IRS receipt requirements: the $75 rule and what you actually need to keep

The short answer

For business travel, meals and gifts under $75, the IRS does not require you to keep a receipt, as long as the expense runs through a proper accountable plan. Lodging is the one exception: a hotel receipt is always required, no matter how small. And "no receipt" does not mean "no records." You still have to log the amount, the date, the place and the business reason for every expense. That is the whole rule. The detail below is where most write-ups, and a lot of finance teams, get it slightly wrong.

What the $75 receipt rule actually says

The threshold is not tax folklore. It comes from two primary sources: Treasury Regulation 1.274-5(c)(2)(iii), which lets the IRS set a dollar level below which documentary evidence is not required, and IRS Notice 95-50, which set that level at $75 for expenses paid or incurred on or after October 1, 1995. You will also see it summarized in IRS Publication 463.

"Documentary evidence" is the IRS term for a receipt, canceled check or bill. So for a covered expense under $75, you are not required to hold onto the paper. The lodging exception is written into the rule itself: regardless of amount, you always need a receipt for lodging when you travel away from home. A $60 client dinner can be skipped. A $60 motel night cannot.

The part most articles get wrong

Here is the nuance that most "$75 rule" explainers blur. The rule lives inside Internal Revenue Code Section 274(d), which covers a specific set of expenses: travel, meals, entertainment (largely nondeductible since 2018), gifts and listed property. The $75 receipt break applies to those categories only.

It is not a blanket rule that says any business expense under $75 needs no receipt. Your everyday operating costs, office supplies, software, equipment, rent, fall under the general recordkeeping rule in Section 6001, which simply says you must keep records good enough to prove the deduction. There is no automatic $75 pass there. A $40 client lunch and a $40 pack of printer paper are treated differently: the lunch can qualify for the waiver, the printer paper should have proof kept.

What records you still need under $75

Skipping the receipt does not skip the substantiation. For any travel or meal expense, the IRS still wants four things on record:

• Amount of the expense
• Time, the date it happened
• Place, or a description of the item
• Business purpose, why it was ordinary and necessary, plus the business relationship for meals and gifts

You can capture these in an expense app, a card feed with notes, or a simple log. The point is that if the IRS asks, you can tell the story of the expense even without the slip of paper. This is also why the $75 rule is really an employer convenience: under an accountable plan, it tells a company when it can reimburse an employee without demanding a receipt, while keeping the reimbursement tax-free.

Do bank or credit card statements count as receipts?

Partly. A statement proves that a payment happened, for a certain amount, on a certain date, to a certain payee, so it covers some of the substantiation and is often accepted for small, clearly business expenses. What it does not show is what you bought or why. A line reading "Office Depot, $214.00" does not prove the purchase was for business, or whether it included personal items.

For anything that requires documentary evidence, an itemized receipt is stronger because it breaks down the purchase. Keep the receipt and let the statement back it up, rather than relying on the statement alone. For more on that, see what an itemized receipt is.

When you definitely need a receipt

Keep the receipt when the travel, meal or gift expense is $75 or more, when the expense is for lodging at any amount, or when your own company policy sets a lower bar. Many businesses require receipts over $25, which is stricter than the IRS but keeps expense reports and audits clean. When an expense is unusual or large, keep it regardless.

How long to keep the receipts you do have

The general rule is three years, matching the IRS statute of limitations for most returns. It runs longer in specific cases: six years if you underreported income by more than 25 percent, and indefinitely if you never filed or filed a fraudulent return. Because the timelines vary, many businesses simply keep everything, which digital storage makes cheap. For the full schedule, see how long to keep receipts.

The faster way: let Mylo grab every receipt automatically

The $75 rule is useful, but it sets a trap. Teams read "no receipt required under $75" as "throw it away," lose the underlying record too, and then cannot prove a legitimate deduction. The rule waived the paper, not the proof.

Mylo removes the decision entirely. It reads receipts from your email inboxes and the stores you shop at, matches each one to the card transaction that paid for it, and files it as a categorized expense with the amount, date, place and purpose attached. When tax time or an audit arrives, the record is already there, whether the IRS required the receipt or not. You keep the cards you already use, and the $75 threshold goes back to being a convenience instead of a risk.

Sources: IRS Publication 463; Treasury Regulation 1.274-5(c)(2)(iii); IRS Notice 95-50; Internal Revenue Code sections 274(d) and 6001. This article is general information, not tax advice. Rules change and situations differ, so check with a qualified tax professional for your situation.