In California, how long you keep employee files depends on the record: payroll documents have a three-year floor under state law, personnel files and applications require four years under the Fair Employment and Housing Act, workers’ compensation and Cal/OSHA injury records run five years, ERISA benefit plan records run six, and certain chemical-exposure and medical-monitoring files must be preserved for the length of employment plus thirty years. When federal and state rules both apply to the same document, follow the longer one.
Payroll and Wage Records
California Labor Code Section 1174 requires employers to keep payroll records for at least three years. That covers employee names, addresses, occupations, daily and weekly hours worked, wages paid each pay period, and any deductions.1California Legislative Information. California Labor Code Section 1174
Federal law is close. The Fair Labor Standards Act calls for three years on basic payroll records like wage rates, total earnings, and pay-period dates, and two years on the supporting records used to calculate pay, such as time cards, schedules, and piece-rate tables.2eCFR. 29 CFR Part 516 – Records to Be Kept by Employers
Tax withholding documents run longer. The IRS wants employment tax records, including W-4s and W-2 copies, kept at least four years after the tax becomes due or is paid, whichever is later.3Internal Revenue Service. How Long Should I Keep Records?
Because so many payroll documents double as tax documents, four years is the cleaner working rule for anything wage-related. Wage statements and earnings summaries sit in that overlap.
Personnel Files and Employment Applications
California Government Code Section 12946, part of the Fair Employment and Housing Act, sets the broadest retention rule for employment records. Employers must preserve all applications, personnel files, membership records, and employment referral records for at least four years after the record is created or received. For applicants and terminated employees, the clock starts on the date of the employment action, such as the hiring decision or the termination.4California Legislative Information. California Government Code Section 12946
The four-year window tracks the outer edges of California’s wage-and-hour and contract limitations periods: three years for unpaid wage or overtime claims, four years for claims based on a written employment contract. Keep the records and you still have them when a claim lands.
Federal equal-employment laws are shorter. Under Title VII, the ADA, and GINA, private employers must keep personnel records for one year from the date the record was made or the date of the personnel action, whichever is later, and one year from the termination date for involuntarily terminated employees.5U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Recordkeeping Requirements California’s four years is longer, so it controls.
Form I-9
Form I-9, used to verify employment eligibility, follows its own rule: three years after the hire date or one year after employment ends, whichever is later.6U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 10.0 Retaining Form I-9 For a long-tenured employee, the one-year-after-separation date will almost always be the later of the two. For someone who left within a few months, the three-year-from-hire date usually wins.
FMLA and CFRA Leave Records
Federal FMLA regulations require leave requests, medical certifications, and employer notices to be kept for three years. The California Family Rights Act has no standalone retention provision, but leave records still fall under the four-year FEHA rule in Government Code Section 12946.4California Legislative Information. California Government Code Section 12946
Benefits and Retirement Plan Records
If you sponsor a retirement plan, health plan, or other employee benefit plan governed by ERISA, Section 107 requires records sufficient to support plan filings to be kept at least six years from the date the plan’s annual report (Form 5500) was filed. That includes plan documents, trust agreements, contribution records, and supporting documentation. This is one of the longest retention periods in employment law and easy to overlook if your recordkeeping policy focuses only on wage-and-hour rules.
Workers’ Compensation and Safety Records
Workers’ compensation claim files must be kept at least five years from the date of injury or from the date the last benefits were provided, whichever is later. Claims with awards for future benefits cannot be destroyed at all, though they can be moved to inactive status two years after the last benefit payment if no future benefits are reasonably expected.7California Code of Regulations. Title 8, Section 15400.2 – Maintenance of Records
Cal/OSHA requires employers to save Forms 300, 300A, and 301 for five years following the end of the calendar year the records cover.8Cornell Law School. Cal Code Regs Tit 8, Section 14300.33 – Retention and Updating
Toxic Substance and Chemical Exposure Records
This is where retention gets genuinely long. Employee medical records related to workplace chemical or physical-agent exposure must be kept for the duration of employment plus thirty years. Employee exposure monitoring records, such as air sampling results, must be kept at least thirty years on their own. Background data like raw lab worksheets can go after one year, but the sampling results and methodology summaries have to survive the full thirty.9California Code of Regulations. Title 8, Section 3204 – Access to Employee Exposure and Medical Records
Federal law under the ADA requires any disability-related information, including accommodation requests and medical documentation, to be stored in a separate confidential file rather than the employee’s general personnel folder. The retention timeline is the same as the underlying record type; the storage location is what changes.
