Keep accounting records for seven years in Sweden

Region

Sweden (SE). The duty comes from the law there. The rule applies only when the project serves people there, and its Applies when also holds.

How to do it

Chapter 7 section 2 of the Swedish bookkeeping act, bokföringslagen (1999:1078), sets the period. An invoice from a financial year that ends in December 2026 is kept until 31 December 2033. The GDPR allows keeping data that a law requires, under Article 17(3)(b). So an erasure request deletes the account and marketing data but keeps the accounting record. Mark those tables and columns as legal hold in the retention schedule, and let the deletion job skip them until the date. Tell the person in the answer which records stay and until when. Move the records out of a vendor before it deletes your data, as Confirm deletion when a vendor leaves says.

Examples

JavaScript example

const YEARS_TO_KEEP = 7;

export function keepUntil(financialYearEnd) {
  return new Date(Date.UTC(financialYearEnd.getUTCFullYear() + YEARS_TO_KEEP, 11, 31));
}

keepUntil(new Date('2026-12-31')); // 2033-12-31

Python example

from datetime import date

YEARS_TO_KEEP = 7

def keep_until(financial_year_end: date) -> date:
    return date(financial_year_end.year + YEARS_TO_KEEP, 12, 31)

keep_until(date(2026, 12, 31))  # 2033-12-31

How to check

A unit test computes the keep-until date for a financial year ending 31 December 2026 as 31 December 2033. An end-to-end erasure test deletes the test customer's profile and keeps their invoices. A daily query fails when an invoice is gone before its date or still present a year after it.

Sources

• Bokföringslag (1999:1078), chapter 7 section 2
• GDPR Article 17(3)(b)

Related rules

• CMP-11 Keep one retention schedule in Compliance and governance
• CMP-20 Confirm deletion when a vendor leaves in Compliance and governance