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Answers · Record-keeping · every company, every year

What records must my company keep, and for how long?

Every Singapore company keeps its invoices, receipts, bank statements, accounting records and tax computations for at least 5 years from the relevant year of assessment, and produces them if IRAS asks. The records for the financial year that ended in 2025 belong to YA 2026, so their five years are counted from there.

A GST-registered business keeps its tax invoices, import and export documents and the working behind every box of every return for the same period. The records stay on your own premises; IRAS does not hold them for you.

Checked by hand against the IRAS page, read 2 Aug 2026 Edition YA-2027 · sources verified through 24 Jul 2026

What counts as a record

Invoices, receipts, bank statements, accounting records and computations have to be kept, and produced if IRAS asks. In practice that is the paper and the files the accounts were made from, and the accounts themselves:

  • Source documents. The invoices, the receipts and the bank statements: the paper each entry in the books came from.
  • Accounting records. The books those documents were posted to.
  • Computations. The working that turns the profit in your accounts into the profit IRAS taxes: add-backs, capital allowances, exemptions. Filed with Form C; prepared and kept on file for Form C-S, and produced on request.

A GST-registered business keeps more: tax invoices, import and export documents, and the working behind every box on every return. IRAS's FAQ on the GST InvoiceNow requirement puts the same list as source documents and structured invoice data, a Peppol XML file where one exists, kept to support the GST declarations and produced on request.

Whether a scanned copy may stand in for the paper original is not stated on this page; see the last question below.

How long, and counted from when

At least 5 years from the relevant year of assessment. The count runs from the year of assessment, not from the date on the document. A year of assessment is the calendar year after the one your financial year ended in, so the invoices, statements and computation behind the accounts for the year that ended in 2025 are the records of YA 2026, and their five years are counted from YA 2026. A document dated early in a financial year is kept as long as one dated at its end. See which year of assessment you are in.

The same period applies to GST records. The IRAS page for GST records could not be read by machine when the Simpler Tax compliance atlas was compiled (it is drawn by script), so the atlas holds the 5-year period for GST records as corroborated, not read on that page. IRAS states the same 5 years itself in its FAQ on the GST InvoiceNow requirement (question 9.3), linked below; confirm it on the GST record-keeping page too.

This page names no calendar date on which a given year's records may be discarded; the IRAS page it was checked against was read for the rule, not for a worked count. Keep them longer rather than shorter; the rule says at least.

Where, and what IRAS does with them

Your own premises. The records themselves are never filed: they sit with the company, and the duty is to produce them when asked. The tax computation is a record too. For Form C-S it is not attached to the return, so the only copy is the one you kept. See what goes in each box of Form C-S.

A fine of up to S$5,000, or imprisonment of up to 6 months, or both, is on the statute. For GST records the penalty is as for income tax records.

The penalty figures are the compliance atlas's and its catalog's, which agree on the amounts and differ on whether the two run together or either alone; the wider reading is printed. The IRAS page was read for the period and the striking-off note, not for the penalty wording, so read that sentence on the IRAS page itself.

The duty outlives the company. The IRAS page, read on 2 Aug 2026, says it survives a striking-off and falls on whoever was an officer immediately before dissolution.

How Simpler Tax keeps the file and the documents

Your company file is an ordinary SQLite database in a folder you chose, on a machine you control, and the documents you scan or import stay beside it. Every posted row carries its provenance back to the source document, and each line of a posted document names the file it was read from. The register is append-only: a correction posts a reversing entry, so the record of what was posted, and of what was later reversed, is never overwritten.

The file is yours to copy, back up, or keep on an encrypted disk. The app takes a snapshot of it at every launch and every thirty minutes of work, and if a crash or a bad restore ever hands it a smaller file it says so rather than showing fewer documents. Uninstalling leaves the file and its backups on disk. Nothing is sent to the vendor, so there is no copy anywhere else: the folder you keep is the only set of these records, and the vendor holds nothing towards the five years.

What the app takes in: Peppol and InvoiceNow XML, bank statement CSV, spreadsheets (.xlsx and .ods), PDF invoices and receipts, and photographed receipts read by on-device OCR. Whether a scan stands in for the paper original under IRAS's rules is not something this page states; see the questions below.

Do it in Simpler Tax

One folder holds the file and the paper it came from

Drop the year's documents in and each one posts, or is held with one question, with every line naming its source file. The company file sits in a folder you chose, the documents you scanned or imported stay beside it, and the file and its backups stay on disk if the app is uninstalled. Back that folder up and the file and its documents are kept.

Download for Windows Simpler-Tax_1.0.0_x64-setup.exe · 55 MB · not signed yet · free · SHA-256 on the home page

Questions people ask

How long must a Singapore company keep its accounting records?

At least 5 years from the relevant year of assessment. A year of assessment is the calendar year after the one your financial year ended in: the financial year that ended in 2025 belongs to YA 2026, and the count starts there, not on the date of the invoice.

What counts as a record?

Invoices, receipts, bank statements, accounting records and computations have to be kept, and produced if IRAS asks. For a GST-registered business the list also takes in tax invoices, import and export documents, and the working behind every box on every return; IRAS's InvoiceNow FAQ puts it as source documents and structured invoice data, a Peppol XML file where one exists. The tax computation behind a Form C-S is kept on file and produced on request, not sent with the return.

Where do the records have to be?

Your own premises. IRAS does not hold them for you: it asks for them, and you produce them. That is the compliance atlas's word for it; whether a file on your own machine meets IRAS's conditions for electronic records is not stated here.

Do GST records have a different period?

No. The same period, at least 5 years, and the penalty is as for income tax records. The IRAS page for GST records could not be read by machine when the Simpler Tax compliance atlas was compiled (it is drawn by script), so the atlas holds the 5-year period for GST records as corroborated, not read on that page. IRAS states the same 5 years itself in its FAQ on the GST InvoiceNow requirement (question 9.3), linked below; confirm it on the GST record-keeping page too.

What happens if the records are not there when IRAS asks?

A fine of up to S$5,000, or imprisonment of up to 6 months, or both, is on the statute. For GST records the penalty is the same as for income tax records.

The company has been struck off. Do the records still have to be kept?

Yes. The duty survives a striking-off and falls on whoever was an officer immediately before dissolution; that reading was taken from the IRAS page on 2 Aug 2026. Keep the file and its documents for the full period after the company is gone.

Can I keep the records in Simpler Tax and nothing else?

The company file is an ordinary SQLite database in a folder you chose, and the documents you scan or import stay beside it, so the folder holding both is what you keep and back up. Whether a scanned copy stands in for the paper original is a question this page does not answer, because it was not checked against an IRAS statement on that; keep the originals until you have read the IRAS page yourself.

Sources

This page carries no statutory figure, so it was computed from no rulebook entry. Everything below is what it was written against. The build is edition YA-2027, sources last checked 24 Jul 2026.