e-Factura doesn't archive your invoices: the real retention obligations in 2026

There's a misconception doing the rounds in many small companies in Romania: "the invoices are in the SPV, so the state keeps them for me". It doesn't.

How long documents actually have to be kept

Following the changes Law 36/2023 made to the Accounting Law, the periods have been simplified, but they haven't gone away:

• Invoices and supporting documents — at least 5 years, counted from 1 July of the year after the one in which they were issued
• Annual financial statements and documents relating to capital assets — 10 years
• Payroll records and personnel documents — up to 75 years, for pension rights
• Company registers and corporate records (articles of association, resolutions) — for the entire life of the company

Important: the periods don't change because the invoice is electronic. An e-Factura XML has exactly the same status as a paper invoice from 10 years ago — it's just much easier to lose.

Who is liable if they're missing

The law is explicit: responsibility for keeping financial and accounting documents lies with the company's director — not the accountant, not the invoicing software vendor, not the tax authority (ANAF). If, at a tax inspection, you can't produce invoices from 4 years ago because the laptop they were on has died, "we had them in the SPV" is no defence.

Electronic archiving is allowed, with common-sense conditions: documents must remain legible, complete, protected against modification, easy to identify and available for the whole retention period. In other words, exactly what a desktop folder or a USB stick in a drawer doesn't guarantee.

The painful scenario: the accounting firm

If you keep the books for other companies, the problem multiplies by the number of clients. A single accounting firm with 40 clients is, in practice, managing the tax archives of 40 companies: invoices, trial balances, tax returns, payroll. Ransomware or a disk failure doesn't just lose your data — it loses your clients' data, along with the liability and reputation that come with it. We've written separately about backup for accounting firms.

What archiving that passes any inspection looks like

You don't need an exotic system — you need the 3-2-1 rule applied with discipline: documents sit on a local NAS with versions and immutable snapshots (nobody can modify or encrypt them retroactively — not even ransomware), an encrypted copy goes automatically to the cloud, in a different physical location, and once a year there's a documented restore test — proof that the archive can actually be recovered, not just that it exists.

This setup simultaneously meets the legibility, integrity and availability requirements of accounting law, the security obligations of the GDPR and, as a bonus, the continuity questions that large clients are starting to ask because of NIS2.

A quick checklist for your business

If you have even one "no", you have a weak point that an inspection or an incident will find before you do.

Frequently asked questions

Does ANAF keep my e-Factura invoices?

The system processes them, but the files remain available for download in the SPV for only 60 days. Archiving for the legal period (at least 5 years) is the company's obligation.

Can I keep invoices electronically only, without paper?

Yes, provided the electronic archive ensures the legibility, integrity and availability of the documents for the entire legal retention period.

What happens if I can't produce the documents at an inspection?

Missing supporting documents are punishable by fines and can lead to tax liabilities being set by estimation — almost always to the company's disadvantage.