CO Art. 958f · GeBüV

The Swiss 10-year retention obligation, accurately

Ten years, counted from the end of the financial year — that much is uncontested. What is less clear is exactly which records are covered, in what form, and where they may be kept. This page states what the law says, and where common claims go beyond it.

Short answers

How long?
Ten years. The clock starts at the end of the financial year, not on the document date (Art. 958f para. 1 CO).
Which records?
Accounting books, accounting vouchers, the annual report and the audit report. Business correspondence too, where it substantiates an entry.
Is digital allowed?
Yes. The GeBüV expressly permits electronic retention where integrity, availability and readability are ensured for the full period.
Must records stay in Switzerland?
No. The Code of Obligations prescribes no storage location. What counts is access and readability within a reasonable time. Where the data sits is a data-protection question under the revised FADP — not a retention-law one.
Any exception?
One that matters: the annual report and the audit report must be retained in written, signed form (Art. 958f para. 2 CO). Those two cannot be handled digitally alone.

Who is covered

The retention duty follows the bookkeeping duty. All legal entities are covered — GmbH, AG, cooperatives — as are sole proprietorships and partnerships with turnover of CHF 500,000 or more in the previous financial year (Art. 957 CO).

Below that threshold, a business keeps only a record of income, expenditure and asset position. Those records are retained too — smaller in scope, same ten years. Company size changes nothing about the duration: a one-person business faces the same period as a group.

What has to be kept

Art. 958f CO names four categories. The third is the one most often underestimated in practice:

When the ten years start

Not from the invoice date, but from the end of the financial year. An invoice dated 3 February 2026, in a financial year ending 31 December 2026, must be kept until 31 December 2036 — nearly eleven years after it was issued.

This is the most common arithmetic error when clearing an archive: counting from the document date deletes up to a year too early.

Retaining digitally: three requirements

The GeBüV permits electronic retention but attaches conditions. In practice they come down to three points:

The storage location is not prescribed

You will often read that business records must be kept "in Switzerland". Retention law does not say so. Art. 958f CO and the GeBüV govern duration, form and accessibility — not location. Cloud storage abroad is permissible provided integrity, availability and readability are maintained.

What genuinely argues for Swiss hosting is a different question of law: data protection. As soon as personal data is involved — and in customer correspondence it almost always is — the revised Federal Act on Data Protection imposes requirements on disclosure abroad. That is a good reason to choose a location in Switzerland or the EEA. It is simply not the reason usually given.

The distinction is not academic. Treating the storage location as the statutory duty means testing against the wrong criterion, and missing the requirements that actually apply.

The exception a purely digital archive does not cover

Art. 958f para. 2 CO requires the annual report and the audit report to be retained in written and signed form. For those two documents an electronic file is not sufficient, however good the archive is otherwise.

Everything else — vouchers, journals, correspondence — may be kept entirely electronically. In practice: a digital archive plus one very thin paper binder.

At a glance

Record Period Form
Accounting vouchers, invoices, contracts 10 years Paper or electronic
Accounting books, journals 10 years Paper or electronic
Business correspondence substantiating an entry 10 years Paper or electronic
Annual report, audit report 10 years Written and signed

What athemi covers here

athemi is not a certified archiving system and does not present itself as one. It addresses the part of the problem that most often fails in practice: the voucher and its surrounding correspondence sitting in one individual’s mailbox, where nobody can find them in year seven.

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Frequently asked

Is a folder of PDFs on our server enough?

Only if it is demonstrable that the files cannot be altered unnoticed. An ordinary network drive does not achieve that: any authorised person can replace a file with no later trace. You need either an unalterable medium or technical means such as timestamping and logging.

Can paper vouchers be destroyed after scanning?

Generally yes — except the annual report and audit report, which must be kept written and signed. The condition is that the digital archive satisfies integrity, availability and readability. For documents with a particular evidentiary role, check with your auditor first.

What happens if the obligation is breached?

The immediate consequence is usually practical: in a tax audit or civil dispute the evidence is missing, and the burden of proof works against the company. In bankruptcy, breach of the bookkeeping duty can additionally become a criminal matter.

Does the period apply to emails?

To business correspondence that substantiates an entry, yes. The line runs along function, not channel: an email in which a customer approves a line item or confirms a change is part of the voucher. Scheduling messages are not.

Related guides

Sources

This page summarises the legal position in general terms and is not legal or audit advice. For an assessment of a specific case — particularly documents with a special evidentiary role — consult your auditor or legal counsel.

Last reviewed: 2026-07-25