General Records Schedule (GRS)
Government-wide retention schedules issued by NARA that authorize the disposition of records common to many or all federal agencies, such as administrative and housekeeping records.
The General Records Schedule (GRS) is a set of retention schedules issued by NARA that cover records common across the federal government — administrative, financial, personnel, IT, and other “housekeeping” records that most agencies create.
Rather than having every agency separately schedule these routine record types, the GRS provides a single, government-wide authority for their retention and disposition. Agencies apply the GRS directly and only need to develop their own schedules for records unique to their mission. This saves enormous duplicated effort and promotes consistency. The GRS is periodically updated, and agencies are expected to apply the current versions.