PHMC Records Retention for Pennsylvania Counties: A 2026 Compliance Checklist

In Pennsylvania, how long a county keeps a record is not a matter of office habit or available shelf space. It is fixed, series by series, in the retention schedules of the PHMC County Records Manual — and those schedules are the working instrument records staff reach for, not the statute behind them. Reynolds Business Systems works with county offices across the Lehigh Valley to read those schedules correctly and apply them to real file rooms.

Pennsylvania has 67 counties, each maintaining its records under schedules approved through the County Records Committee. For county records staff, the practical question is rarely "what does the law say." It is "what does the schedule say for this exact record series, and what do I do when its time is up." This piece is about that mechanic: how a county retention schedule is built, how to read a single entry, how permanent and time-limited series differ, and how to apply a schedule office by office.

The schedule is the instrument, not the statute

Two documents govern county records retention in Pennsylvania, and confusing them is the first mistake. The County Records Act is the statute — it establishes that county records may be retained and disposed of only in accordance with retention schedules promulgated by the County Records Committee. The County Records Manual is where those schedules actually live. The Act grants the authority; the manual is the instrument records staff use day to day.

The distinction matters because the schedule is specific where the statute is general. The Act does not tell a clerk how long to keep a tax claim file or a set of commissioner minutes. The schedule does, line by line. The manual's retention schedules apply to county offices in counties of the second through eighth class, which covers every Pennsylvania county except Philadelphia, a first-class county and city operating under its own arrangements. For everyone else, the manual is the controlling reference.

What a single schedule entry actually contains

A retention schedule is a table, and each row is a record series — a group of records that share a purpose and are managed as a unit. Reading one row tells a clerk everything needed to manage that series for its entire life.

The two fields that drive every decision are retention period and disposition. The retention period answers "how long." The disposition answers "and then what." A series cannot be managed by retention period alone — a five-year file with no disposition instruction is a file no one will ever lawfully destroy. The official minutes of the board of county commissioners, carried in the manual as series AL-16.1, show the pairing cleanly: the retention period is permanent, and the disposition is to retain permanently.

Permanent versus time-limited: the disposition decision

Every series in the manual falls into one of two camps, and the disposition column is where the split shows. A permanent series is never destroyed; it is kept indefinitely for administrative, legal, and historical value. A time-limited series is kept for a fixed term and then disposed of — usually destroyed, sometimes transferred to an archive.

The permanent series are the county's memory. Deed books and their indices, held by the Recorder of Deeds, must be retained permanently. Will books, held by the Register of Wills, must be retained permanently. The commissioners' official minutes are permanent. These are the records a county must be able to produce decades or centuries later, and the schedule reflects that by removing destruction from the table entirely.

Most series, though, are time-limited — the larger share of any file room. Court of Common Pleas case records, for example, should be retained for a minimum of six years following the expiration of the appeal period under the applicable schedule, after which disposition is allowed. The discipline runs in both directions: keeping permanent records permanently, and not keeping time-limited records past their term, where they accumulate as a discovery and storage liability rather than an asset.

Retention by office: building the crosswalk

Schedules are organized by record series, but county records staff live by office. The Recorder of Deeds, the Register of Wills, the Prothonotary and Clerk of Courts, the Treasurer, the Sheriff, the Assessment office, Voter Registration, the Coroner — each holds its own mix of permanent and time-limited series. The single most useful artifact a county can build is a crosswalk that maps each office's records to their manual series, retention periods, and dispositions.

The crosswalk turns an abstract manual into an operating document. For the Recorder of Deeds, it confirms deed books are permanent while routine fee records carry a term. For the Register of Wills, it flags will books as permanent. For the Prothonotary, it sets the six-year-after-appeal clock on case files. Each remaining office carries its own series and periods in the manual; the work is matching what is physically on the shelf to the right line, then writing it down so the next clerk does not have to re-derive it.

Reading the trigger: when the clock actually starts

A retention period is almost never measured from the date a record was created. It runs from a trigger event named in the schedule. Court records are the clearest case: the minimum six-year period runs from the expiration of the appeal period, not from the date the case was filed or closed. A file created in one year may not become eligible for disposition until many years later, depending on when its appeal window lapsed. Reading the trigger language — and recording the trigger date for each file or batch — is half the job.

