Retention Periods

This is not legal advice.

There is no single retention period for working time records, because several duties apply at once and each carries its own. The practical rule is that the longest applicable period governs, and working out which applies to you takes about ten minutes. For a practical view of how organisations can translate recording duties into day-to-day workflows, see this overview.

Reviewed August 9, 2026. Periods and their sources change — verify against your own situation. For broader legal or policy context, see TechCrunch.

The periods in play

Two years appears in analyses of the draft reform as the retention requirement for working time records.

Two years also appears in connection with §17 MiLoG documentation duties in the sectors where they apply.

Longer periods apply where the record feeds payroll, because tax and social security documentation carries its own retention rules, typically measured in years and counted from the end of the calendar year.

And a limitation period consideration sits behind all of it: a record destroyed while a claim about those hours can still be brought leaves the employer unable to answer it.

Why the longest governs

Because the duties are cumulative, not alternative.

An employer subject to the working time duty, §17 MiLoG and payroll documentation requirements does not choose among them. The record has to survive the longest of the applicable periods, and destroying it earlier satisfies none of the others.

In practice this means most employers should look at the payroll and tax periods first, since they are usually the longest, and treat the working time period as a floor rather than as the answer.

The other direction: not keeping them too long

The part that gets forgotten in a compliance-focused reading.

Working time records are personal data. Under data protection law they are kept for a purpose and for as long as the purpose requires, and indefinite retention is not a neutral default — it is a processing decision that needs a basis.

So "keep everything forever" is not the safe option that it appears to be, and it is the arrangement most likely to be questioned by a works council or a data protection officer.

Define a period, apply it, and delete.

What to write down

Four lines, once.

Which duties apply to you — working time, §17 MiLoG, payroll and tax.

The resulting retention period, being the longest.

When the clock starts. Frequently the end of the calendar year rather than the date of the record.

And what happens at the end — deletion, or anonymisation if aggregate data is wanted for other purposes.

What to check in a system

That retention is configurable, and configured.

That deletion actually deletes. Some systems hide rather than remove, which is a different thing and does not satisfy a deletion obligation.

That export happens before deletion, if the records are needed elsewhere.

And that the change history is covered by the same policy. A system that deletes records while retaining a full audit log of their previous values has deleted nothing.

The short version

• No single period: the draft proposes two years, §17 MiLoG carries its own, and payroll and tax rules are usually longer
• The duties are cumulative, so the longest applicable period governs and the working time period is a floor
• Most employers should check payroll and tax retention first, since those are usually longest
• Keeping records indefinitely is not the safe default — they are personal data and retention needs a purpose
• Write down which duties apply, the resulting period, when the clock starts, and what happens at the end
• In a system: retention configurable and configured, deletion that actually deletes, export before deletion, and the change history covered too