The statute of limitations is the legal deadline for filing a lawsuit or bringing criminal charges, and how long you have depends on the type of case. Civil deadlines generally range from one year to ten years or more. Most non-capital federal crimes carry a five-year deadline, while capital offenses like murder have none at all. Deadlines exist to keep disputes fair by ensuring evidence stays fresh, witnesses remain available, and people are not blindsided by legal action for events in the distant past.
Common Deadlines for Civil Claims
Civil filing deadlines depend on the type of harm. Personal injury claims, which cover everything from car accidents to slip-and-fall injuries, generally carry shorter deadlines because the legal system expects medical evidence and accident reports to be gathered while they are still reliable. Across the states, personal injury deadlines range from one to six years, with most states falling in the two-to-three-year range.
Contract disputes usually get longer windows. Written contracts can carry deadlines as long as ten or even fifteen years in some states, while oral contracts carry shorter periods (often three to five years) because verbal agreements become harder to prove over time. Property damage claims fall in the middle, typically allowing three to six years.
Some federal claims run on much tighter schedules. A personal injury claim against the federal government must be filed as an administrative claim with the responsible agency within two years of the injury, and any lawsuit in court must then be filed within six months after that agency denies the claim.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2401 – Time for Commencing Action Against United States Employment discrimination charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission face even shorter windows: 180 days from the discriminatory act, or 300 days if your state has its own anti-discrimination enforcement agency.2U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits for Filing a Charge
Deadlines for Criminal Offenses
Criminal deadlines are driven primarily by the seriousness of the offense. At the federal level, the default period for most non-capital crimes is five years from the date of the offense.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S.C. 3282 – Offenses Not Capital State misdemeanor deadlines are typically one to three years, while felonies often allow three to ten years depending on severity.
Certain categories of federal crime get extended windows. Financial institution offenses, including bank fraud, embezzlement from a bank, and wire or mail fraud targeting a financial institution, carry a ten-year deadline.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S.C. 3293 – Financial Institution Offenses The longer period reflects the complexity of financial investigations and the difficulty of tracing fraudulent transactions.
The most serious crimes have no deadline at all. Under federal law, any offense punishable by death can be prosecuted at any time.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3281 – Capital Offenses Murder is the most prominent example, but federal civil rights violations resulting in death and certain terrorism-related crimes also have no expiration date.6FBI. Federal Civil Rights Statutes Most states follow the same principle for murder and other serious violent crimes.
Deadlines for Debt Collection
One of the most common everyday situations involving a filing deadline is debt collection. If a creditor or debt collector wants to sue you for an unpaid credit card balance, medical bill, or other consumer debt, the window to do so is limited. That window varies by state and by the type of debt, but most states set deadlines between three and ten years for common consumer debts.
Once that deadline passes, the debt becomes “time-barred.” Federal regulations specifically prohibit debt collectors from suing or threatening to sue you to collect a time-barred debt.7Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR 1006.26 – Collection of Time-Barred Debts The debt itself does not disappear. Collectors can still contact you about it, and it may still appear on your credit report for a period of time. The prohibition applies specifically to lawsuits and threats of lawsuits.
Watch out for one major pitfall. Making a partial payment or acknowledging in writing that you owe the debt can restart the clock in many states.8Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Can Debt Collectors Collect a Debt That’s Several Years Old? If a collector contacts you about a very old debt, responding with even a small payment could give them a fresh window to sue.
Deadlines for IRS Tax Assessments
The IRS has its own set of deadlines for reviewing returns and assessing additional taxes you may owe. The standard window is three years from the date you filed your return.9Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 305, Recordkeeping If you file early, the IRS treats your return as filed on the due date, so the clock starts from the April deadline rather than the date you actually submitted it.
That three-year window extends to six years if you underreport your gross income by more than 25 percent of what you reported, or if the underreported amount exceeds $5,000 and relates to foreign financial assets that require reporting.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S.C. 6501 – Limitations on Assessment and Collection If you file a fraudulent return or never file at all, there is no deadline. The IRS can come after you at any point.9Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 305, Recordkeeping
When the Clock Starts
A statute of limitations begins running at the moment your legal claim “accrues,” which is typically the date an injury happens or a crime is committed. But some harms are not immediately obvious, and two rules can delay when the clock starts.
The Discovery Rule
The discovery rule delays the start of the deadline until you knew, or reasonably should have known, about the injury and its cause. This matters most in medical malpractice cases, where a surgical error or misdiagnosis might not produce symptoms for months or years. Without this rule, your deadline could expire before you ever realized something had gone wrong.
