Records Disposition Authority
A Records Disposition Authority is the formal legal approval that authorizes a federal agency to either destroy temporary records or transfer permanent records to the national archives, defining how long each record series must be kept.
Records Disposition Authority is the binding legal sanction an agency obtains before it may dispose of any federal record, whether by destruction or by transfer to archival custody. Because agencies cannot lawfully destroy records on their own initiative, this authority is the mechanism that converts a proposed retention period into an enforceable instruction. It is typically secured by submitting a schedule for appraisal and approval by the national archival authority, after which the disposition becomes both permitted and required once the retention period lapses.
It matters because it protects against premature destruction of evidence and against the indefinite, costly accumulation of obsolete material. The authority is recorded in a retention schedule, while disposition is the action it sanctions; the schedule names the record series, and the authority makes its disposition lawful.
For example, an agency holding routine administrative correspondence cannot simply delete it after three years; the disposition authority must first establish that series as temporary with a defined retention before any deletion proceeds. For electronic records, agencies increasingly align practices with the Universal Electronic Records Management Requirements rather than the older endorsement framework the national archives revoked in 2022.