This Is How Long You Should Be Keeping Your Credit Card Statements

After this many years, feel free to clear out the clutter and shred these documents...but not a moment before.

There are two types of people in this world: Those who have a closet filled with every credit card statement, receipt, and pay stub they have ever received, and those who toss them out the moment they touch their hands. So which method is correct? Neither.

“It’s advisable to hold onto credit card statements for seven years if there are any charges related to taxes,” says Tony Steuer, an authority on financial literacy and author of GET READY! A Step-by-Step Planner for Maintaining Your Financial First-Aid Kit. “Otherwise statements and receipts can be shredded after the statements are reconciled. Personally, I keep them for six years after the tax deadline just to be on the safe side, as that’s the length of time that the IRS can do a tax audit.”

After this time period is up, make sure to shred the statements to prevent identity theft—and while you’re at it, don’t forget to shred these 8 revealing everyday documents.

Organizing digital and hard copies

Creating a structured filing system both helps organize your financial life and makes it easier to find information should you need it down the road. Steuer advises saving digital copies of your credit card statements indefinitely, by setting up folders on your computer for each calendar year. Then create sub-folders by financial categories, such as utilities, mortgage, insurance, bank, and credit card statements, etc., and then have subfolders for each credit card.

A paper filing system would follow the same hierarchy: Select a binder, accordion folder or box for each year and then break it down by main categories with specific providers/entities in the appropriate category.

“You can also scan statements and receipts and save them to your computer or to a cloud account such as Dropbox, Evernote, or iCloud using the same folder hierarchy,” says Steuer. “Whatever system you use should be the one that works best for you and allows you to find your financial documents.”

And if you find down the road that you’ve shredded a document you need, Steuer says you should be able to access copies of your credit card statements online or by requesting them through the card-issuing entity.

Jill Schildhouse
Jill is an award-winning travel writer and editor with 23 years of experience. She covers travel cruises and hospitality for Reader's Digest and regularly contributes to Travel + Leisure, Brides, TripSavvy, Insider, USA Today, Taste of Home, and Southern Living. An avid traveler, Jill has visited 37 countries but makes her home in Phoenix, where she lives with her fiancé and toy schnauzer.