Record Retention Requirements

Record retention requirements are the legal minimums for how long specific categories of employment records must be kept, set by a combination of federal and state law that varies depending on the type of record.

There's no single universal retention period. Payroll records, hiring records, benefits records, and safety records often have different required retention windows under different laws, including the FLSA's recordkeeping rules.

How Long Do Common HR Records Need to Be Kept?

Why Do Requirements Vary So Much by Record Type?

Retention rules come from different laws with different purposes: wage-and-hour law, anti-discrimination law, benefits law, and workplace safety law each set their own minimums for the records relevant to that specific area.

Many states also layer their own retention requirements on top of federal minimums, so the actual required period is often whichever is longer between applicable federal and state law.

What Are the Risks of Retaining Records Too Long or Not Long Enough?

• Too short: failing to produce required records during an audit or investigation, a risk Forbes has flagged as a growing compliance blind spot, can itself be a violation
• Too long: retaining sensitive data well past any legal requirement increases privacy and data-breach exposure unnecessarily
• Inconsistent retention across similar records can look suspicious if it emerges only after a specific employee's records were needed for litigation

How Should Employers Build a Compliant Retention Policy?

SHRM recommends treating record retention as a cross-functional policy involving HR, legal, and IT together, since the requirements span wage law, privacy law, and safety law at once.

Managing employee records inside a single HRIS with defined retention rules built in reduces the risk of records being deleted too early or kept indefinitely by default.

• Map out retention requirements by record type, not a single blanket policy for everything
• Set clear, automated retention and deletion schedules where possible, using time and attendance and payroll history as the basis for what's actually stored
• Preserve records under active legal hold, even if they've hit their normal retention deadline
• Review the policy periodically as laws like the CCPA add new state-specific requirements

How Does This Connect to Data Privacy Requirements Like the CCPA?

Privacy laws like the CCPA give employees rights to request deletion of their data, but that right is generally limited by legal retention requirements that override it for records still within their mandated retention period.

Clear documentation from onboarding through offboarding, accessible via employee self-service, makes it easier to explain to an employee exactly why a specific record can't be deleted immediately upon request.

This connects to related terms in HR Cloud's HR glossary, especially CCPA compliance.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does record retention apply to digital records the same way as paper?

A: Yes, retention requirements generally apply regardless of format; digital records need to be retained, accessible, and protected for the same required periods as paper ones.

Q: Can an employer delete records once the minimum retention period passes?

A: Generally yes, unless the records are under active legal hold for litigation or investigation, in which case they must be preserved regardless of the normal schedule.

Q: What is a legal hold, and how does it affect retention?

A: A legal hold is a directive to preserve specific records because they may be relevant to pending or anticipated litigation, which overrides normal deletion schedules until the hold is lifted.

Q: Do retention requirements differ for terminated employees?

A: Retention periods are often measured from the termination date rather than the hire date for certain records, like I-9 forms, so tracking separation dates accurately matters.

Q: Who is responsible for setting record retention policy?

A: It's typically a joint effort between HR, legal, and IT, since retention spans employment law compliance, records management, and data security considerations together.