Six years is the number to remember. That is how long the law expects you to hold on to your tax records, counted in a specific way.
The minimum period
Keep your tax records for at least six years after the year of assessment. The clock runs from the year of assessment, not from the date printed on an individual document.
Who this applies to
This duty is wider than it sounds. Everyone must keep books, including someone who turns out not to be liable to tax for that year at all.
Being confident you owe nothing is not a reason to skip record-keeping. The law asks for the records regardless of the eventual tax outcome. That includes a dormant company with nothing to report.
The language requirement
Records must be in English. Where they were originally kept in another language, they must be translated, at the taxpayer's own cost, not that of the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), formerly FIRS.
A business trading with foreign suppliers or a parent company abroad should budget for this cost as part of ordinary compliance, not treat it as a surprise once a query arrives.
What counts as a record worth keeping
Invoices, receipts, bank statements, payroll records and the working papers behind a tax return all fall under this duty. A record does not need to be perfectly organised to count. It needs to exist, and to be producible when asked.
The penalty for not producing them
A company that fails to keep proper books, or cannot produce them on request, faces ₦50,000. A person other than a company faces ₦10,000 instead.
Notice the two-part duty here. Keeping records and producing them on request are treated as one obligation, not two separate ones.
Why this matters beyond the penalty itself
Records are also your main defence if a filing is ever questioned. A missing invoice or bank statement can turn a routine query into a dispute you cannot easily settle.
Our piece on a tax assessment covers what tends to happen once the NRS asks a question your records are meant to answer.
A quick example
A company assessed for the 2026 year of assessment, for example, should keep the records behind that year's return until at least 2032, six years on.
Common mistakes
- Counting six years from the document date instead of the year of assessment. These are not always the same year.
- Disposing of records early because a filing felt routine. The duty to produce records does not depend on how straightforward the original filing was.
- Assuming the duty only applies to a company. An individual keeps records too, at a lower penalty for non-compliance.
For what a records request can lead to, read a tax assessment in Nigeria, and browse the NRS and Rev360 hub for more.