Statute of Limitations Checker

Understanding Statutes of Limitations

A statute of limitations sets the maximum time you have to file a lawsuit after an injury, breach, or incident occurs. Once the deadline passes, the court will dismiss your case regardless of its merits. These deadlines exist to ensure that cases are brought while evidence is fresh and witnesses are available. They also provide certainty for potential defendants who would otherwise face the threat of litigation indefinitely.

The length of the deadline depends on two main factors: the state where you file and the type of claim. Personal injury deadlines run from 1 year to 6 years, and 42 of the 51 jurisdictions set them at 2 or 3. Kentucky and Tennessee are the shortest at 1 year, Maine, Minnesota and North Dakota the longest at 6, and each of those figures sits next to the statute that sets it in the table below. The other case types work the same way, each under its own statute, but those statutes have not been read state by state yet, so this page does not put a number on them.

Source: the limitations statute of each state, cited next to the personal injury figure it sets. Updated 2026.

The Discovery Rule and Tolling

The discovery rule is the most common exception to the standard deadline. It delays the start of the statute of limitations until the plaintiff discovers (or reasonably should have discovered) the injury. This is especially important in medical malpractice cases, where a surgical error might not become apparent for months or years. It also applies to fraud cases where the defendant actively concealed wrongdoing, and to product liability cases where a defect causes delayed harm.

Tolling pauses the clock under specific circumstances. If the plaintiff was a minor when the injury occurred, the statute of limitations is tolled (paused) until the child turns 18 in most states. Mental incapacity can also toll the deadline. If the defendant leaves the state, many states pause the clock for the duration of absence, since the plaintiff cannot effectively serve process on someone outside the jurisdiction. Military service under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act provides additional tolling protection. Some states also toll the deadline during bankruptcy proceedings.

State-by-State Filing Deadlines

Filing deadlines vary widely across the 50 states. For personal injury, the range spans from 1 year (Kentucky, Tennessee) to 6 years (Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota). The majority of states set the deadline at 2 years (including California, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas) or 3 years (including New York, Massachusetts, Maryland and Michigan). Florida cut its negligence deadline from 4 years to 2 in 2023, and Louisiana moved from 1 year to 2 in 2024.

Written contract deadlines show even more variation. The longest contract periods run to a decade, but the figure for any one state belongs to that state statute and is not published here yet. New York and New Jersey allow 6 years. California allows only 4 years, among the shortest. For medical malpractice the spread is wider and the clock usually starts when the harm is discovered rather than on the treatment date, but the state by state figures are not published here until each has been read against its statute. Many states have separate statutes of repose that set an absolute outer limit regardless of when the injury was discovered, typically 5 to 10 years from the date of the act.

Sources: State Civil Procedure Codes, National Conference of State Legislatures, and the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School. Updated 2026.

The Deadline in Every State, With the Statute That Sets It

The deadline to sue, state by state, with the section of that state’s code beside it so you can read the law rather than take our word for it. A cell shows a period where we hold the citation for that case type and says not verified where we do not, so the table shows its own coverage rather than hiding it. Holding a citation and having read it are not the same thing, and the note under the table gives both counts, because on a deadline the difference matters: miss it and the claim is gone for good. The clock usually starts on the date of the injury or the breach, and a discovery rule can move it when the harm was found later.

51 jurisdictions, and here is our own coverage counted honestly, because a count of states hides the gaps inside each one. A row has five things in it and they are checked separately. Citations held: 51 for personal injury, 13 for written contracts, 15 for medical malpractice. Statutes read all the way through, with the exceptions and the children's rule taken down: California, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio and Texas — 8 of 51. Spot checked only, meaning the section number and the period were matched against the statute and nothing further: Hawaii, Michigan, Florida, Washington, Illinois, Oregon and Virginia. Tennessee was read in full but in a verbatim reproduction of the official code, because the state's own site refuses us, and that is a weaker claim so it sits on its own. Across all five things on all 51 rows, 40 of 179 have been read at a source, which is 22%. The repose start point is known for 8 of the 13 states where we publish a repose, and the children's rule for 7. Where a state has an exception we have read, it sits in the cell after the word "but", because a bare period can be the whole truth and still mislead: Kentucky's year becomes two for a car crash, which is the commonest injury claim there is. And every children's rule we have read is different from the others, which is why an unread one says so instead of staying quiet: silence there would read as "no special rule", and in Louisiana that assumption costs a child their claim. Deadlines for claims against a government body are usually far shorter than any of these, and often start with a notice of claim within months. An oral contract, a property claim, fraud and a product claim each run on their own period, which this table does not carry.