What is the difference between a retention schedule and a records schedule?

In practice, “retention schedule” and “records schedule” refer to the same thing — the authoritative document that lists an organization’s record types and specifies, for each, how long it must be kept and what its final disposition is. The difference is mostly terminology and context, not substance.

The terminology

• Records schedule (or “records disposition schedule”) is the term used in the U.S. federal government. Agencies submit schedules to NARA for approval, and NARA publishes the government-wide General Records Schedule. The emphasis is on the disposition authority.
• Retention schedule is the more common term in the private sector and at the state/local level. The emphasis is often on the retention period.

Both documents do the same job: connect each record series to a retention period, the legal/business basis for it, and a disposition action (destroy, transfer, or preserve permanently).

Subtle emphasis

If there’s any nuance, it’s emphasis. “Records schedule” tends to foreground the full disposition instruction (including transfer of permanent records to an archives), reflecting its government origins where the Archivist must authorize destruction. “Retention schedule” tends to foreground how long things are kept. But functionally they’re interchangeable, and many organizations use the terms synonymously.

What actually matters

Don’t get hung up on the label. What matters is that the document exists, is grounded in legal and business requirements, has been formally approved, covers your record types, and is actually applied and kept current. Whether you call it a retention schedule or a records schedule, it’s the backbone of the program.