A new transport manager came to me two years into the job and asked me to check his record-keeping setup. Good lad, thorough, clearly taking it seriously. He'd built a proper spreadsheet — driver cards downloaded on time, vehicle unit downloads logged, copies of printouts filed in order.
He told me he was keeping everything for three years. That's what he'd read online. That's what a driver trainer had told him on a TM CPC refresher. Three years, standard. He'd even built a deletion schedule for anything older than 36 months.
I had to tell him he was wrong. Not about keeping things longer — keeping things longer is fine. But about where the three-year figure came from. Because it doesn't come from EU 561. It doesn't come from the tachograph regulation. The actual legal minimum for tachograph records is 12 months. With an important exception that pushes it to 24 months for most operators.
The three-year figure circulates in transport circles as if it's law. It isn't. And the distinction matters — not because 36 months is too long (it isn't), but because when operators believe the minimum is 36 months, they sometimes keep records they'd be better off retaining differently, or they don't distinguish between the 12- and 24-month thresholds that actually apply.
What EU 561 actually says
Article 10(5) of EU Regulation 561/2006 is the operator's record-keeping obligation. It requires operators to retain a copy of the records "for at least one year after the period covered by them." One year. That's 12 months. Not 24, not 36.
That covers the tachograph records themselves — digital downloads from the vehicle unit and driver cards, analogue record sheets on older vehicles, printouts, and the analysis data that comes from the downloads.
The vehicle unit download cycle is 90 days — you must download data from the VU at least every 90 days. The driver card download cycle is 28 days. After those downloads are done and the data is stored, the obligation to retain it runs for 12 months from the end of the period covered.
So if you download a vehicle unit on 1 September, covering July and August's data, you need to keep that data until at least 31 August the following year. Simple. 12 months.
When 24 months applies — the WTD overlap
Here's the bit that catches operators out. The Working Time Directive has its own record-keeping obligation under the Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005 (SI 2005/639). Mobile workers — which includes virtually all professional HGV drivers — must have their working-time records retained for a minimum of two years.
Working-time records include hours of work, periods of availability, breaks, and rest periods. If you're running tachograph analysis software and producing weekly or fortnightly working-time reports from the tacho data, those reports are your WTD working-time records. They need to be kept for 24 months.
But here's the practical problem: most small operators use the tachograph data itself as their WTD records. They don't produce separate timesheets. The downloaded tacho data is simultaneously their EU 561 compliance evidence and their WTD compliance evidence.
When the tachograph data serves double duty — when it's the only record of both 561 compliance and WTD compliance — the longer retention period wins. That means 24 months, not 12.
For the vast majority of small and medium fleets, this is the actual answer: 24 months, because the tacho data is the only working-time record they hold.
The driver card storage question
There's a separate misconception worth clearing up while we're here. Some operators believe the driver card itself stores several months' worth of data — and that they can rely on downloading the card to catch up on missed data. That's wrong in two ways.
First: the driver card stores about 28 days of driver activity. Not months. About four weeks. That's the reason the 28-day download cycle exists — if you wait longer than 28 days, the oldest data on the card starts being overwritten.
Second: once data is overwritten, it's gone. There's no recovery. Which is why the download discipline matters — and why a missed download can create a gap in the records that DVSA will notice immediately at a premises inspection. I covered this in the post on tachograph download cycles.
The vehicle unit stores data for longer — minimum 365 calendar days of driver activity data under Regulation (EU) 165/2014. But that doesn't mean you can skip the 90-day download and pull it all at once later. You can't. Well, you can, but the data in the VU will eventually be overwritten too if you miss too many cycles. And a premises inspection looking at your download logs will immediately spot that you haven't been downloading as required.
What records you actually need to keep
The obligation covers all the tachograph records relevant to drivers and vehicles on your licence. That breaks down as:
- Driver card downloads — raw data files from the driver card. These cover the card's activity, including driving time, rest periods, breaks, and manual entries.
- Vehicle unit downloads — raw data files from the vehicle unit. These cover vehicle movement data, speed data, and driver activity logged by the VU.
- Printouts — any printout taken from the VU or manually produced under Article 35 procedures.
- Analogue record sheets — for vehicles with analogue tachographs, the actual paper chart.
- Infringement analysis reports — documents showing that you've reviewed the data for compliance.
That last one is important and often overlooked. Keeping the raw data isn't the same as demonstrating you've analysed it. The Traffic Commissioner wants to see evidence that the transport manager has reviewed the records, identified infringements, and actioned them. Just having a folder of downloaded files isn't compliance management. The review process is part of what you're supposed to be documenting.
