How Long Should You Keep Receipts? A Plain-English Guide

The short answer: three years

For most receipts that touch your taxes, the magic number is three years. That is the standard period of limitations the IRS has to assess additional tax on a return you filed. So if you claimed a deduction, reported income, or took a credit, keep the receipt that backs it up for at least three years from the date you filed.

That covers the bulk of what people stress about: business expenses, charitable donations, medical bills you deducted, and the itemized receipts behind any write-off you took. File them, forget them, and revisit in three years.

When to keep receipts longer

The three-year rule has a few important exceptions where the IRS gets more time, so you should too:

• Six years if you underreported income by more than 25% of the gross income shown on your return. The audit window stretches to six years, so your records should as well.
• Seven years if you filed a claim for a loss from worthless securities or a bad-debt deduction. The IRS gives you seven years to make that claim, which means seven years of supporting paper.
• Indefinitely if you never filed a return or filed a fraudulent one. There is no time limit in those cases, but if you're reading this you're almost certainly not in that bucket.

Tip: When two rules could apply, keep the receipt for the longer period. Storing a digital copy a few extra years costs you nothing; losing a deduction in an audit costs real money.

Property and big assets: keep until well after you sell

Receipts tied to property work on a different clock. Think your home, a rental, a vehicle used for business, or expensive equipment. You need these to calculate depreciation, your cost basis, and any gain or loss when you eventually sell.

The rule: keep property records until the period of limitations runs out for the year you dispose of the property. In plain terms, hang onto the purchase receipt, closing documents, and every home-improvement receipt until at least three years after you sell. For a house you own for 20 years, that can mean keeping a receipt for 23 years. It feels long, but those improvement receipts can lower your taxable gain significantly.

How long to keep each type of receipt

Here is the quick reference:

• Tax-deductible expense receipts: 3 years from filing (the general rule).
• Income records (1099s, sales records): 3 years, or 6 if income was underreported.
• Bad-debt or worthless-securities claims: 7 years.
• Property purchase, sale and improvement records: until 3+ years after you sell.
• Business employment tax records: at least 4 years after the tax is due or paid.
• Warranty receipts: for the length of the warranty, then toss.
• Return and exchange receipts: until the return window closes.
• Everyday non-tax receipts (groceries, coffee): no need to keep unless they're a business expense.
• Major purchase receipts (appliances, electronics): keep for warranty and insurance claims.

Business vs personal receipts

Good news: the time windows are the same whether the receipt is personal or for your business. A self-employed person and a salaried filer both follow the three-year general rule and the same longer exceptions.

The real difference is volume and rigor. A business generates far more receipts and is more likely to be audited on its deductions, so clean records matter more. Businesses also carry the extra employment-tax rule (four years) if they have payroll. The habit that saves you: separate business and personal spending from day one, ideally on different cards, so you're never untangling them at tax time.

Digital copies are completely fine

You do not need a drawer full of fading thermal paper. The IRS accepts legible electronic records, so a clear photo or scanned PDF of a receipt is just as valid as the original. In fact digital is better: thermal receipts fade to blank within a year or two, while a photo lasts forever and is searchable.

The only rule is that the copy has to be complete and readable: the merchant, date, amount, and what you bought. Capture that, back it up to the cloud, and you can recycle the paper the same day. (Here is more on going paperless with digital receipts.)

The faster way: let Mylo keep every receipt for you

Knowing how long to keep receipts only helps if you actually have them when the time comes. That is the hard part. Mylo solves it by capturing receipts automatically: it scans your email inboxes and signs into the stores where receipts hide, pulls the full itemized version, and matches each one to the card transaction that paid for it.

Everything lands in one place, dated, categorized, and stored, so three or seven years from now the receipt is right there instead of in a landfill. No new card, no manual filing. Mylo works on top of the Visa, Mastercard, or Amex you already use, and it's free on iOS, Android, and the web.

Sources: IRS, "How long should I keep records?" (irs.gov) and IRS Topic No. 305, Recordkeeping (irs.gov). This is general information, not tax advice; check with a tax professional for your situation.