What records must a UK limited company keep — and for how long?

Every UK limited company has to keep records — that part is not optional. What trips directors up is the how long. Ask three different sources and you get three different answers: company law says three years, HMRC says six, and the rules on board minutes say ten. None of them is wrong. They are simply measuring different things. This guide untangles them into one practical rule you can actually run a company by.

What records does a UK limited company have to keep?

A company must keep “adequate accounting records” — that is the exact phrase in section 386 of the Companies Act 2006. Adequate means records good enough to show the company’s transactions, disclose its financial position with reasonable accuracy, and let the directors prepare accounts that comply with the law. Failing to keep them is not just untidy: it is a criminal offence for the company’s officers.

In plain terms, that means keeping evidence of everything the money did: all sums received and spent and what they were for; a record of assets and liabilities; and, where the company deals in goods, statements of stock. But “records” is broader than the bookkeeping. It includes the decisions behind the numbers — minutes of directors’ meetings, dividend vouchers, loan agreements, expense claims with their receipts still attached, and the correspondence that explains what a transaction actually was. In an enquiry the question is rarely just “what did you spend”. It is “what was this, and who decided on it”. The official overview at GOV.UK on company and accounting records sets out the full list.

What is the company-law minimum — three years or six?

Company law itself asks for surprisingly little: three years for a private company, six for a public one. That floor comes from section 388 of the Companies Act 2006, and the clock runs from the date the records are made. It is real, but it is almost never the number you should plan around — because the taxman keeps a longer clock, and his is the one that bites first.

So treat the three-year figure as a legal minimum, not a target. If you throw records away at three years to satisfy the Companies Act, you will have destroyed exactly the paperwork HMRC can still ask to see. The two rules do not conflict; you simply follow the longer one.

How long does HMRC want records kept?

Six years — and this is the clock that governs your day-to-day. HMRC requires the records supporting your Company Tax Return to be kept for six years from the end of the financial year they relate to. That covers your invoices, receipts, bank statements, contracts and the working papers behind the return.

Keep them longer than six years when any of these apply:

• You filed the relevant Company Tax Return late — the retention window extends accordingly.
• The records cover the purchase of something the company expects to last more than six years, such as machinery or equipment — keep them until the asset is out of the picture.
• A compliance check or enquiry is open — keep everything relevant until it is fully resolved, whatever the calendar says.

If your company is VAT-registered, the same six-year figure applies to your VAT records. In practice, then, “six years” is the number to build your habits around.

Why do minutes and resolutions have to be kept for ten years?

Because decisions outlive transactions. Minutes of directors’ meetings and directors’ written resolutions must be kept for ten years from the date of the meeting or resolution — that is section 248 of the Companies Act 2006. The equivalent ten-year rule for members’ (shareholders’) resolutions and meetings sits at section 355.

This is the retention period directors most often miss, precisely because minutes feel like afterthoughts rather than accounts. But a dividend without its board minute, or a loan without the resolution that approved it, is a decision you cannot prove was made. Ten years is a long memory; keep these documents for the full stretch, not the six-year one you use for receipts. For dividends specifically, see our guide to dividend paperwork for UK limited companies.

What about statutory registers — do they ever expire?

No — and this is a category error worth avoiding. Your statutory registers, such as the register of members and the PSC (people with significant control) register, are not archives you keep for a set number of years. They are current documents the company must maintain for as long as it exists. There is no retention clock because they are never “old”; they describe who owns and controls the company right now, and they are updated whenever that changes.

Can I just keep everything digitally?

Yes, and for most companies you should. HMRC accepts digital copies of receipts and invoices for most purposes, and your Companies House filings are electronic to begin with. The law cares about substance, not format: records must be complete, legible and retrievable.

That standard is exactly why a shoebox of paper is the wrong answer. Thermal receipts fade to blank within a year or two, so a box of them fails all three tests — it is incomplete once the ink goes, illegible even before that, and impossible to search when you need one line from four years ago. A dated, labelled scan attached to the transaction it belongs to beats it on every measure. The point is not paperless for its own sake; it is that the six-years-later version of you can actually find the thing.

So what is the rule of thumb?

Keep everything for at least six years; keep minutes and resolutions for ten; and when you are unsure, keep it. Storage is cheap and getting cheaper; reconstructing a record you binned is slow, stressful and sometimes impossible. Here is the whole picture on one screen:

How LtdRecord makes six years later easy

The retention rules are only half the battle. The other half is finding a record when someone finally asks — and that is where most one-director companies come unstuck, not because they threw the paperwork away but because they cannot lay hands on it. LtdRecord is built for that moment.

Every record pack is numbered, so nothing is anonymous. The supporting evidence — the receipt, the invoice, the agreement — stays attached to the record it belongs to, not scattered across an email account and a phone camera roll. And everything is exportable as PDF or ZIP at any time, so when your accountant, or an HMRC officer, or simply the you of 2032 comes asking, the answer is one download away rather than one archaeology project.

A word on what this is and is not: LtdRecord produces draft records for you and your accountant to review. It keeps your paperwork orderly and retrievable; it does not give tax advice, and it is not a substitute for one. Use it to make sure that, six years from now, the records you were always meant to keep are actually there — complete, legible and one click from your hand.