restowbackup
Try demoBuy license

Email retention periods in Germany: 6, 8 or 10 years

How long you must keep an email depends on what it is. Commercial letters (Handelsbriefe) and other documents that matter for taxation must be kept for six years, accounting vouchers (Buchungsbelege) such as invoices for eight years since 1 January 2025, and books, records and annual financial statements for ten years (§ 147 (3) AO, § 257 (4) HGB). Ten years for accounting vouchers still apply to credit institutions, insurers and securities institutions. The period starts at the end of the calendar year in which the email was received or sent (§ 147 (4) AO, § 257 (5) HGB). After it you may delete, and under the GDPR you should, as soon as neither a duty nor a purpose justifies keeping the email. This page is not legal or tax advice.

Lucas Flores By , IT Systeme Flores UG. Last updated

Which period applies to which email?

An email is not a type of record in its own right. What counts is its function, not its label (GoBD Rz. 121). The table assigns the classes of § 147 (1) AO and § 257 (1) HGB to emails. The examples are customary classifications; how you classify your own emails is for you and your tax advisor to decide.

As of the statute texts read on 22 October 2026.
Class Examples in a mailbox Period Provision
Books, records, inventories, annual financial statements, management reports, opening balance sheet, and the working instructions and organisational documents needed to understand them Rarely the email itself. Affected are annual accounts and records, and working instructions for bookkeeping, when they sit in the mailbox as an email or attachment. 10 years § 147 (1) no. 1, (3) sentence 1 AO; § 257 (1) no. 1, (4) HGB
Accounting vouchers (Buchungsbelege) Invoices (also as e-invoices or a PDF attachment), credit notes, payment receipts and business bank statements, where they serve as the voucher for a booking. A commercial letter becomes an accounting voucher when it is booked with a booking note (GoBD Rz. 63). 8 years (since 1 January 2025) § 147 (1) no. 4, (3) sentence 1 AO; § 257 (1) no. 4, (4) HGB; for invoices § 14b (1) UStG
Received commercial and business letters and copies of those sent Quotes, orders, order confirmations, reminders and correspondence about contracts and deliveries. Under § 257 (2) HGB, commercial letters are only documents that concern a commercial transaction. 6 years § 147 (1) no. 2 and 3, (3) sentence 1 AO; § 257 (1) no. 2 and 3, (4) HGB
Other documents that matter for taxation Emails that are neither a letter nor a voucher but matter in the individual case for understanding and checking the records (GoBD Rz. 5). 6 years § 147 (1) no. 5, (3) sentence 1 AO
Emails without any of these functions Newsletters, advertising, spam, private messages, and emails that are only a transport vehicle (an attached voucher stays subject to retention, the email around it does not). No period under the AO and the HGB GoBD Rz. 121

When does the period start, and when does it end?

It starts at the end of the calendar year in which the commercial letter was received or sent or the accounting voucher arose (§ 147 (4) AO, § 257 (5) HGB). The period therefore ends on 31 December of that year plus 6, 8 or 10: the year counts, not the day.

Examples for the end of the period. For invoices, § 14b (1) UStG counts the year of issue.
Email received or voucher arose on Period starts Ends, 6 years 8 years 10 years
14 March 2026 31 December 2026 31 December 2032 31 December 2034 31 December 2036
29 December 2026 31 December 2026 31 December 2032 31 December 2034 31 December 2036
5 January 2027 31 December 2027 31 December 2033 31 December 2035 31 December 2037

The cut of the period for accounting vouchers from ten to eight years has applied since 1 January 2025 (Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act of 23 October 2024, BGBl. 2024 I no. 323) and also covers older vouchers whose old period had not expired on 31 December 2024 (art. 97 § 19a (2) EGAO, art. 95 EGHGB). So calculate older vouchers with the new period: a voucher from 2016 ends on 31 December 2024, one from 2017 on 31 December 2025, in each case subject to the extension while an assessment is open.

