CRA-ready receipts: what to keep, for how long, and what it must show.

Checked against official sources on 9 September 2026. This is general information for Canadian small businesses, not tax advice; your accountant knows your situation.

How long to keep receipts

Six years, counted from the end of the last tax year the record relates to: the fiscal period for a corporation, the calendar year for a sole proprietor. A receipt from March 2026 that supports your 2026 return must survive until the end of 2032. Destroying records earlier requires written permission from the CRA, which you request from your tax services office.

Photos and scans are fine

The CRA accepts records kept on paper, paper converted to an electronic format, or records that were electronic from the start, provided they stay readable and accessible for the whole retention period, along with whatever software is needed to read them. A clear photograph of a receipt stored with the expense it supports meets that standard; a faded thermal slip in a shoebox increasingly does not.

Where records have to live

By default, your records must be kept at your place of business or residence in Canada. Keeping them elsewhere requires the CRA's written permission, and even then they must be produced in Canada on request in a format the CRA can read. If you keep everything in a cloud service, know where your export lives and make sure you can produce it.

What a receipt has to show

The same bands that apply to your invoices apply to the receipts you rely on to claim tax back. Under $100: the supplier's name, the date and the total. From $100: also the supplier's GST/HST number and the tax amount or a statement of the rate. From $500: also your name, the terms and a description of what was bought. A card terminal slip that shows only a total does not support a claim on its own; ask for the itemised receipt. Full detail in the invoice requirements guide.

Keep the tax separate

Your input tax credit is the GST/HST you paid, not the total you paid. A receipt filed as "$85.04, materials" is a bookkeeping entry; the same receipt filed as "$75.26 plus $9.78 HST" is a claim. Record the tax on every purchase as its own number, and note the province, since PST and RST are generally not recoverable the way GST and HST are.

A filing habit that survives an audit

1. Photograph or scan the receipt the day you get it.
2. Record the vendor, date, subtotal, tax and total, and a category.
3. Note what it was for when it is not obvious from the vendor; "client lunch, Bluebird Café, quote Q-0092" is the kind of note that answers a question five years later.
4. Keep the image attached to the entry, not in a separate folder.
5. Export the year once it is filed and keep that export somewhere you control.

How Hakkuu handles this

Photograph a receipt and Hakkuu reads the vendor, date, tax and total, suggests a category, and stores the image with the expense. Tax is always recorded separately from the subtotal. Everything exports to CSV at any time, on every plan, so the copy you control is one click away. See expenses and receipt scanning.