How long should you keep receipts? (Returns, warranties, tax — a simple table)
"How long should I keep receipts?" has no single answer because a receipt isn't one kind of document — it's a return voucher for a month, tax evidence for five years, and warranty proof for as long as the thing might break. The right retention period depends on which job the receipt might have to do. Here's the table, then the reasoning.
The table
| Purpose | Keep for | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Change-of-mind returns | 30–60 days | Store return policies typically run 30 days, some 60–100. |
| Faulty-goods rights (ACL) | Life of the product | Australian Consumer Law guarantees apply for a "reasonable" lifespan — often past the printed warranty. |
| Manufacturer warranty | Warranty period + a margin | The receipt proves the purchase date the warranty runs from. |
| Tax deductions | 5 years from lodgment | ATO substantiation rule for written evidence. |
| Depreciating assets (tax) | Asset's effective life + 5 years | The claim recurs each year of the asset's life. |
| Insurance (contents claims) | While you own the item | Insurers ask for proof of ownership and value after loss or theft. |
| Everyday non-deductible spending | Until the card statement clears | Only job is disputing a billing error. |
Returns: weeks
For change-of-mind returns you're inside the retailer's own policy — commonly 30 days, sometimes longer at the big chains. The receipt (or the emailed order confirmation) is your ticket. If a purchase might go back, that's a reason to capture the receipt on day one, not a reason to archive it for a decade.
Warranties and consumer law: years, and longer than you think
The manufacturer's warranty runs from the purchase date, which only the receipt proves. But in Australia the printed warranty isn't the end: Australian Consumer Law's consumer guarantees entitle you to a remedy if goods aren't of acceptable quality for a reasonable lifespan — and for a $3,000 fridge or a $2,500 laptop, "reasonable" is generally understood to run well past a one- or two-year warranty card. The receipt is your entry point to that conversation too, which is why the table says life of the product for anything substantial. (Already lost one? See proving purchase for a warranty claim without the receipt.)
Tax: five years, precisely
The ATO requires written evidence to be kept for five years from the day you lodge the return that uses it — longer for depreciating assets, where the receipt supports a claim in every year of the asset's life. Digital copies are fine; the full rules are in what receipts to keep for your Australian tax return.
Insurance: the forgotten one
After a burglary or a house fire, your insurer will ask you to substantiate what you owned. Receipts for electronics, jewellery, appliances and furniture are exactly what they mean. Nobody keeps these on purpose — which is the argument for a system where keeping them costs nothing.
The uncomfortable practical problem
Notice what the table implies: the receipts you must keep longest are the ones physically least able to last. Thermal paper fades to blank in one to three years — inside the tax window, well inside a fridge's lifespan. Emailed receipts rot in their own way as retailers' image hosting dies. Paper filed in a drawer survives until the drawer gets cleaned out.
So the full answer to "how long should I keep receipts?" has a second half: longer than paper or an inbox will reliably last. Which converts the retention question into a capture question — photograph or ingest everything once, into somewhere durable and searchable, and the table above stops mattering day to day. Keeping everything costs nothing when it's digital; deciding what to keep is the expensive part, so stop deciding.
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