When a record's trigger date is unknown, the safe default is to treat it as not yet eligible for destruction. A record kept too long is a manageable cost. A record destroyed before its term — or before a legal hold is cleared — is not recoverable.

Applying a schedule, step by step

Turning the manual into practice follows the same sequence in every office. The order matters: you cannot assign a retention period to a record you have not yet matched to a series, and you cannot dispose of anything before the trigger and term are known.

1. Inventory the records. Walk each office and list what is physically held — by series, medium (paper, microfilm, electronic), date range, and volume.
2. Map each item to a manual series. Match every group on the shelf to its line in the County Records Manual. Anything that cannot be mapped is a gap to resolve before any disposition.
3. Assign the retention period and disposition. Record both from the schedule. A series with a retention period but no disposition is incomplete.
4. Identify the trigger and capture the trigger date. Note what event starts the clock, and record that date for each file or batch.
5. Calculate the disposition date and log it. The disposition date is the trigger date plus the retention period; record it where staff will actually act on it.
6. Dispose on schedule, with a record of the disposition. Destroy or transfer only eligible records, and keep a permanent log of what was disposed, when, and under which series.
7. Review annually and after each manual amendment. Re-run the eligible list each year and update the crosswalk whenever the schedules change.

Worked example: one office's file room

Consider the Register of Wills in a mid-size Pennsylvania county preparing to reclaim a back-room file area. The clerk inventories four groups: bound will books running from the 1950s onward, estate case files, routine correspondence, and a run of fee ledgers.

Mapping each group to the manual sorts them immediately. The will books are a permanent series — they are not candidates for destruction at any age, and the right move is preservation, not disposal. The estate case files and fee records are time-limited; each carries its own term and trigger in the schedule. The correspondence maps to its own series and term as well. Within an afternoon, the file room splits cleanly into "keep permanently, preserve properly" and "eligible for disposition once the trigger plus term has passed."

The payoff is twofold. The permanent will books get prioritized for proper preservation — and, increasingly, for digitization to a permanent electronic format. The time-limited records that have aged out are cleared with a documented disposition, freeing the space the office actually came in for. Nothing is destroyed on a guess, and nothing permanent is treated as disposable.

Retention in 2026: the schedule in an electronic file room

Retention rules do not change because records go digital, but the disposition options expand. Counties may maintain permanent records electronically using the PDF/A format, provided they notify the PHMC of their intent to use PDF/A for each records series. PDF/A matters specifically because it is built for long-term preservation — the same reason it suits permanent series in the first place.

Pennsylvania municipalities operate under a parallel instrument, the Municipal Records Manual (approved December 16, 2008 and amended July 23, 2009 and March 28, 2019), which governs third-class cities, boroughs, incorporated towns, and first- and second-class townships under schedules approved by the Local Government Records Committee. Since the 2019 update, municipalities may keep permanent records exclusively in electronic PDF/A form — with no paper or microfilm copy — provided the records sit on a live server with at least one separately backed-up copy.

The federal benchmark points the same direction. Under OMB Memorandum M-23-07, federal agencies were required to manage all permanent records electronically by June 30, 2024, and to digitize permanent analog records before transferring them to the National Archives starting July 1, 2024, to a standard set by 36 CFR Part 1236, Subpart E. Pennsylvania counties are not bound by the federal deadline, but it establishes electronic permanent records as the settled direction of records management — not an experiment a county is risking by adopting.

Where retention meets access and legal holds

Retention answers how long to keep a record. Two other obligations sit alongside it, and a retention program has to respect both. The first is access: under the Right-to-Know Law, a county's open-records officer must respond to a written request within five business days, a requester may appeal a denial to the Office of Open Records within 15 business days, and the OOR must issue a determination within 30 days. A record still inside its retention period must be produced if it is public — its age does not exempt it from disclosure.

The second is the legal hold. When litigation, an audit, or an investigation is reasonably anticipated, the disposition clock stops for the affected records, even if their retention term has already expired. Destroying a record on schedule is defensible; destroying one under hold is not. A working schedule includes a documented way to suspend disposition for records under hold, and to release that hold once the matter clears.

