Are text messages and chat business records?

Yes. A communication is a record based on its content, not its format. If a text message, instant message, or chat in a collaboration platform documents a business activity, decision, or obligation, it is a record — and it carries the same retention and production obligations as an email or a memo.

The format doesn’t decide

It is a common misconception that “real” records live in email or formal documents while texts and chats are informal and disposable. The law and the standards say otherwise. Whether something is a record depends on what it documents, not the channel it traveled through. Substantive business is increasingly conducted over messaging apps, which means those messages frequently are records.

The “off-channel” problem

Regulators have made this concrete. In recent years, financial regulators imposed very large penalties on firms whose employees conducted business over personal texting and messaging apps that the firm did not capture — so-called “off-channel” communications. The lesson applies broadly: if employees discuss business on a channel the organization cannot capture and retain, the organization cannot meet its recordkeeping, disclosure, or litigation obligations.

What this means in practice

Treating messaging as records requires:

• Capture. The organization needs a way to capture business messages from the relevant platforms — including mobile and chat tools — preserving not just the text but the participants, timestamps, and threading that give it context.
• Retention. Captured messages are subject to retention schedules like any other record, and disposed of when their period ends.
• Litigation readiness. Messages relevant to anticipated or active litigation must be preserved under a hold and be producible on demand.

Policy and capture together

Organizations typically respond on two fronts: a policy that defines which channels may be used for business (and prohibits unmonitored ones), and technology that captures messages from approved channels into records management. The Capstone lesson from email applies here too — automate capture and schedule by rule, rather than relying on individuals to forward or save their own messages. See the email and messaging records hub for more.