Guide · Records
How long do you have to keep receipts for taxes?
The honest answer is that it depends where you file, and the ranges are wider than most people assume — three years in one place, fifteen in another for the same shoebox.
| Where | How long | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 3 years | From the filing date. Six years if income was understated by more than 25%; no limit where no return was filed. |
| United Kingdom — companies | 6 years | From the end of the accounting period. |
| United Kingdom — self-employed | 5 years | After the 31 January submission deadline for that tax year. |
| United Arab Emirates — VAT | 5 years | 15 years for records relating to real estate. |
What actually has to be on the record
A record is not just proof that money left your account. A card statement shows an amount and a merchant; it does not show what was bought or how much tax was charged. For most purposes a valid record shows:
- The date of the transaction
- The supplier — name, and for VAT purposes their registration number
- What was bought
- The amount, and the tax shown separately where it applies
This is why a faded thermal receipt is a genuine problem rather than an aesthetic one. Thermal paper loses its print — sometimes within months in a hot car or a sunlit kitchen. The record does not become disputed; it becomes blank.
Do photographs count?
Yes. Electronic records are accepted in all three jurisdictions above, provided they are legible, complete, and can be produced when asked. A clear photograph of the whole receipt — edges included, not cropped through the total — is a valid record.
Photograph it the day you get it. A receipt you meant to photograph is not a record, and thermal ink does not wait.
The part nobody plans for
If your records live inside an app, three questions decide whether you actually have them:
- Can you export everything, in a format something else can read? If the answer is a screenshot, that is not an export.
- What happens if the company shuts down, or you stop paying? Plenty of expense apps put export behind the subscription — so the moment you stop paying, your five-year archive becomes unreachable.
- Who else has a copy? Anything uploaded is a copy you no longer control, held under someone else's retention policy and someone else's breach risk.
The safest arrangement is dull: keep the originals on a device you own, export at least once a year, and store that export where you keep the rest of your tax paperwork.
Where Receipt Snap fits
Receipt Snap reads a receipt on the phone itself — merchant, date, total and tax — using Apple's on-device text recognition. There is no account and no server, so nothing is uploaded and nothing is retained by anybody but you. The App Store privacy label reads "Data Not Collected".
It recognises twelve currencies from the receipt itself, including from a tax registration number when no symbol is printed, which is how an Indian GSTIN or a UAE TRN gets the currency right without asking you.
General information, not tax advice. Retention rules change and vary by circumstance — check with your tax authority or accountant.