Applying this across the Lehigh Valley

The work has dedicated funding. Pennsylvania law charges a $5 fee for each document recorded, on top of the Recorder of Deeds' standard fee; of that, $2 is deposited into the County Records Improvement Fund to support a comprehensive records management plan, with the remaining $3 retained by the Recorder for office records management. The fund exists in counties of the second-A, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth classes and in home rule charter counties of those classes — the same counties that operate under the County Records Manual.

The case for keeping the schedule current is operational as much as legal. Workers spend an estimated 20 to 30 percent of the workday — roughly 1.6 to 2.5 hours — searching for and gathering information, time a well-organized, properly retained records environment reduces. A clean schedule is what makes that environment possible: it tells staff what to keep, what to clear, and what to preserve, so the back room stops absorbing both space and search time.

Reynolds Business Systems works with county offices across the Lehigh Valley — Lehigh, Northampton, and the surrounding counties — to inventory records, build the office-by-office crosswalk, and apply County Records Manual schedules to paper, microfilm, and electronic holdings. The goal is a records program a county can run and defend: permanent records preserved, time-limited records cleared on schedule, and every disposition documented.

Frequently asked questions

Who approves county records retention schedules in Pennsylvania?

The County Records Committee, acting under the County Records Act. County records may be retained and disposed of only in accordance with the schedules that committee promulgates, which are published in the PHMC County Records Manual. The schedules apply to county offices in counties of the second through eighth class — every Pennsylvania county except first-class Philadelphia.

How long must Pennsylvania counties keep records?

It depends entirely on the record series. There is no single county-wide period. Core series such as deed books, will books, and commissioner minutes are permanent. Most other series carry a fixed term set in the County Records Manual — for example, Court of Common Pleas case records should be kept a minimum of six years after the appeal period expires before disposition is allowed.

What county records must be kept permanently in Pennsylvania?

Under the County Records Manual, the county's foundational records are permanent. Deed books and their indices (Recorder of Deeds), will books (Register of Wills), and the official minutes of the board of county commissioners or county council (series AL-16.1) all carry a permanent retention and a disposition of retain permanently. These records are never destroyed; they are preserved indefinitely.

What is the PA County Records Manual?

It is the document that holds Pennsylvania's county records retention schedules, set by the County Records Committee under the County Records Act. Organized by record series, it tells county offices how long to keep each type of record and what to do when that period ends. It governs county offices in counties of the second through eighth class.

What does "disposition" mean on a retention schedule?

Disposition is the instruction for what happens to a record series once its retention period ends. The three outcomes are destroy, transfer to an archive, or retain permanently. Disposition is the field that completes a schedule entry: a series with a retention period but no disposition cannot be acted on, because no one knows what to do when the time runs out.

When does a record's retention clock actually start?

Usually from a trigger event named in the schedule, not the date the record was created. Court of Common Pleas records, for instance, run their minimum six-year period from the expiration of the appeal period. Capturing the trigger date for each file or batch is essential, because the disposition date is the trigger date plus the retention period.

Can Pennsylvania counties keep permanent records electronically?

Yes. Counties may maintain permanent records electronically in the PDF/A format, but must notify the PHMC of their intent to use PDF/A for each records series. Pennsylvania municipalities have similar authority: since the 2019 Municipal Records Manual update, they may keep permanent records exclusively in electronic PDF/A form, provided the records are on a live server with at least one separately backed-up copy.

Does the Right-to-Know Law change how long records are kept?

No. Retention and access are separate clocks. The Right-to-Know Law governs access — a five-business-day response window, a 15-business-day appeal to the Office of Open Records, and a 30-day OOR determination. It does not set retention periods. But a record still within its retention period must be produced if it is public, and records cannot be destroyed to avoid a request.

Is there a universal 7-year or 30-year retention rule for PA county records?

No. Pennsylvania's county schedules do not use a single universal period such as seven or 30 years. Retention is assigned series by series in the County Records Manual, with some series permanent and others carrying their own fixed terms. The 30-day and similar figures people encounter in Pennsylvania records usually relate to Right-to-Know Law timelines, not retention.