Each month that your credit card is open, you’ll receive a monthly billing statement detailing your credit card activity. Your credit card statement includes a list of transactions you’ve made, fees you may have been charged, and payments you’ve made to your account. You don’t want to get rid of statements that you might need in the near future, but you also don’t want to hold on to mail unnecessarily. So, how long should you keep credit card statements?
You generally don’t have to keep your credit card statements for very long, especially if you’ve set up an online account. Most credit card issuers may several years of credit card statements available online. You may be able to retrieve old credit card statements or download them to your computer to retrieve them later. However, there’s no guarantee your credit card issuer will store old credit card statements. In some cases, it’s better to keep the ones you need in a place that you can access them. In this guide we will break down why you should keep your bank statements as well as how long you should keep them for .
Why Keep Your Bank Statements?
As the world moves further and further towards digital spaces, it’s important that you keep as many physical copies of records as possible. Every couple of months there seems to be another data breach story in the news where some big box store’s credit card database and millions of cards were leaked to the public. To protect yourself from these breaches, one of the best things you can do is hold on to your bank statements. At the very least, don’t simply rely on the bank statement summary that’s on your bank’s online portal. Either download the actual electronic bank’s statements, and keep those in a secure place, or digitize your physical documents and store them in a secure place. Either way, keeping a record of your bank statements will help protect you from fraud and scammers alike.
Additionally, there are other reasons why you may want to keep your bank statements. For example, bank statements are a great way to verify your income, should anyone ask you to do so. Storing your bank statements also helps you keep track of all of your charitable donations or business expenses. All of that information can be helpful come tax time.
How Long to Keep Bank Statements
If you’re still receiving paper bank statements, you’ll generally want to keep those around for about a year. Banks typically keep statements within the past year pretty accessible online, as well. You might want to contact your bank to double check how far back you can access your statements. You may also be able to access an online archive of statements that goes further back.
As for credit card statements, you only really need to check for inaccuracies before you can throw them out. Be sure to compare each statement against your receipts and to look for any potential fraudulent purchases. You can then safely dispose of your statements once you’ve done a thorough check and are confident they’re accurate.
Once you’ve decided which statements to keep, you should store them in a safe and organized space. It helps to separate your bank statements from credit card statements, receipts, investment statements and other documents. That way, when you do need to reference certain statements or finally throw them out, you’ll know exactly where to find them.
Online vs. Hard Copy Statements
Maintaining hard copies of bank statements is less of a necessity than in the past given the availability of account information online. Many banks and financial institutions maintain monthly customer statements online for five years or longer that are accessible through their online banking platforms. Detailed statements often come in easily printable formats, and summarized transaction information is frequently available for download free of charge.
You may also be able to get hard copy statements from your bank going back a number of years. Some banks charge a search and/or printing fee for this service, as it cannot be done at the branch level. Instead, older statements are printed and prepared in a back office.
For safety, it’s best to keep any hard copy bank statements in a fireproof safe in a secure location. Electronic statements should be maintained in a password-protected file.
Guidelines for Keeping Credit Card Statements
You should keep each credit card statement for a minimum of 60 days.1 This is the amount of time you have to dispute any billing errors on a credit card statement. After that, credit card issuers aren’t legally required to handle billing error disputes, so you holding on to your statements isn’t necessary—at least not for dispute reasons.
Keep your credit card statements for any items you want to be covered by your credit card’s extended warranty or purchase protection, and keep that particular credit card for the amount of time the benefit is effective.
If you have any tax-related purchases on your credit card statement, like donations or business expenses, keep those statements on for six years.2 Your accountant or tax preparer will need the statements for your next tax return. It’s also a good idea to hold on to these in case your taxes are ever audited.
Holding on to your credit card statements can be useful for tracking your spending over a period of time. You can review several months of credit card statements to figure out where you’re spending too much money, because three to six months of credit card statements may be enough to give you a good insight into your spending habits.
What Happens If I Throw Out Bank Statements?
If you were to throw out your bank statements prematurely, the worst case scenario is that you could file an inaccurate tax return. You could also find yourself in a bind should you end up with an IRS audit where you need to produce these documents.
You could set yourself up for identity theft or fraud if you don’t throw out your bank statements properly. Always shred any documents with your personal and financial information before tossing them in the bin. This will prevent fraudsters from easily collecting your information from the trash.
Conclusion
Your best bet is to keep your bank statements around for at least a year. This ensures you can file your next tax return with the most accurate information. If you suspect any information might prove to be useful further out, like for a tax audit, there is no harm in keeping your documents longer.
In addition, we have a list of bank promotions to get some extra cash in your pockets today. You may also want to check out savings accounts if you want to get started on saving up money.
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