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 and Manitoba (and in Nova Scotia, as advice rather than a requirement), and sixteen in British Columbia. The event each period runs from determines the actual disposal date.

The instruments differ in force too. Quebec's five years is the only period that is a flat legislated floor; Saskatchewan's regulation offers ten years 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. In British Columbia, the Health Professions and Occupations Act requires licensees to practise in accordance with all practice standards. In Ontario, failing to maintain a standard of practice is professional misconduct under O. Reg. 680/93. Alberta's appears only in a handbook, phrased "should".

See Quebec’s five-year period, and why it has no paediatric rule.

Two practitioners applying "10 years" to the same client can land years apart. 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.

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

Longer, and the trigger is usually the age of majority rather than the last visit. Ontario runs to the client's 28th birthday, ten years from the 18th. British Columbia runs 16 years from the age of majority, and because British Columbia's age of majority is 19, a paediatric 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. Saskatchewan's regulation requires ten years after the last episode of care or until age 20, whichever period is longer. The Saskatchewan College of Dietitians' own documentation guidance goes further and suggests ten years past the age of majority, an age-29 floor, so treat the regulation's age 20 as a minimum. Quebec has no paediatric rule at all: the absence is in the regulation, not an omission from this page.

A paediatric caseload therefore cannot be managed on the adult schedule.

Is the retention rule law or college guidance?

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's figure is guidance. It 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.

Six jurisdictions publish no period reaching a private practice. For four of them the answer comes from reading the statute and its regulations directly: 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. Newfoundland and Labrador's Personal Health Information Act requires secure retention and disposal without naming a period, and its sole year figure is a 120-year application cut-off.

In Nunavut no published retention period reaches a private practice, because all three routes that would carry one are closed. 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.

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 except Quebec's five years, so a practice that disposes of financial records on the tax schedule while keeping clinical records longer is applying both rules correctly.