How Long to Keep BIR Form 2307 and DAT File Records: BIR Retention Rules

A business must preserve BIR Form 2307 certificates, RELIEF/QAP/SAWT DAT files, and the books of accounts they support for five years under Revenue Regulations (RR) No. 7-2024, which implements the Ease of Paying Taxes (EOPT) Act (Republic Act No. 11976). That five-year period is a recent reduction — the rule was 10 years for over a decade before this change, and confusing the two can mean discarding records the BIR can still ask for.

The retention period was cut from 10 years to 5 years #

BIR retention rules changed in 2024. For more than ten years, RR No. 17-2013 — as amended by RR No. 5-2014 — required taxpayers to preserve books of accounts and other accounting records for 10 years: hard copies for the first 5 years, then electronic copies for the remaining 5. RR No. 7-2024, posted by the BIR on April 12, 2024 to implement the EOPT Act, replaced that with a flat 5-year period.

Under the current rule:

• Retention period: 5 years, reckoned from the day following the deadline for filing the return the records support, or from the actual filing date if the return was filed late.
• Format: manual or loose-leaf books of accounts are preserved in hard copy; computerized books of accounts are preserved in electronic copy — matching however the books themselves are already kept, rather than mandating a hard-copy-then-electronic split the way the old rule did.
• What’s covered: books of accounts, subsidiary books, and other accounting records — which includes the source documents behind them, such as issued BIR Form 2307 and BIR Form 2316 certificates and the RELIEF, QAP, and SAWT DAT files filed as attachments to a return.

This is a case where an older, widely-cited figure (10 years) is now the wrong answer, and a business still planning around it may be holding — or discarding — records on the wrong schedule. If your bookkeeping still assumes 10 years, that’s no longer the controlling rule for records tied to returns filed under the current regulation.

The 5-year clock can still be overridden #

A pending protest, assessment, or refund claim extends retention past the standard 5 years. RR No. 7-2024 carries forward a rule from the old regulation: if a taxpayer has a pending protest, an ongoing assessment case, or a claim for tax credit or refund, and the books and records are material to that case, they must be preserved until the case is finally resolved — regardless of whether the standard 5-year period has already lapsed.

This matters directly for BIR Form 2307. A payee claiming a creditable withholding tax refund may have that claim pending well past 5 years from the original transaction, and RMC No. 14-2025 confirms the BIR accepts scanned or digitally reproduced copies of Form 2307 for such refund claims — but the underlying record still has to exist somewhere to be produced. A pending case is the one circumstance where “5 years is up” does not mean “safe to discard.”

Worked example: a supplier facing an audit six years later #

A worked example shows why the reckoning date — not the transaction date — determines whether a record is still required. Suppose a supplier issued an invoice in March 2020 and received a BIR Form 2307 certificate for tax withheld on that payment, reported on the withholding agent’s Q1 2020 QAP DAT file. The supplier’s own annual income tax return for that period was filed on time in April 2021. Counting 5 years from the day after that April 2021 filing deadline, the standard retention period would have run out in 2026.

But if the BIR opened an assessment on that return before the 5-year period lapsed, RR No. 7-2024’s pending-case exception keeps the retention obligation alive — the supplier still needs to produce the original Form 2307 certificate and the QAP data that supports it, however many years the case takes to resolve. A business that discarded those records the moment 5 years passed, without checking whether a case was still open, would have nothing to show.

Keeping generated certificates and DAT files organized by company and filing period — rather than scattered across old folders or email threads — is what makes producing a specific record on request actually practical years later. BIR Online Tools’ DAT Repository keeps a saved copy of each DAT file and BIR Form 2307 certificate generated through the platform, organized by company and period, which helps locate a specific filing quickly if it’s ever requested — though it doesn’t by itself satisfy the broader RR No. 7-2024 obligation to preserve the full books of accounts and source documents a return relies on; those obligations extend beyond whatever any single tool stores.

Frequently Asked Questions #

How long must a business keep BIR Form 2307 and DAT file records? #

Five years, reckoned from the day following the deadline for filing the return the records support (or from the actual filing date if filed late), under Revenue Regulations No. 7-2024 implementing the Ease of Paying Taxes (EOPT) Act. This replaced the older 10-year rule under Revenue Regulations No. 17-2013.

Wasn’t the BIR retention period 10 years? #

It was, under Revenue Regulations No. 17-2013 as amended by Revenue Regulations No. 5-2014: hard copies for the first 5 years, then electronic copies for the remaining 5 years. Revenue Regulations No. 7-2024, implementing Republic Act No. 11976 (the EOPT Act) and posted by the BIR on April 12, 2024, shortened this to a flat 5-year period going forward.

Do I need to keep BIR Form 2307 certificates in hard copy? #

It depends on how the underlying books of accounts are kept. Under RR No. 7-2024, manual or loose-leaf books of accounts are preserved in hard copy, while computerized books of accounts are preserved in electronic copy. Since Form 2307 and DAT files support entries in those books, the same format expectation applies to them as supporting records.

Does the 5-year retention period ever get extended? #

Yes. If a taxpayer has a pending protest, assessment case, or claim for tax credit or refund and the books and records are material to that case, RR No. 7-2024 requires preserving them until the case is finally resolved — even past the standard 5-year period.

When does the 5-year retention period start counting? #

From the day following the statutory deadline for filing the return the records support, or from the actual date of filing if the return was filed late — not from the date of the transaction itself. A return filed on time in April 2026, for example, starts its 5-year retention clock the following day, not on the transaction date months earlier.

Summary #

BIR retention rules changed materially in 2024: RR No. 7-2024, implementing the EOPT Act, cut the preservation period for books of accounts and supporting records — including BIR Form 2307 certificates and RELIEF, QAP, and SAWT DAT files — from 10 years under the old RR No. 17-2013 down to 5 years, counted from the day after the relevant return’s filing deadline. The one exception that overrides that shorter window is a pending protest, assessment, or refund claim, which keeps the retention obligation alive until the case is resolved regardless of how much time has passed. For the broader rules on issuing and correcting BIR Form 2307, see What Is BIR Form 2307 and When Must You Issue It? and BIR Form 2307 Penalties: What Happens If You Don’t Withhold, Issue, or File It Correctly.