Do small companies have to archive email too?

Yes. The duty does not depend on company size. Merchants must keep records under § 257 HGB, all other businesses under § 147 AO as far as the documents matter for taxation. An invoice a sole trader receives by email must be kept for eight years.

Do freelancers have to archive email?

Freelancers are not merchants under German law, so § 257 HGB does not apply to them. Tax-relevant documents such as invoices still fall under § 147 AO and § 14b UStG, so emails that contain them must be kept.

What happens if emails are missing?

If a company cannot produce documents in a tax audit, the tax office may estimate the tax base under § 162 AO. The bookkeeping can also be treated as not properly kept.

Do I have to archive private emails?

No, private emails are not subject to retention. If you allow private use, separate it technically, for example with a dedicated mailbox or exclusion rules in the archive.

Who Must Archive Email in Germany

There is no separate German law on email archiving. The duty comes from the Commercial Code (HGB) and the Fiscal Code (Abgabenordnung, AO), and it applies to the content of an email, not to the email as such. If an email is a business letter (Handelsbrief), an accounting voucher or another tax-relevant document, you must keep it.

Legal basis

§ 257 HGB requires merchants to keep received business letters and copies of sent ones, plus vouchers and books.
§ 147 AO extends the duty to all businesses for documents that matter for taxation.
BFH order XI R 15/23 of 30 April 2025. The Federal Fiscal Court confirmed that emails can be business letters.
§ 146 (2a) AO allows you to keep electronic records in another EU member state, so a provider outside Germany is not ruled out by law.

GoBD, the tax authority's rules for electronic books and records, set how these documents must be kept. See GoBD email archiving for the technical requirements.

Who is affected

Who	Legal basis	What
Merchants (GmbH, UG, AG, registered sole traders, OHG, KG)	§ 257 HGB, § 147 AO	Business letters, accounting vouchers, books
Traders who are not merchants	§ 147 AO	Tax-relevant documents
Freelancers	§ 147 AO, § 14b UStG	Invoices and other tax-relevant documents

Company size does not matter. A craft business with three employees has the same retention periods as a large group.

Which emails count

Emails must be kept if they prepare, conclude, carry out or cancel a transaction. Typical examples:

Quotes and order confirmations
Invoices and credit notes, including PDF or e-invoice attachments
Contracts and contract changes
Complaints and payment reminders

Newsletters, appointments without business content, spam and private emails do not have to be kept.

How long

6 years for business letters
8 years for accounting vouchers, including invoices. The cut from 10 to 8 years applies since 1 January 2025 under the Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act (BEG IV). It covers all documents whose old 10-year period had not ended by 31 December 2024 (Art. 97 § 19a EGAO). Banks, insurers and investment firms follow one year later.
10 years for books, annual financial statements and organisational documents

The period starts at the end of the calendar year. An invoice received in March 2026 must be kept until the end of 2034. As long as a document matters for a tax assessment that is still open, the period does not end.

The problem: you cannot sort by hand

Whether an email is a business letter depends on its content. Checking this for every single email is not workable day to day and prone to error. Leaving mail in the mailbox is no answer either, because users and administrators can delete or move it without any log. If emails are missing in an audit, the tax office may estimate your taxes under § 162 AO.

For this reason most companies archive all business email and exclude only clearly separable areas, such as private mailboxes.

How to do it with EasyMailArchive

Create an account. The trial runs 30 days, no credit card.
Set up a BCC or journal rule on your mail server that sends a copy of every email to your relay address [email protected]. The setup guide covers Microsoft 365, Exchange 2013 and later, Google Workspace and Postfix. Any other mailbox can be fetched over IMAP, including the Sent folder.
Set retention rules per organisation, domain or mailbox, for example 10 years for all mailboxes, and add exclusions for private mailboxes. Retention runs in whole years to 31 December of the year. A legal hold (Business and up) blocks deletion.
Import existing mail over IMAP, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Duplicates are skipped, and older mail counts from its own date.
Send a test email and find it in the archive.

From then on every email is captured automatically. There is no delete function for single emails, and mail is deleted only when its retention period ends. Data is encrypted with AES-256 and a separate key per customer, each customer has a separate database, and everything is hosted in the WITT AG data centre in Germany. For an audit you export emails as original EML or as PDF with SHA-256 checksums, digitally signed on Business and up.

See pricing or try it free for 30 days.

This article summarises the law in general terms and is not legal or tax advice.