How Long Does a Waco Office Have to Keep Its Files?


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October 16th, 2026


Every office downtown has the same closet. It started out holding printer paper. Now it holds nine years of closed files, and nobody is sure which boxes can go.
How long you have to keep them depends on what your office does. Below are the minimums we found in the rules themselves, checked in October 2026.
One thing first. We run a storage building. We are not lawyers or accountants, and this is not legal advice. Rules change, and plenty of files run longer than the minimum: a child's medical chart, anything tied to a lawsuit or an audit, anything your insurer or a contract tells you to hold. Confirm your own numbers with your licensing board, your CPA or your attorney before a single box goes to the shredder.

Tax and payroll records, for every office

The IRS ties record keeping to how long a return can still be questioned.
  • 3 years for the records behind a return, in the ordinary case.
  • 6 years if income was left off a return and it came to more than 25% of the gross income shown.
  • 7 years if you claimed a loss from worthless securities or a bad debt deduction.
  • At least 4 years for employment tax records, counted from the date the tax was due or the date it was paid, whichever is later.
  • Property records stay until that period runs out for the year you sell or dispose of the property.
The IRS also says to check whether an insurer or a lender needs them longer before you throw anything out.

Medical practices

The Texas Medical Board's record retention rule (22 Texas Administrative Code §163.2) sets the standard period at at least seven years from the date of last treatment by the physician.
For a patient who was under 18, the chart stays until the patient turns 21 or for seven years from the last treatment, whichever is longer. Other state or federal law can stretch either one.

Dental practices

The State Board of Dental Examiners rule (22 TAC §108.8) says not less than five years from the last date of treatment by the dentist. For a patient under 18, it is until age 21 or five years from the last treatment, whichever is longer.

HIPAA paperwork

This one is separate from the chart. The HIPAA Security Rule (45 CFR 164.316) says the written policies, procedures and records it requires must be kept six years from the date they were written or the date they were last in effect, whichever is later. That is the compliance binder, and it has its own clock.

Law offices

The Safekeeping Property rule in the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct (Rule 1.15) says complete records of trust account funds and other client property must be preserved for five years after the representation ends.
That rule covers trust and property records. How long to hold the rest of a closed client file is a question for the State Bar or your malpractice carrier.

CPA firms

Texas State Board of Public Accountancy Rule 501.76 says the documentation behind an attest service has to be kept not less than five years from the date of the report, unless another regulator requires something different. For tax work, the IRS periods above are the place to start.

Title offices

The Texas Department of Insurance's Procedural Rule P-32 sets three periods:
  • Escrow accounting documentation: at least three years
  • Evidence of insurability, such as the commitment or the run sheet: not less than fifteen years after the policy was issued
  • Title insurance policies: indefinitely
We could not pin down one clear state rule for an insurance agency's files, so we left that out. Ask your carrier or TDI.

A closed-file plan that holds up

Knowing the number is the easy half. The hard half is finding the right box in year six.
  1. Write the destroy date on the box. Month and year, on the end that faces out. Work it out the day the file closes, while somebody still remembers the matter.
  2. One destroy year per box. A box holding 2031 files and 2034 files cannot be shredded until 2034.
  3. Keep the list at the office. Box number, what is inside, destroy date. A spreadsheet is plenty.
  4. Shelve by destroy year, soonest by the door. The boxes leaving next should be the first ones you reach.
  5. Leave an aisle. If you have to unstack the front row to reach the back, nobody will go get the file.
  6. Shred once a year, on a set date. Pull every box whose date has passed. Check the list for anything on hold. Hand the rest to your shredding company and keep the receipt it gives you.
We do not shred or index files here. We rent the room.

Where the boxes go in the meantime

Paper lasts longest somewhere dry and steady. Every unit at Downtown Storage, 1225 Franklin Ave, is climate controlled. The building is one flat floor with no steps, so a loaded cart rolls from your trunk to the unit.
Carts, flatbeds, hand dollies and a pallet jack are staged by the door and cost nothing to use. The loading area is under a canopy, which matters when you are carrying cardboard in the rain.
The gate is open 6 AM to 9 PM every day. 24-hour access is available to business tenants. Ask about it when you call.
A 5x10 holds roughly 100 banker's boxes. Rent is month to month and collected on the 1st. Give ten days' notice when you move out. There is no term to sign.
Unit sizes and what a records room here looks like are on our document storage page. Current rates are at downtownstoragewaco.com.
The office is by appointment. Call (254) 870-6361 and we will meet you there and show you a unit.