What DVSA ask for at a premises inspection
When DVSA turn up at your yard unannounced — and they do — the documents they typically ask for in the first ten minutes include: operator licence and disc, maintenance records, and tachograph download records. Both the download logs (showing when downloads were done) and the downloaded data itself.
They'll check the download cycle compliance. If your 28-day card downloads have slipped — even by a few days, consistently — that goes on your OCRS. If there are data gaps suggesting a vehicle has been operating without a VU download within the required cycle, that's a more serious finding.
They'll also check whether the records cover the expected period. If you claim 12 months' worth of records but the folder only has eight months, that's a gap. If the 24-month WTD obligation applies and you've only got 14 months, same problem.
The records don't have to be in a gold-plated system. A well-maintained shared drive with clearly labelled folders, consistent download logs, and evidence of regular infringement review is fine. The actual format matters less than the completeness and the discipline behind it.
What about the three years?
There's a reasonable explanation for where the figure comes from. Some organisations recommend keeping records for three years as a precaution — covering the period during which a prosecution could theoretically be brought. Others confuse the O-licence undertaking periods with the tacho retention requirement. Some driver trainers and compliance consultants have been passing on the three-year figure informally for years.
None of that makes it law. And the problem with treating informal best practice as law is that it can generate compliance confusion. If you believe the minimum is three years and you set up your deletion schedule on that basis, you're probably fine. But if you then assume the 24-month WTD obligation is somehow covered by your three-year misread, you may be wrong about something else entirely.
Keep the records for as long as is practical. But know where the actual legal minimums sit: 12 months under EU 561, 24 months under the WTD — and for most operators, 24 months is the practical answer because the tacho data is doing double duty.
If you're managing a fleet and want a single system that tracks download cycles, flags overdue downloads, and keeps WTD records in one place — ShiftOwt handles the 561 and WTD compliance tracking automatically, from £5.99 a month for drivers. Agency and fleet pricing is available on request.
Summary
12 months minimum under EU 561 (Article 10). 24 months minimum under the Road Transport Working Time Regulations for WTD records. Most operators use the tacho data as their WTD record, which means 24 months is the practical minimum. No 3-year legal requirement exists — it's informal guidance, not statute.
Keep the raw data, keep the download logs, keep the infringement analysis. Know the difference between what you're legally required to hold and what you're choosing to keep as a precaution. And make sure your actual download discipline is tight enough that the records you're supposed to have actually exist when DVSA ask for them.
If you discover records haven't been kept properly
The call I don't want to receive at a yard is: "DVSA are coming next week and the download logs have gaps." Because once the gaps are in the logs, you can't fill them. The data that should have been downloaded and retained is gone — either because the download didn't happen or because the retention period has passed.
What you can do is document the situation honestly. DVSA understand that systems fail, staff change, and record-keeping processes break down. What they don't accept well is finding out about a systematic problem that's been concealed or that nobody noticed because nobody was looking. A transport manager who identifies a gap in their records, documents it, explains the reason, and implements a corrective process is in a better position than one who didn't know the gap existed.
The corrective process needs to be genuine, not just paper. If downloads have been missed, start downloading everything within the legal cycle immediately. If the analysis reports haven't been produced, start producing them. If infringement management has been absent, create the process and document it going forward. DVSA want to see that an operator is actively managing compliance, not that they had a perfect record with no mistakes.
Don't destroy records that you believe are incomplete or problematic. That's a much worse situation than having incomplete records honestly. Records that show a lapse in compliance are better than an empty folder.
What the Traffic Commissioner looks for in records
If you end up at a public inquiry — and small fleets do end up at public inquiries over tachograph and record-keeping compliance, often after a single bad premises inspection — the TC will look at the records as evidence of how seriously the operator takes compliance.
Complete records kept for the right period demonstrate that the operator has a working system. Gaps demonstrate that the system isn't working. Analysis reports showing identified infringements and documented responses demonstrate that the operator is managing the data, not just storing it. The absence of analysis reports — downloads existing but no review of infringements — suggests a compliance operation that doesn't go deeper than the filing cabinet.
For the 24-month WTD records specifically: the TC isn't just checking whether you have 24 months. They're checking whether the records are actually meaningful for WTD compliance. A folder of raw download files without any analysis or infringement review against WTD limits doesn't demonstrate working-time compliance — it demonstrates that you downloaded data and left it unexamined.
The practical standard the TC applies is whether a reasonable transport manager, using these records, could demonstrate their drivers' WTD compliance in the relevant period. If the answer is yes — the data's there, analysed, infringements identified and actioned — you're in a defensible position. If the answer is no, the records need work regardless of how many years you're keeping them for.