Most private employers must keep job applications on file for at least one year from the date the record was made or the hiring decision, whichever is later. State and local government employers have a two-year minimum. Both floors come from EEOC regulations, and both are lower than what a cautious retention policy should actually use, because discrimination claims can surface long after the one-year mark.1eCFR. 29 CFR 1602.14 – Preservation of Records Made or Kept
The One-Year Federal Minimum for Private Employers
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sets the baseline under 29 CFR 1602.14. Every private employer covered by Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, or the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act must preserve any personnel or employment record for one year from the date the record was made or the personnel action involved, whichever is later.1eCFR. 29 CFR 1602.14 – Preservation of Records Made or Kept That covers the whole applicant pool: the person you hired, everyone you interviewed, and everyone whose resume you reviewed and set aside.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act imposes a matching one-year requirement for application materials, running from the hiring action.2eCFR. 29 CFR 1627.3 – Records to Be Kept by Employers
The “whichever is later” language does more work than it looks like it should. Post a job in March, take applications through April, and delay a final hire until August, and the one-year clock starts in August for the entire batch. And if you later involuntarily terminate someone you hired, their application records must be kept for one year from the termination date, not from the original hire date.1eCFR. 29 CFR 1602.14 – Preservation of Records Made or Kept
Two Years for State and Local Government Employers
Public agencies work under a longer floor. Under 29 CFR 1602.31, any state or local political jurisdiction must keep hiring records for two years from the date the record was made or the personnel action involved, whichever is later.3eCFR. 29 CFR 1602.31 – Preservation of Records Made or Kept For an involuntarily terminated government employee, records must be kept for two years from the termination date. Public school districts, as political subdivisions, fall under this same two-year rule.
Federal Contractors: What Changed in 2025
Federal contractors used to sit under a separate two-year retention rule at 41 CFR 60-1.12, tied to Executive Order 11246. On January 21, 2025, Executive Order 14173 revoked EO 11246 and directed the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to stop enforcing its framework.4U.S. Department of Labor. Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs In July 2025, the Department of Labor proposed formally rescinding the regulations at 41 CFR Part 60-1, including the two-year retention requirement.5Federal Register. Rescission of Executive Order 11246 Implementing Regulations
The regulation technically still sits in the Code of Federal Regulations while rulemaking finishes, but OFCCP is not enforcing it. Contractors should watch for the final rule. The EEOC’s one-year baseline still applies regardless of contractor status.
What Counts as a Job Application
Retention obligations cover far more than the application form itself. Any document that fed into evaluating a candidate is part of the record: resumes, cover letters, interview notes, job postings, pre-employment test results, and background check reports.1eCFR. 29 CFR 1602.14 – Preservation of Records Made or Kept
Online Applications and Applicant Tracking Systems
Federal guidelines define an “internet applicant” as someone who submits an expression of interest electronically, is considered for a specific position, meets the basic qualifications, and hasn’t withdrawn before receiving an offer.6Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. Understanding OFCCP Internet Applicant and Traditional Applicant Recordkeeping Requirements For candidates sourced through external databases like LinkedIn, retain the search criteria you used, the date of the search, and the position you were filling.7eCFR. 41 CFR 60-1.12 – Record Retention For internal resume databases, add a record of when each resume was entered.
Unsolicited Resumes
Resumes that arrive outside any active search are a gray area. If nobody reviews them for a position, they arguably fall outside the retention rule. But the moment someone pulls an old resume from a file to evaluate for a new opening, the retention clock starts running based on that new use. Many employers apply the same retention window to all resumes rather than trying to track which ones were considered and which sat untouched.
Form I-9 Is on Its Own Timeline
Work authorization records use different math. A completed Form I-9 must be kept for three years after the date of hire or one year after employment ends, whichever is later.8USCIS. 10.0 Retaining Form I-9 In practice:
- If an employee works less than two years, keep the I-9 for three years from the hire date.
- If an employee works more than two years, keep the I-9 for one year after their last day.