May I delete after the period ends, and should I?

May: The GoBD forbid deleting records that are subject to retention before the period ends (Rz. 119). After it, the tax code asks for no further retention. Two things slow you down: the extension while the assessment period is open (§ 147 (3) sentence 5 AO) and purposes of your own, such as a legal dispute in progress.

Should: Emails almost always contain personal data. That data may only be kept in a form that permits identifying the people for as long as is necessary for the purposes (art. 5 (1) (e) GDPR, "storage limitation"), and the controller must erase it without undue delay when it is no longer necessary for the purposes (art. 17 (1) (a)). The statutory retention duty is the exception: the right to erasure does not apply where processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation (art. 17 (3) (b)), nor for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims (point (e)). When the period ends, the first exception falls away. If no other purpose remains, the email should be deleted.

Log it: The GoBD require that changes and deletions of electronic bookings and records are logged, and for electronic documents this applies by analogy (Rz. 59). A deletion log after the period ends follows that logic and helps you show later that an email was removed regularly and not too early. Record in a deletion concept which classes exist, which periods apply, what triggers deletion, who approves it and where the log is kept. Deleting from the archive does not remove the email from backups; backups follow a logic of their own, see GDPR and backups and Backup vs. archive.

How Restow handles this

Restow's archive keeps mail for a fixed period of 8 years. It ends on 31 December of the year of receipt plus 8 years: mail received in 2026 is kept to 31 December 2034. That covers the 6 years for commercial letters and the 8 years for accounting vouchers, but not the 10 years for books, records and annual financial statements, and not the 10 years for the accounting vouchers of credit institutions, insurers and securities institutions. No screen and no API sets another period yet.

What Restow does

  • The period counts from the end of the calendar year, as § 147 (4) AO has it. Imported mail counts from the import: an old email imported today is counted from today. The same holds, since 0.4.4, for mail that a capture way takes over once from a mailbox (marked as captured afterwards): its period starts at the capture, not on the date of the mail.
  • In Business and Service Provider, a daily deletion run removes only items that have expired and are not under a legal hold, and writes each deletion, with the item's hashes, to the hash-chained audit log. Without that capability, that is in the Community edition, Restow deletes nothing from the archive.
  • A legal hold per tenant or per mailbox (Business and Service Provider) blocks deletion, the scheduled run included. Releasing it needs a reason in the interface and is logged.
  • Backups have a retention of their own, by age tiers or counts; it is separate from the archive period.

What Restow does not do

  • Restow does not know which of your emails are commercial letters or vouchers. The same period applies to everything that is archived.
  • The deletion run does not check whether a record has to be kept longer under § 147 (3) sentence 5 AO. Whether and when you catch that with a legal hold is your decision.

What is planned

A retention policy per tenant is planned for a later release (roadmap: "Retention policy per tenant"): selectable as 6, 8 or 10 years or unlimited, optionally per group of mailboxes, with the clock starting at the capture date or at the end of the calendar year. A deletion log as an entry of its own in the hash chain, with the number, the period and the hashes of the deleted objects, is planned for a later release; today each deletion is in the audit log.

Restow is designed for GoBD-compliant use; there is no certificate. What belongs in your procedural documentation is on Procedural documentation for email archiving, and the classification in detail on Email archiving under the GoBD. The details of retention are in the documentation: Archive and journaling.

Frequently asked questions

How long must I keep emails?

It depends on what the email is. Commercial letters and other documents that matter for taxation: six years. Accounting vouchers such as invoices: eight years since 1 January 2025. Books, records and annual financial statements: ten years (§ 147 (3) AO, § 257 (4) HGB). Emails without one of these functions, such as advertising, are not subject to a period under the tax code or the commercial code.

Does the eight-year period apply to all invoices and vouchers?

