For most employers, the safe answer to how long to keep time cards is at least four years. Federal wage law sets a two-year floor for time cards themselves and a three-year floor for payroll records, but the IRS requires four years for employment tax records, and time cards are the evidence behind those tax filings. Several state laws and specific federal situations push the number higher. Four years is the practical minimum; six or seven is common where state rules or pandemic-era tax credits apply.
Why Four Years Is the Practical Floor
Time-card retention is governed by several agencies at once, each with its own clock. The rule that binds you is the longest one that applies to your business, not the shortest. Because the IRS four-year rule reaches nearly every employer with payroll, that period sets the real floor even though the Department of Labor’s time-card rule alone would let you destroy records sooner.
If you sort documents into separate destruction schedules by agency, you will eventually destroy something too early. Treat all time-related records as subject to the longest period that could plausibly apply.
The FLSA Rules: Two Years and Three Years
The Department of Labor enforces time-card retention under 29 CFR Part 516, the recordkeeping regulation attached to the Fair Labor Standards Act. It splits records into two tiers.1eCFR. 29 CFR Part 516 – Records to Be Kept by Employers
Payroll records — the documents showing total wages paid, overtime earnings, and deductions — must be kept for at least three years from the date of last entry. Collective bargaining agreements that affect pay calculations fall under the same three-year rule.
Time cards themselves sit in a shorter tier the regulation calls “supplementary basic records.” That category includes work schedules, wage-rate tables, and records of additions to or deductions from wages such as uniform costs. These must be kept for at least two years from the date of last entry. The supplementary tier is where the regulation specifically references “basic time and earning cards or sheets on which are entered the daily starting and stopping time.”
Two years is the FLSA floor for time cards in isolation. It is almost never the operative deadline, because other rules run longer.
The IRS Rule That Usually Controls
Under 26 CFR 31.6001-1, employers must keep employment tax records for at least four years. The clock starts on the later of two dates: the due date of the tax for that return period, or the date the tax was actually paid.2eCFR. 26 CFR 31.6001-1 – Records in General
Time cards fall inside this rule because they document the hours behind Social Security, Medicare, income tax withholding, and Federal Unemployment Tax Act contributions. The IRS does not require a specific format, only that records are accurate enough to determine whether a tax liability exists and how much it is. If an audit reaches back four years, you need the time cards that support the wage figures on those returns.
For nearly every employer, this four-year period is the effective retention floor for time cards.
When You Need to Keep Them Longer
Pandemic-Era Tax Credits: Six Years
If your business claimed qualified sick-leave wages, qualified family-leave wages for leave taken after March 31, 2021, or employee retention credit wages paid after June 30, 2021, the IRS requires a six-year retention period for the supporting records.3IRS. Employment Tax Recordkeeping Hold the time records tied to those credits for six years, not four.
FMLA and ADEA: Three Years
Employers covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act must retain FMLA-related records for at least three years, including the dates leave was taken and the number of hours used when leave is taken in increments shorter than a day.4eCFR. 29 CFR 825.500 – Recordkeeping Requirements Time cards are the primary way to verify that FMLA leave was properly tracked.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act adds a parallel three-year rule for payroll records containing each employee’s name, address, date of birth, occupation, pay rate, and weekly compensation.5eCFR. 29 CFR Part 1627 – Records to Be Made or Kept Relating to Age Neither rule extends past the IRS four-year period, but both close off the option of destroying records at the two-year FLSA mark.
Pending EEOC Charges: Indefinite
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission requires personnel and payroll records to be kept for at least one year from the date the record was made or the personnel action occurred. For involuntarily terminated employees, that year runs from the termination date.6eCFR. 29 CFR 1602.14 – Preservation of Records Made or Kept
That one-year period is short, but it converts into an open-ended obligation the moment someone files a discrimination charge. You must then preserve all records relevant to the charge until the matter reaches final disposition, meaning either the deadline for filing a lawsuit passes or any resulting litigation concludes. If a charge is pending, do not destroy time cards on any normal schedule.
