How long to keep walkaround records: the 15-month rule

One of the most common questions transport managers ask is how long they need to hang on to compliance paperwork. For daily walkaround checks and the wider maintenance records, DVSA's guidance is clear: keep them for at least 15 months. It is a minimum, not a target — and there are good reasons to treat it as a floor rather than a ceiling.

What the 15-month rule covers

The 15-month retention period in DVSA's 'Guide to maintaining roadworthiness' applies to the records that make up your maintenance system. In practice that means keeping, for at least 15 months:

• Daily walkaround check records, including nil-defect confirmations.
• Driver defect reports and the records showing what action was taken.
• Safety inspection (PMI) records and their inspection sheets.
• Records of repairs and rectification work carried out.
• Where applicable, brake test and roller-brake-tester printouts tied to the inspection.

The point is not to keep paper for its own sake. It is to be able to demonstrate, after the event, that each vehicle was checked and maintained on the days it was used — and that defects were dealt with rather than ignored.

Why 15 months, and why it matters

The 15-month window broadly maps onto the annual cycle of operating a fleet, with enough overlap to cover a full year plus the period in which DVSA or the Traffic Commissioner might come knocking. If your operator licence is reviewed, if you are called to a public inquiry, or if DVSA visits your premises, your records are the primary evidence that your maintenance system works. Gaps in those records are read as gaps in your compliance.

It is worth keeping some records longer than the minimum. An incident, insurance claim or dispute can surface long after the event, and the walkaround record from that day can be decisive — it is contemporaneous evidence of the vehicle's condition, captured by the driver, dated and timed. Many operators keep records for two years or more for exactly this reason.

Retention is only half the job

Keeping records is necessary but not sufficient — you also have to be able to find them. A box of damp paper clipboards technically satisfies the retention rule, but if you can't produce the walkaround for vehicle X on a specific date within minutes, it counts for little at an audit. The qualities that matter are:

• Retrievable — you can pull any record by vehicle and date quickly.
• Legible — handwriting, photos and signatures are readable a year later.
• Complete — no missing days for vehicles that were in use.
• Tamper-evident — it is clear the record hasn't been altered after the fact.

This is where digital records earn their keep. When walkarounds are captured on a phone and stored centrally, the 15-month rule stops being an archiving headache: every check is timestamped, indexed by vehicle and date, and retrievable on demand. The retention period takes care of itself, and an audit request becomes a search rather than a scramble through the filing cabinet.