Tax authorities, and regions such as the European Union (EU), define the period of time that you must retain data for, e.g. the EU require that you retain data for 10 years https://www.taxamo.com/support/regions_eu/store_transaction_data/.

The tax authority/region may also specify the data that must be retained for legal and auditing purposes.

Taxamo has explored the EU VAT Mini One-Stop Shop (MOSS) audit guidelines here: https://www.taxamo.com/moss-audit/.

In Norway, documents that can validate bookkeeping (e.g. account books or vouchers) must be kept for at least 10 years after the end of the accounting year in question.

Filing in Japan, you need to retain information about sales in Japan. If you have any deductible tax, you need both books and bills, etc.

In principal, books and documents related to the transactions should be retained for 7 years after 2 months of the tax period you have filed.

Meanwhile, for South Africa the data retention period is 15 years.