For most companies, yes: the Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act cut the period for accounting vouchers from ten to eight years on 1 January 2025, in the tax code and in the commercial code, and § 14b (1) UStG also says eight years for invoices. For credit institutions, companies under insurance supervision and securities institutions it stays at ten years (§ 257 (4) sentence 2 HGB, art. 97 § 19a (3) EGAO).

When does the period start?

At the end of the calendar year in which the commercial letter was received or sent or the accounting voucher arose (§ 147 (4) AO, § 257 (5) HGB). An email of 14 March 2026 and one of 29 December 2026 end on the same day; for six years that is 31 December 2032. For invoices, § 14b (1) UStG names the year of issue.

Must I delete emails after the period ends?

Tax and commercial law do not require it, they allow it. The GDPR may require it: personal data may only be kept in an identifiable form for as long as is necessary for the purposes (art. 5 (1) (e)), and must be erased without undue delay when they are no longer necessary for the purposes (art. 17 (1) (a)). The statutory retention duty is the exception to that (art. 17 (3) (b)), and it ends with the period unless another purpose remains, such as a legal dispute.

Does the period always end exactly as the table shows?

No. Under § 147 (3) sentence 5 AO the retention period does not run out as long as the documents matter for taxes whose assessment period has not yet expired. Check that before you delete, preferably with your tax advisor.

Does the period apply to the email or to the attachment?

What counts is the function of a document, not its label. An email that works as a commercial letter or an accounting voucher is subject to retention; if it is only a transport vehicle, for example for an attached invoice, with no other content that must be kept, the email is not, but the attached invoice is (GoBD Rz. 121). For e-invoices, the GoBD accept keeping the structured part (Rz. 119).

Is a backup enough for retention?

Usually not on its own. A rotating backup is built to forget older restore points and can be deleted, while the GoBD ask for records that are kept unalterably for the length of the period. The article on backup and archive explains the difference.

Sources

Read on 22 October 2026.

  1. § 147 Abgabenordnung (AO) (German original). Paragraph 1 (classes), paragraph 3 (periods of 10, 8 and 6 years; no expiry while the assessment period is open), paragraph 4 (start of the period)
  2. § 257 Handelsgesetzbuch (HGB) (German original). Paragraph 2 (commercial letters), paragraph 4 (periods; sentence 2: ten years for the vouchers of certain institutions), paragraph 5 (start of the period)
  3. § 14b Umsatzsteuergesetz (UStG) (German original). Invoices eight years, period starts at the end of the calendar year of issue
  4. Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act of 23 October 2024, Federal Law Gazette 2024 I no. 323 (German original). Articles 1 to 5: eight years for accounting vouchers in the HGB and the AO and for invoices in the UStG, with transition rules; in force on 1 January 2025 (article 74)
  5. Act on the modernisation and digitalisation of the fight against undeclared work of 22 December 2025, Federal Law Gazette 2025 I no. 369 (German original). Articles 17 and 18: credit institutions, insurers and securities institutions keep accounting vouchers for ten years
  6. Art. 97 § 19a Einführungsgesetz zur Abgabenordnung (EGAO) (German original). Transition rule: the shorter period applies to documents whose old period had not expired on 31 December 2024; paragraph 3: exception for institutions, insurers and securities institutions
  7. Art. 95 Einführungsgesetz zum Handelsgesetzbuch (EGHGB) (German original). Transition rule of the Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act for § 257 (4) HGB
  8. Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF): GoBD as of 14 July 2025, Amtliches AO-Handbuch 2026, Anhang 33 (German original). Margin numbers 5, 59, 62, 63, 119 and 121: function instead of label, commercial letter and accounting voucher, no deletion before the period ends, logging
  9. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR), EUR-Lex: articles 5, 6 and 17. Storage limitation, the duty to erase when the purpose lapses, exceptions for legal obligations and legal claims
  10. Restow documentation: Archive and journaling, section Retention and legal hold. The fixed 8 years, the deletion run, legal hold and what is planned