This is my understanding as an individual in Germany who is not self-employed: Original documents help you to make or defend against legal claims, so for the ti

This is my understanding as an individual in Germany who is not self-employed: Original documents help you to make or defend against legal claims, so for the time being, I'd keep them during any limitation period which applies. Afterwards that paper is not really useful any more (but keeping a digital copy doesn't hurt). I suggest to find out, which periods apply in your jurisdiction. In my case, I simply settled for the maximum of all the different periods I encountered and file originals by the year after which I can trash them and use the digitized versions for actually working with them (e.g. my tax declaration is now much faster to do). For Germany, I found that 6 years grace period should be fine. 10 years, if you're self-employed.