How long should you keep a grocery receipt? (Canada)

For an ordinary grocery run, until you have checked the bill. That is genuinely it. The reasons to keep one longer are specific and few, and only one of them has a legal number attached to it.

The short answer, by reason

When does the six-year rule actually apply to a grocery receipt?

Why you are keeping it	How long
Checking you were charged correctly	Days. Once you have looked at it, it has done its job.
A price accuracy claim	Same visit, usually. You need the receipt in hand at the store.
Returning or exchanging something	The store's window, which varies and is sometimes printed on the receipt itself.
Warranty on something you bought there	The length of the warranty. Proof of purchase is normally what starts the clock.
It supports a claim on your tax return	Six years. This is the only entry with a rule behind it.
None of the above	No reason to keep it.

Only when the receipt supports something you claimed on a tax return. Ordinary household groceries are not deductible, so most grocery receipts never come near this rule. It bites when the shopping was for a business, or the receipt covers a medical, moving or childcare expense you claimed, or you are self-employed and some of that trip was a business expense.

When it does apply, the Canada Revenue Agency's guidance is to keep your tax documents and records for at least six years. More precisely, records are kept for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, and for individuals the tax year is the calendar year. So a receipt supporting something on your 2026 return is kept until the end of 2032.

Two details from the same guidance that people miss. It applies even if you filed online and even if the form told you not to attach supporting documents. And CRA may ask to see more than the receipt itself: cancelled cheques, bank statements, and other proof of what you claimed.

What about returns and exchanges?

There is no national rule. Each chain sets its own window and its own conditions, food is often treated differently from general merchandise, and some stores do not take returns at all.

The receipt frequently tells you. Dollarama, for instance, prints NO EXCHANGE and NO RETURN in its footer, so the question is answered before you ask it. Where the receipt is silent, the policy is usually posted at the customer service desk or on the chain's website.

What if I was charged the wrong price?

That is a price accuracy question rather than a retention one, and most large Canadian grocers participate in a voluntary code that entitles you to something when the shelf price and the till price disagree. You generally need the receipt at the store, so this is a same-visit matter, not a keep-it-for-years one. See the Scanning Code of Practice guide.

The practical problem: your receipt will fade

Grocery receipts are printed on thermal paper. There is no ink: the paper is coated and the printer darkens it with heat. The same chemistry that makes the print appear also makes it disappear, so heat, sunlight and friction all erase it. A receipt left in a car, a wallet or a sunny windowsill can become unreadable long before any six-year clock runs out.

We are not going to tell you how many months you have, because it depends on the paper and how the receipt is stored and we have no measurement to offer. The useful version is simpler: if a receipt matters, do not rely on the paper.

Can I keep a photo instead of the paper?

For your own purposes, obviously yes, and it is the sensible thing to do the moment a receipt matters to you.

For tax records specifically, CRA has a circular on electronic record keeping that contemplates keeping an electronic image of a paper document. It sets conditions: broadly, the reproduction has to stand in place of the original and be an intelligible reproduction of it. If you are relying on images for records that actually support a tax claim, read the circular or ask an accountant rather than taking a summary on a receipt blog. A blurry half-frame photo of a faded receipt is not going to help anyone.

The practical takeaway is the same either way: photograph anything you might need before the thermal paper gives up, not after.

So what should I do with the rest of them?

Check the bill, then let them go. The one habit worth having is deciding at the till which category a receipt is in, because that decision is easy while you are holding it and impossible six months later in a drawer full of faded paper.

Where this comes from, and its limits. The six-year figure and the electronic-records conditions are read directly from the Canada Revenue Agency's own pages, linked above, rather than summarised from elsewhere, and the page was written in August 2026. Everything about returns and warranties varies by chain, by province and by product, and we are describing the general shape rather than your situation. This is an explanation of what you are holding, not tax, legal or financial advice. If a real decision depends on it, check the CRA page or ask an accountant. Corrections welcome at support@crowcery.com.

Keep the data, not the paper.
Crowcery is a free Android app that reads a photo of your grocery receipt and turns every line into clean, categorised data: prices, quantities, discounts and tax codes. The paper can fade afterwards; what it said does not have to.
Get it on Google Play

Available in Canada; English-language receipts; not offered in Quebec. Or try the read-only demo first, no signup needed.

How long should you keep a grocery receipt?