Germany’s parliament enacted the Fourth Bureaucracy Reduction Act, published it in the Official Gazette 29 October 2024, with the aim to shorten document retention periods and simplify various VAT-related obligations.

One key aspect of the Act is reducing administrative burdens by decreasing the retention period for accounting documents from ten to eight years.

Earlier, Germany’s Federal Council (Bundesrat) passed the Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act on 18 October 2024.