Every entity, from a one-person sole proprietorship to a limited company, is required to collect and retain accounting evidence and other documents specified by law. Retention periods vary by document type: from 1 year (warranty claims) to 50 years (payroll records for longer-serving employees). Here’s the full, current 2026 picture, with legal sources.

The Accounting Act

The Accounting Act¹ is the core law requiring companies and other entities to retain their accounting documentation. Every entity must maintain documentation describing its accounting policy, covering:

  • the financial year and the periods within it;
  • asset and liability valuation methods;
  • how the financial result is determined;
  • how the accounting books are kept;
  • data-protection systems for the books and accounting evidence.

Responsibility for meeting these obligations rests with the head of the entity.

¹Act of September 29, 1994, on Accounting, Art. 4(3)(6) and Art. 10(1).

What accounting books have to look like

Every accounting book must show the entity’s full or abbreviated name (e.g., “Kowalski Sp. z o.o.”), the type of book (journal, general ledger, statements), and the name of the software used to keep it (e.g., Comarch Optima, Sage Symfonia). Books are sorted by financial year, reporting period, and creation date.

Keeping accounting books requires the utmost diligence, and this is worth repeating every time the rules get updated.

Rules and retention periods for documents

As of January 1, 2019, the requirement to keep approved financial statements indefinitely was scrapped. Under Article 74 of the Accounting Act², they now have to be kept for a minimum of 5 years, counted from the start of the year following the financial year they concern.

²Act of September 29, 1994, on Accounting, Art. 74.

The same rule (minimum 5 years from the start of the year following the financial year) applies to most accounting documents:

Document typeMinimum period
Approved financial statements5 years
Accounting books5 years
Inventory records5 years
Other accounting evidence and reports5 years
Documentation of the accounting policy adopted5 years after it stops applying
Warranty and complaint documents1 year after warranty expires / claim is settled

The starting point for these deadlines is always the beginning of the year following the financial year in question.

Separate rules apply to:

  • evidence of retail sales revenue: kept until the financial statement for that financial year is approved, and no shorter than until the people responsible for the relevant retail assets are cleared;
  • evidence relating to assets under construction, loans, credits, commercial contracts, or civil/criminal claims: 5 years from the start of the year following the year in which the transactions were settled and any proceedings concluded or time-barred.

Payroll and ZUS records: 10 or 50 years?

This is one of the most commonly confused points, so getting the dates exactly right matters:

Employee’s hire dateRetention period
Before January 1, 199950 years (can’t be shortened)
January 1, 1999 – December 31, 201850 years, can be shortened to 10 years by filing ZUS OSW + ZUS RIA
From January 1, 201910 years

The clock runs from the end of the calendar year in which the employment relationship ended or expired (for employees hired from 2019 onward; for earlier periods, from the point employment ended, unless the employer filed a report to shorten it).

Counter-intuitive fact: newer records (2019 onward) get the shorter retention period (10 years), because ZUS has collected pension-relevant data electronically on an ongoing basis since then. Older records default to 50 years unless the employer chose to shorten that period by filing the ZUS OSW declaration and the ZUS RIA informational report.

Separately, the contribution payer has to keep copies of settlement documents, monthly individual reports, and correction documents for 5 years: documents filed with ZUS through December 31, 2011: 10 years; documents filed from January 1, 2012 onward: 5 years from the filing date.

Electronic accounting records

Since October 1, 2018, financial statements are filed with the National Court Register (KRS) exclusively electronically, signed either with a trusted profile (ePUAP) or a qualified electronic signature.

Keeping other documents in electronic form is allowed under the Accounting Act, provided that:

  • the data carriers used are resistant to damage and unauthorized access;
  • the entity has equipment that can reproduce the evidence in printed form;
  • backups are made regularly, especially for cloud-based solutions.

Digitizing your accounting doesn’t exempt you from the retention periods above: it changes the format, not the deadline.

Tax books and the statute of limitations

“Accounting books” and “tax books” are different concepts, even though they’re often confused. Tax books, defined in the Tax Code³, is the broader term: it covers accounting books, the tax revenue and expense ledger (KPiR), and any registers or records (like VAT records) that taxpayers, payers, or collectors are required to keep.

³Act of August 29, 1997, Tax Code.

Under Article 70(1) of the Tax Code, a tax liability becomes time-barred after 5 years, counted from the end of the calendar year in which the tax payment deadline fell. Tax books and related documents must be kept at least until that point.

Example:
PIT for 2020, payment deadline April 30, 2021.
5 years counted from the end of 2021 → time-barred at the end of 2026.
So the 2020 records must be kept at least through December 31, 2026.

If the payment deadline for a tax fell in the following year, the retention period extends by one year. Special care is needed for evidence used to establish the initial value of fixed assets and intangible assets: if you claim depreciation, the 5-year period is counted from the end of the year in which the payment deadline for the tax on the last depreciation deduction fell.

If your B2B cooperation gets reclassified as employment under the PIP 2026 reform, the labor inspectorate can demand back-dated accounting and payroll records, so keeping your JDG’s documentation in good order matters not just for tax purposes, but as evidence in any future reclassification dispute. More in our guide to the PIP 2026 reform.

Disposing of accounting documents

Disposal of accounting documents isn’t regulated by the Accounting Act: the head of the entity can decide independently to destroy documentation, as long as the statutory retention periods have passed. It’s good practice to draft a disposal record listing the destroyed documents and the people responsible for the process.

If an entity ceases operations before the statutory period expires, the obligation to retain the documentation passes to a person or entity designated for that purpose. If entities merge, the surviving entity is responsible for retention.

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FAQ

Can I destroy tax documents for 2019 in 2026? Generally yes, if the payment deadline for the 2019 tax fell in 2020, the 5-year statute of limitations ran out at the end of 2025 (unless the limitation period was suspended or interrupted, e.g., by an audit or tax proceedings).

Does keeping electronic records exempt me from retaining paper originals? Not always. The law lets you transfer accounting evidence onto electronic media, but it doesn’t remove the obligation to keep documents in a form that can be reproduced (e.g., printed), and some documents (like payroll files for longer-serving employees) still require a paper version in the practice of most offices.

Bibliography and Legal Basis

Author: MojaFirma team.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every situation depends on the specific contract and individual circumstances. If something about your own situation isn’t quite clear, feel free to book a free consultation with our team.