The discovery rule also plays a significant role in fraud cases. Courts have long recognized that fraud is inherently deceptive, and the whole point of a fraudulent scheme is to keep the victim unaware. When fraud is involved, the clock generally starts once the deception is uncovered or reasonably should have been uncovered, rather than when the fraudulent act first occurred.
The Continuous Treatment Doctrine
Some states apply an additional rule in medical malpractice claims called the continuous treatment doctrine. If you continue receiving care from the same provider for the same condition that was allegedly mishandled, the statute of limitations may not start until that course of treatment ends. A patient receiving ongoing care for the same problem is not expected to realize that the treatment itself is causing harm.
When the Clock Pauses
“Tolling” refers to situations where the statute of limitations temporarily stops running. Several circumstances can trigger tolling, effectively giving you more time to file.
- Minors. In most states, the clock is paused while the injured person is under the age of legal majority. Once the person turns eighteen (or twenty in some states), the standard deadline begins running from that point.
- Mental incapacity. If you lack the cognitive ability to understand your legal rights at the time the claim arises, the deadline is typically paused until that incapacity is resolved.
- Defendant fleeing the jurisdiction. In criminal cases, the clock stops if the accused leaves the jurisdiction to avoid prosecution. Federal law states that no statute of limitations applies to anyone fleeing from justice.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S.C. 3290 – Fugitives From Justice
- Active military service. Under federal law, time spent on active duty is excluded from the calculation of any filing deadline, both for claims a servicemember wants to bring and claims brought against them. This protection does not apply to IRS tax deadlines.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 U.S.C. 3936 – Statute of Limitations
Tolling pauses the countdown rather than extending it permanently. Whatever time you had left before the pause is what you get when the clock restarts.
What Happens When the Deadline Expires
In civil cases, an expired statute of limitations is what the law calls an “affirmative defense.” The court will not automatically throw out a late-filed lawsuit. The defendant has to raise the defense. Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the statute of limitations is specifically listed as a defense that must be asserted in the defendant’s response to the lawsuit.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 8 – General Rules of Pleading If the defendant does not raise it, the case can proceed even though the deadline technically passed.
In criminal cases, the result is typically a dismissal. If the prosecution files charges after the applicable deadline has run, the defendant can move to have the case thrown out. Courts are more likely to notice timing issues on their own in criminal proceedings than in civil ones, though the defense still bears the burden of raising the issue.
An expired deadline does not erase the underlying wrong. A creditor whose lawsuit window has closed can still attempt to collect informally. A person who committed a crime with an expired deadline cannot be prosecuted for it, but the conduct may still be relevant in other legal proceedings. The statute of limitations bars the legal remedy, not the underlying facts.
Statute of Repose Is a Different Deadline
A statute of repose looks similar to a statute of limitations but works very differently. A statute of limitations starts running when you are injured or discover the harm. A statute of repose starts running from the date of the defendant’s last act, regardless of whether anyone has been hurt yet. If the repose period expires before you are even injured, your claim is barred before it exists.
Statutes of repose appear most commonly in two areas: construction defect claims and product liability cases. In construction disputes, the clock typically starts when the building project is completed or substantially finished. In product liability, it often starts from the date of manufacture, sale, or first use. These periods commonly range from six to twelve years, depending on the state and the type of claim.
The critical difference is that statutes of repose generally cannot be tolled. The discovery rule, minority tolling, and other pausing mechanisms that apply to statutes of limitations typically do not apply to repose periods. A repose period sets a hard outer boundary. Once it expires, no exceptions will revive the claim. If you are dealing with an injury from an older building or a product manufactured many years ago, a statute of repose may matter more than the statute of limitations.
Can a Contract Shorten the Deadline?
Some contracts include a clause requiring you to file any lawsuit within a shorter period than the law otherwise allows. Courts have generally permitted these clauses as long as two conditions are met: no statute specifically prohibits the shortened period, and the shortened period is still reasonable. An insurance policy requiring claims within one year, for example, has been upheld in many jurisdictions.
These clauses have limits. A contract giving you only thirty days to sue would likely be struck down as unreasonably short. For certain claims, particularly federal employment discrimination claims, courts have found that contractual shortening interferes with mandatory administrative processes and is unenforceable. If you are bound by a contract with a shortened filing period, enforceability depends on the type of claim and whether the time allowed is reasonable under the circumstances.