State Law: Up to Seven Years
Many states set retention periods that exceed the federal minimums, often to line up with the state’s statute of limitations for wage-payment disputes. The range across states runs roughly from two to seven years. When a state period is longer than the federal requirement, the state period controls.
Check with your state labor department for the specific number. If you want a single retention policy that satisfies every known federal and state rule, seven years covers it.
What Happens If You Don’t Keep Them
Missing time records do more than trigger fines. They shift the burden of proof against you in a wage lawsuit.
Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., when an employer has not kept the records required by the FLSA, the employee only needs to show that unpaid work was performed and provide enough evidence for a reasonable estimate of the amount. The burden then shifts to the employer to disprove the estimate with precise records. An employer who failed to keep those records “cannot be heard to complain that damages assessed against him lack the precision of measurement that would be possible had he kept such records.”7Justia. Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680 (1946)
In practice, an employee’s rough estimate of unpaid overtime can become the basis for a damages award if you cannot produce time cards to counter it. Courts generally award liquidated damages equal to the unpaid wages, doubling the amount owed. An employer can avoid the liquidated damages only by showing the violation was made in good faith and with reasonable grounds to believe it was lawful.8U.S. Department of Labor. eLaws – Fair Labor Standards Act Advisor – Enforcement Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
The FLSA statute of limitations governs how far back a suit can reach. Employees have two years to file a claim for a standard violation, and three years for a willful one, meaning the employer knew or showed reckless disregard for whether its conduct was lawful.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 255 – Statute of Limitations State wage-claim limitations run as long as six years in some states, which is one reason state retention rules run longer than federal ones.
The Department of Labor can also impose civil penalties. For repeated or willful violations of the FLSA’s minimum wage or overtime provisions, the penalty can reach $2,515 per violation. Homeworker recordkeeping violations carry a maximum of $1,313 per violation. Both figures are adjusted annually for inflation.10U.S. Department of Labor. Civil Money Penalty Inflation Adjustments
How to Store and Dispose of Time Cards
Federal regulations do not require a particular format. Under 29 CFR 516.1, employers may store records on microfilm, in automated data-processing systems, or in any other format, as long as the records are clear, identifiable by date or pay period, and can be produced on request.1eCFR. 29 CFR Part 516 – Records to Be Kept by Employers The FMLA regulation adds that records kept in computer form must be available for transcription or copying.4eCFR. 29 CFR 825.500 – Recordkeeping Requirements
Digital time-tracking systems are fully acceptable. What matters is that records stay legible for the full retention period, that you can retrieve and print them if a government investigator asks, and that your system guards against unauthorized changes or data loss.
Once every applicable retention period has passed, destroy the records rather than let them accumulate. Time cards contain names, identifying numbers, and pay data that create identity-theft risk if leaked. If your personnel files also contain consumer reports such as background checks, the FTC’s disposal rule at 16 CFR 682 requires reasonable steps to prevent unauthorized access when disposing of that information. Acceptable methods include shredding paper documents so they cannot be reconstructed, erasing electronic media so data cannot be recovered, or hiring a vetted third-party destruction company and monitoring its performance.11eCFR. 16 CFR Part 682 – Disposal of Consumer Report Information and Records The FTC rule applies specifically to consumer-report information, but using the same destruction standards for time cards and payroll records is sound practice.
Quick Reference by Rule
- FLSA time cards and supplementary records: 2 years from the date of last entry.
- FLSA payroll records: 3 years from the date of last entry.
- FMLA records: 3 years.
- ADEA payroll records: 3 years.
- EEOC personnel and payroll records: 1 year, or until final disposition if a charge is filed.
- IRS employment tax records: 4 years after the tax is due or paid.
- IRS records for qualified sick-leave, family-leave, and employee retention credit wages (specified 2021 periods): 6 years.
- State law: typically 2 to 7 years, depending on your state.
Four years covers the universal federal minimum. Six years covers the pandemic-era credit rule. Seven years covers every state period known to apply. Pick the longest number that fits your situation and use it as your single destruction schedule.