Six-year record retention
Reviewed by Ravi Sisodia · Last reviewed 29 August 2026
Foreign Contribution Regulation Rules 2011 require books of account and related records to be preserved for six years, supporting any regulatory scrutiny within that window.
Finin2min Summary — in 2 Minutes
Foreign Contribution Regulation Rules 2011 require books of account and related records to be preserved for six years, supporting any regulatory scrutiny within that window.
Official source and legal ownership
What this covers
The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Rules, 2011 require an FCRA-registered organisation to preserve its books of account, records, and related documentation relating to foreign contribution for a period of six years - a specific retention requirement that runs alongside, and does not simply default to, an organisation's general accounting-record retention practice.
How this affects document management
Because regulatory scrutiny - an inspection, an inquiry into a suspected violation, a renewal review - can look back across the full six-year window, an organisation's document retention and archival systems need to actively preserve FCRA-relevant records for the full period, not merely for whatever shorter period its general company or income-tax record-keeping practice happens to apply.
Why it matters
Because the six-year FCRA retention period does not necessarily align with retention periods under other laws an organisation is simultaneously subject to (company law, income tax, GST), a records-management policy built around a single "default" retention period risks prematurely destroying documents an FCRA inquiry could still require.
Source and review trail
Use the current official instrument, portal or regulator publication before acting. This panel separates the category authority from page-specific references.
- Official starting point
- fcraonline.nic.in