Germany Plans 15-Year Retention Period for Accounting Records
By Emanuel Böminghaus, Legacy Systems Expert and Managing Director, AvenDATA
By Emanuel Böminghaus
Legacy Systems Expert and
Managing Director, AvenDATA
Managing Director, AvenDATA
As part of its action plan against tax and financial crime, the German federal government intends to significantly extend tax-related retention requirements. Under the proposals that Federal Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil and Federal Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig presented on July 16, 2026, accounting vouchers (Buchungsbelege) would have to be retained for 15 years instead of the current eight. The goal is to give German tax authorities more time for audits and to strengthen the fight against tax evasion and financial crime. The proposals still have to pass through the legislative process. Even so, companies, especially international corporations with operations in Germany, should factor the potential impact into their planning now.
Why Archiving Strategies Need a Review
If the proposed rule takes effect, tax-relevant data will have to be retained in an audit-proof format for considerably longer. Companies should therefore check whether their existing archiving and deletion policies can accommodate a longer retention period. This applies especially to data from financial accounting, procurement, sales, and human resources, which must remain complete, tamper-proof, and accessible throughout the entire statutory retention period.
Migration Does Not End Retention Obligations
Many companies have already modernized their ERP and business applications or are planning a move to new platforms such as SAP S/4HANA, Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP, or Microsoft Dynamics 365. However, retiring a legacy system does not end the statutory retention obligations. Historical data must remain available after the migration for tax audits, financial statement audits, and internal inquiries. A longer retention period would extend this time frame accordingly and make long-term access to legacy data even more important.
Assess the Impact on Your Legacy Systems Now
Regardless of when the proposed changes are adopted, now is the right time to review your archiving strategy. Make sure that data subject to retention obligations is archived in an audit-proof format and can be produced at any time, even after a legacy system has been decommissioned. This lets you meet future legal requirements without keeping outdated applications running solely to fulfill retention obligations.
Want to know how the proposed changes could affect your IT landscape? Our experts will help you review your archiving strategy and show you how to decommission legacy systems in a legally compliant way while keeping tax-relevant data available for the long term.
Contact us for a no-obligation consultation.