Quick Reference by Record Type
- Payroll records: 3 years under California Labor Code 1174, 4 years for anything that also functions as a tax document.
- Personnel files and applications: 4 years under California Government Code 12946.
- Form I-9: 3 years from hire or 1 year after separation, whichever is later.
- FMLA and CFRA leave records: 4 years under the FEHA umbrella.
- Workers’ compensation files: 5 years from injury or last benefit payment, indefinite if future benefits are awarded.
- Cal/OSHA injury and illness logs (Forms 300, 300A, 301): 5 years from end of the covered calendar year.
- Chemical exposure and medical monitoring: duration of employment plus 30 years.
- ERISA benefit plan records: 6 years from the Form 5500 filing date.
When the Clock Runs Longer
Every period above is a floor. Several common situations push the real deadline further out.
Litigation Holds
The moment your business receives notice of a lawsuit, government investigation, or formal complaint, all records that could be relevant must be preserved regardless of their normal retention schedule. Routine destruction stops and stays stopped until the matter is fully resolved, including any appeals.10U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Summary of Selected Recordkeeping Obligations in 29 CFR Part 1602 Destroying records under a hold can bring court sanctions, adverse inference instructions (where the judge tells the jury to assume the destroyed records would have hurt your case), and separate penalties for spoliation of evidence.
California Government Code Section 12946 has its own built-in hold. Once a verified discrimination complaint is filed, the employer must keep all related records until the complaint is fully disposed of and all proceedings, civil actions, and appeals have terminated.4California Legislative Information. California Government Code Section 12946
EDD Payroll Tax Audits
The California Employment Development Department generally audits payroll tax records covering the 12 most recently completed calendar quarters, a three-year window, but the audit can expand beyond that in certain situations.11Employment Development Department. Employment Tax Audit Process If an EDD audit is underway or expected, treat it like a litigation hold and preserve everything payroll-related until the audit closes.
Open Workers’ Compensation Claims
If a workers’ compensation claim carries an open award for future benefits, the five-year rule does not apply. Those files must be kept indefinitely because the claim is not considered final.7California Code of Regulations. Title 8, Section 15400.2 – Maintenance of Records
What Missing Records Cost
Under California Labor Code Section 1174.5, an employer that willfully fails to maintain required payroll records or refuses to allow inspection faces a civil penalty of $500 per violation.12California Legislative Information. California Labor Code Section 1174.5 Across multiple employees and pay periods that number climbs fast.
Inaccurate or missing wage statements carry their own penalty under Labor Code Section 226: $50 for the first pay period with a violation and $100 for each subsequent pay period, up to $4,000 per employee.13California Legislative Information. California Labor Code Section 226
Federal OSHA penalties for recordkeeping violations, including failure to maintain injury and illness logs, reach up to $16,550 per violation for serious or other-than-serious infractions, and willful or repeated violations can cost up to $165,514 each. These figures are adjusted annually for inflation; Cal/OSHA assesses its own penalties that may differ.14Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA Penalties
The most damaging consequence often is not a fine. When records are missing in litigation, courts routinely shift the burden of proof. If an employee alleges unpaid overtime and you cannot produce time records, the employee’s estimate of hours worked is generally presumed correct unless you can disprove it.
Storing and Destroying Records
California does not prohibit electronic record storage, but digital records must meet the same accessibility and legibility standards as paper. The Division of Labor Standards Enforcement has stated that electronically stored wage statements qualify as “writing” under the Labor Code only if they are “capable of comprehension by ordinary visual means,” meaning the format must be readable without specialized software the employee does not have.15California Department of Industrial Relations. Re: Electronic Itemized Wage Statements Employees must be able to access and print their records at no cost while employed, and former employees who request records must receive paper copies at no charge.
Once a record has satisfied its retention period and no litigation hold or open investigation applies, disposal is appropriate but must be done carefully. California Civil Code Section 1798.81 requires businesses to take reasonable steps to make personal information unreadable when disposing of records, through shredding, erasing, or otherwise destroying the data. Cross-cut shred paper records, use certified data-wiping software for electronic files, and keep a destruction log noting what was destroyed, when, and by whom. That log is your proof of compliance if someone later asks why a record no longer exists, so keep it permanently.