SF-115 (SF-115)

SF-115, formally the Request for Records Disposition Authority, is the standard form a U.S. federal agency files with the National Archives and Records Administration to propose how long each records series should be kept and what should happen to it afterward. The Archivist of the United States reviews and approves it, and that approval becomes the agency’s disposition authority — the legal permission to destroy temporary records or transfer permanent ones.

SF-115 matters because federal records cannot lawfully be destroyed without an approved authority behind them. Once granted, the disposition instructions typically flow into the agency’s retention schedule and recordkeeping practices, governing day-to-day decisions about cutoff, retention periods, and final disposition.

For example, an agency that creates a new type of program record drafts an SF-115 describing the series, its proposed retention, and whether NARA should appraise it as permanent. The form is the request; the resulting approved schedule is the standing authorization. Newer agency proposals are increasingly handled through NARA’s electronic Records Control Schedule system rather than paper SF-115 submissions.