How Long Should You Keep Your Pet's Medical Records?

Short answer: keep the important stuff for your pet's entire life, and don't count on your vet's clinic to keep it for you indefinitely. Here's why.

What clinics are actually required to keep — and for how long

There's no federal standard for veterinary record retention in the U.S., so it comes down to individual state law, and it varies more than you'd expect. Some states require as little as 3 years from a pet's last visit; others require 5 or more. The AVMA’s Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics say a practice must keep original records for the period required by law, so the exact timeline depends on your state’s veterinary practice act — ask your clinic or check your state veterinary board.

What to keep permanently

• Full vaccination history, especially rabies (often required for licensing, boarding, or travel)
• Any major diagnosis, surgery, or chronic condition
• Known allergies or adverse drug reactions
• Spay/neuter confirmation
• Microchip registration details

What you can let go of

Routine visit notes for healthy check-ups, old flea/tick prevention refills, and minor one-off issues that fully resolved generally don't matter to keep long-term once the major history is captured elsewhere.

Why this actually comes up in real life

• Pet insurance claims often ask for history going back further than a clinic kept on file.
• Boarding and daycare facilities want proof of vaccines, sometimes going back years.
• A second opinion or specialist referral is much faster with a full history in hand instead of waiting on records requests.
• A clinic closing or changing ownership can mean records become hard or impossible to retrieve later.

The simplest fix

Records you keep yourself never disappear when a clinic does, changes software, or decides a file is old enough to purge. It doesn't need to be complicated — just a running copy that travels with your pet instead of staying behind at whichever clinic saw them last.

Authoritative resources

• AVMA — Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics (medical records)

Related: this article is part of our Complete Guide to Pet Health Records. See also PetFolio Health features and an example pet health report.