Swiss legal retention periods for accounting records and documents

Last update: 17 May 2025

"Swiss accounting records are all written documents on paper or in electronic or comparable form necessary to understand and reconstruct a business transaction or facts on which an accounting entry is based"

(Art. 957a para. 3 CO)

Swiss retention periods for accounting records

Every company registered in Switzerland or with a Swiss VAT number must retain the following business-relevant documents in a secure archive for a period of 10 years in an unalterable form in compliance with the Swiss Code of Obligations - CO (here) and the Swiss Ordinance on Business Records (here):

All accounting records, accounting cards, annual reports and audit reports (Art. 958f para. 1 CO): retain for 10 years from the end of the financial year in which the last entry was made
The share register (AG), register of beneficial owners, register of capital contributions (GmbH) or register of members (cooperative): retain for 10 years from the deletion of the company or partnership (Art. 590 para. 1, Art. 747 para. 1 CO)
All records on which an entry therein is based (Art. 686 para. 5 CO): retain for 10 years from the deletion of the owner or usufructuary (AG), company member (GmbH) or cooperative member (Art. 686 para. 5, Art. 697l para. 3, Art. 790 para. 1, Art. 837 para. 2 CO)
All business records expected to have evidentiary value in, or influence on, potential legal proceedings (Art. 8 CC)

After expiry of the statutory archiving period of ten years, Swiss companies - including banks - can permanently delete the respective documents and all claims expire (Art. 127 CO).

An interesting case dealing with the retention period for bank account statements heard by the Swiss Banking Ombudsman can be found under this link (here).

Definition and typology

Swiss accounting records are "all written documents on paper or in electronic or comparable form necessary to understand and reconstruct a business transaction or facts on which an accounting entry is based" (Art. 957a para. 3 CO).

Swiss accounting records include the following document types:

Contracts
Invoices
Receipts
Shipping documents such as waybills and bills of lading
Payroll accounting: pay slips, social insurance, pension agreements
Business correspondence (only if relevant to accounting)

In 2013, Switzerland abolished the general legal obligation to retain business correspondence.

Also, it is not required to archive public deeds and entries in public registers such as extracts from the Swiss commercial registry and inscriptions in the land registry (Art. 9 CC).

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Related reading

BDO (2021) Elektronische Buchführung und -belege aus mehrwertsteuerlicher Sicht (here)

EXPERTsuisse (2014) Schweizer Handbuch der Wirtschaftsprüfung, Band "Buchführung und Rechnungslegung" (here)

Dieter Pfaff, Stephan Glanz, Thomas Stenz, Florian Zihler (2019) Rechnungslegung nach Obligationenrecht, veb.ch Praxiskommentar mit Berücksichtigung steuerrechtlicher Vorschriften (here)

PwC Switzerland (2021) Electronic invoicing (e-invoicing). A guide for organisations and institutions (here)

PwC Switzerland (2021) Confidence in your business procedures and information Information governance. Electronic archiving (here)

Thomas Rautenstrauch (2023) Aufbewahrungsfristen: Compliance-Anforderungen an die Geschäftsunterlagen (here)

William Saffady (2019) Retention of Accounting Records: A Global Survey of Laws and Regulations (here)

Staatsarchiv des Kantons Zürich (2021) Informationsverwaltung und Archivierung für Gemeinden im Kanton Zürich (here)

Swiss Banking Ombudsman (Case number 2017/26) Time limits for retaining and providing bank documents (here)

Swiss Value Added Tax Act (2018) (here)

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