Never discard a current employee’s I-9. The form and any copies of supporting documents stay on file for the entire duration of employment plus the applicable post-separation period.8USCIS. 10.0 Retaining Form I-9
Why the One-Year Floor Often Is Not Long Enough
The one-year EEOC minimum was built around the agency’s own filing deadlines. An individual generally has 180 days to file a discrimination charge with the EEOC, extended to 300 days in states with their own anti-discrimination enforcement agency.9U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits For Filing A Charge A one-year retention window comfortably covers that. But EEOC charges are not the only route to a discrimination lawsuit.
Under 42 U.S.C. Section 1981, which prohibits race discrimination in contracting, the statute of limitations is four years for most claims arising from the 1991 Civil Rights Act.10U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Title VII and Section 1981 – A Guide for Appointed Attorneys Filing a charge with the EEOC does not pause that clock. An employer who purges application records after 12 months can find itself defending a Section 1981 suit three years later with nothing to show for the hiring decisions in question.
State law adds another layer. Retention periods for employment records vary by jurisdiction, with many states requiring two or three years across the board. Any internal policy should be built around the longest applicable requirement, not the shortest.
A Discrimination Charge Freezes the Clock
Every timeline above gets overridden the moment a charge, lawsuit, or government investigation arrives. Once an employer receives notice of a charge filed with the EEOC, it must preserve every personnel record relevant to the complaint until the matter reaches final disposition.11U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Recordkeeping Requirements Final disposition doesn’t mean the EEOC closes its file. It means either the 90-day window for the charging party to file a lawsuit expires without action, or the resulting litigation concludes, including appeals.1eCFR. 29 CFR 1602.14 – Preservation of Records Made or Kept
Relevant records are broader than the complainant’s own file. The obligation covers records for every other employee in a similar position and every applicant who competed for the same role. In practice, that means preserving the entire applicant pool for the position at issue.
Destroying records after receiving notice of a claim is where employers get into the most serious trouble. Federal courts can presume that lost information was unfavorable to the party who destroyed it, instruct the jury to draw that inference, or in extreme cases dismiss the action or enter a default judgment. Courts have imposed these sanctions even for deletions that happened shortly after litigation began, treating the timing as evidence of intent.
Disposing of Records the Right Way
Once every applicable retention period has run out and no legal hold is in place, destroy the records rather than let them sit. Old application files contain names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and sometimes financial data from background checks. Holding them longer than necessary creates a data breach risk with no offsetting benefit.
For ordinary application materials, there is no federally mandated destruction method. Shredding paper and permanently erasing electronic records is standard practice. A simple file deletion isn’t enough because the data often remains recoverable; overwriting or using certified data destruction tools is safer.
Background check reports get special treatment under the Fair Credit Reporting Act’s Disposal Rule. Any employer that holds consumer report information must dispose of it in a way that prevents unauthorized access.12Federal Trade Commission. Disposing of Consumer Report Information – Rule Tells How The FTC’s guidance lists burning, pulverizing, or shredding paper and destroying or erasing electronic files so they can’t be reconstructed.
Under 15 U.S.C. ยง 1681n, anyone who willfully fails to comply with FCRA requirements faces statutory damages between $100 and $1,000 per affected individual, plus punitive damages and attorney’s fees at the court’s discretion.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681n – Civil Liability for Willful Noncompliance In a class action involving hundreds or thousands of applicants, per-person figures add up fast.
Building a Practical Retention Policy
The overlapping federal timelines, evolving contractor rules, and state variations mean no single number works for every employer. But a defensible policy doesn’t need to be complicated:
- Set a single company-wide floor. Two years from the hiring decision covers the federal baseline and most state requirements. Three years buffers against Section 1981 claims and longer state mandates.
- Start the clock from the date the record was created or the personnel action was taken, whichever is later. For rejected applicants, that’s usually the date you filled the position or closed the requisition.
- Reset the clock on involuntary terminations. Fired employees’ application records get a fresh one-year hold, or two years for government employers, running from the termination date.
- Track I-9s separately. The three-years-from-hire or one-year-from-separation calculation doesn’t align with other records.
- Stop all routine destruction the moment a legal hold arrives. Train everyone who touches personnel files to recognize a hold notice.
- Handle background check data as a higher-risk category, with documented secure destruction.
Keeping records a year or two longer than strictly required costs almost nothing compared to not having them when a lawsuit arrives. The employers who get burned usually aren’t the ones who kept too much paperwork.