to delete them. It is a gap: you have to reason from the purpose of the record, not from a rule. Here, deleting early is far more dangerous than keeping too long.

The same reasoning applies, more mildly, to general personnel files. Keeping them for around 6 years is usual practice. That period is borrowed by analogy from the ordinary limitation period for bringing a claim. No statute sets it.

Minutes of an unincorporated charity’s own meetings sit in between the two. CC48 recommends 6 years, and most charities follow it. But that is good practice, not a statutory minimum. A CIO’s minutes are different: reg 37(2) of the CIO (General) Regulations 2012 sets the same 6 years as a matter of law.

What the minutes must contain is covered where you establish how you take and store minutes.

The retention schedule, row by row

Give each record type one row of the retention schedule, showing:

• what the record is
• how long you keep it
• what the period counts from
• where the period comes from
• who does the deleting

Adopt the schedule at a board meeting and minute it.

Then keep it beside the charity’s data protection policy, because the two have to agree. A retention schedule saying six years and a privacy notice saying three is a contradiction someone will eventually notice. For personal data, the rows also have to match what you decided when you set your data retention schedule.

You now have a retention schedule the board has adopted. The next step is to keep your register entry current.

Common mistake: applying one period to everything

6 years is quoted everywhere as if universal. For a charitable company, minutes need 10 years while accounting records need only 3 years. A single 6-year rule is both too short and too long.

Common mistake: treating the 6-year accounting-records figure as guidance rather than law

It was a reasonable caution as recently as August 2026. At that time, the only traceable basis for the 6-year figure was Commission guidance. Charities Act 2011 s.131(1) sets it as a statutory duty. So a schedule that still footnotes this row as “guidance, not law” is now the one that is out of date.

Worked example

Saltmarsh Trust is a charitable company. It builds a retention schedule and, before checking the detail, applies 6 years to everything.

Its schedule would destroy minutes the law requires it to keep. The statutory period is 10 years, and failing to keep them is an offence by every officer in default. It is also holding accounting records for twice as long as company law requires.