What records to keep for your tax return

A tax return is a summary. HMRC sees totals, not the receipts behind them, and it relies on you to hold the detail. GOV.UK says that if HMRC checks your tax return it may ask for the documents, and that it can charge a penalty if your records are not accurate, complete and readable. Good records also protect you: they are how you prove an expense was genuine, or that income was lower than a platform report or bank statement might suggest.

GOV.UK lists the records a sole trader needs to keep:

• all sales and income
• all business expenses
• VAT records, if you are registered for VAT
• PAYE records, if you employ people
• records about your personal income
• your grants, if you claimed through the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme

As proof, GOV.UK mentions all receipts for goods and stock, bank statements and chequebook stubs, and sales invoices, till rolls and bank slips. If you use the cash basis, GOV.UK explains that you only record income or expenses when you receive money or pay a bill, which keeps the records closely matched to your bank account. Our guide to allowable expenses for sole traders explains which costs are worth recording in the first place.

Employees, pensioners, landlords and investors who file a return also need records, even without a business. Keep the documents that show each figure on the return: what you earned and the tax taken off, rent received and the costs of letting, interest and dividends, and the purchase and sale details of anything you have sold at a gain. Landlords will want the paperwork for any letting costs they claim, such as repairs, agent fees and insurance.

If you had income you did not need to report because the £1,000 trading allowance covered it, GOV.UK says you must still keep records of that income.

The period depends on whether you are self-employed and on when you sent the return. For a self-employed person filing the 2026 to 2027 return by the usual deadline of 31 January 2028, records need to be kept until at least 31 January 2033.

Outside Making Tax Digital, GOV.UK says there are no rules on how you must keep records: they can be on paper, digital or in software, so a shoebox of receipts and a simple spreadsheet is acceptable as long as it is complete. Scanning or photographing receipts can help them survive five years without fading.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax changes this for people within it. HMRC's guidance for users covers how to create and store digital records of your self-employment and property income and expenses, and send quarterly updates from compatible software. It applies from 6 April 2026 to people with qualifying income over £50,000, then over £30,000 from April 2027 and over £20,000 from April 2028. Our Making Tax Digital page explains what that involves.

Fire, flood or a failed laptop can wipe out a year's paperwork. GOV.UK says to try to get copies of as much as you can, and that if you cannot replace your records, you must still provide figures as well as you can. You then tell HMRC whether you are using estimated figures, which GOV.UK describes as your own estimate when you cannot provide the actual figures, or provisional figures, temporary estimates while you wait for the actual ones, which you replace later. You say so in the any other information box on the return. If those figures turn out to be wrong and you have underpaid, you may owe interest and penalties.

This guide gives general information, not tax advice. If your records have got out of hand, a bookkeeper or accountant can often help rebuild them, and we read every enquiry sent through get in touch. Where we can, we will put you in touch with a local accountant; how it works explains the process.