How Long Must a Dietitian Keep Client Records in Canada?

How long do dietitians have to keep client records?

Five years in Quebec, ten in Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and — as advice rather than a requirement — Nova Scotia, and sixteen in British Columbia. Those numbers are widely quoted. What is quoted far less often is the event each period runs from, and that is what determines the actual disposal date.

Two practitioners applying "10 years" to the same client can land years apart. The instruments differ in force too, though not along the line most guidance draws. Quebec's five years is the only period written into legislation itself. Saskatchewan's ten years is in a regulation, but as one of two options a practice's written retention policy may adopt. British Columbia's and Ontario's both sit in college standards that practitioners are legally obliged to meet — British Columbia because the Health Professions and Occupations Act requires licensees to practise in accordance with all practice standards, Ontario because failing to maintain a standard of practice is professional misconduct under O. Reg. 680/93. Alberta's appears only in a handbook, phrased "should".

Quebec’s five years, and why it has no paediatric rule is the table’s most surprising row, and it is not a typo.

Consider a client last seen in 2026 who had been in intermittent care since 2020. In Ontario the clock runs from the last visit. In Manitoba it runs from the last entry in the record, which may be later than the last visit if notes were added afterwards. In Saskatchewan it runs from the last episode of care, which may group visits differently again. Same client, same ten years, different disposal dates.

How long do you keep records for a client who was a minor?

Longer, and the rules are not simply the adult period restarted. Ontario runs to the client's 28th birthday — ten years from the 18th, so the trigger is the age of majority rather than the last visit. British Columbia runs 16 years from the age of majority, and because British Columbia's age of majority is 19, a pediatric record can run close to the client's 35th birthday.

Alberta uses whichever is longer of two years past the age of majority or ten years, which is materially different from both. Saskatchewan's regulation requires ten years after the last episode of care or until age 20, whichever period is longer — though the Saskatchewan College of Dietitians' own documentation guidance goes further and suggests ten years past the age of majority, an age-29 floor. The regulation is a minimum, not a permission to destroy at 20. Quebec has no paediatric rule at all — a genuine absence rather than an omission from this page.

The practical consequence is that a paediatric caseload cannot be managed on the adult schedule, and a single retention setting applied across a whole practice will be wrong for one group or the other.

Is the retention rule law or college guidance?

It varies, and the distinction matters if you are ever asked to justify a disposal — but the usual framing, that some provinces have law and others merely guidance, does not survive contact with the instruments. British Columbia's 16 years sits in a Practice Standard, and the Health Professions and Occupations Act requires licensees to practise in accordance with all practice standards, so the number lives in a college document while compliance with it is statutory. Ontario reaches the same place by a different route: the 10 years is a College of Dietitians of Ontario standard, and failing to maintain a standard of practice is listed as professional misconduct in O. Reg. 680/93. PHIPA itself sets no numeric period, though it does impose retention duties. Saskatchewan's 10 years is in a regulation, but the regulation permits a purpose-based retention schedule instead.

Alberta is the weakest case of all. The 10-year figure appears only in the College's Professional Practice Handbook, phrased as "should". The bylaws contain no retention provision, the Standards of Practice state no period, and neither the Health Information Act nor its regulations set one for client clinical records — the ten-year periods they do contain attach to records of disclosure and to records of consent, not to client files. Treating Alberta's number as a legal floor is an assumption, not a citation.

Four publish none, and each was read directly rather than inferred. New Brunswick and the Northwest Territories defer to a written policy or to regulations that set no number; Prince Edward Island's only ten-year figures attach to disclosure and access logs rather than to the clinical record; and Newfoundland and Labrador's Personal Health Information Act requires secure retention and disposal without naming a period at all, its sole year figure being a 120-year application cut-off.

Nunavut is a different case, and worth stating precisely: no published retention period reaches a private practice there, because none of the three routes that would carry one exists. There is no dietetic regulator to set a standard — Dietitians of Canada lists ten and all are provincial. The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act binds only the territorial government, as its own Information and Privacy Commissioner states. And the Public Health Act governs public-health surveillance records rather than a practitioner's clinical file.

Yukon publishes no period in its statute either. The Health Information Privacy and Management Act requires a custodian to have a policy retaining personal health information in accordance with the prescribed requirements, if any, and names no number anywhere — its only year figures concern the age of majority, deceased persons, disclosure look-backs and a prosecution limit. Whether the general regulation made under it prescribes a period has not been checked, so confirm with the territorial regulator before relying on the absence.

Where the absence is real, the fallback wording practitioners are given is "per applicable legislation", which is not itself an answer.

Do financial records follow the same rule as clinical records?

No — they are a separate obligation, and in some provinces a separate period. The College of Dietitians of Ontario treats financial records as a distinct standard from the clinical record, retained at least 10 years, and enumerates billing failures as professional misconduct including failing to itemize an account on request.

Alberta's College sets no retention period for financial records and points to the Canada Revenue Agency instead. British Columbia takes a third approach: its current Practice Standard requires the date, the type of service, the amount charged and the method and date of payment to be recorded in the patient record itself, which then falls under the same sixteen-year rule. Manitoba is the simplest — one ten-year clock from the date of the last entry covers client and financial records together.

Where a college is silent, the applicable floor is the Income Tax Act's six years from the end of the last taxation year to which the records relate. That is shorter than every clinical period on this page, so a practice that disposes of financial records on the tax schedule while keeping clinical records longer is following two clocks deliberately, not inconsistently.