Statute of Limitations Deadline
Filing deadline by claim type for the states with verified limitation periods.
Written and maintained by Paul Clark, Redmoon Software · Rules last verified · Sources
These calculators are for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice.
How the Statute of Limitations Deadline works
The Statute of Limitations Deadline calculator projects the date a claim becomes time-barred, counting forward from the accrual date by the limitation period for the claim type and state. Because a missed limitation period ends the claim permanently — no extension, no discretion, no cure — this tool is deliberately conservative about what it will tell you.
<strong>It covers four states: California, New York, Texas and Florida.</strong> Select any other state and it returns no date at all, and says so. That is a change from how it used to behave: it previously fell back to a generic period for the other 46, which produced a confident answer that was wrong wherever the real period was shorter. A personal-injury claim runs one year in Tennessee and Kentucky against the two years the fallback assumed — so the tool was handing users a date a full year after their claim had already died, in the one direction where the error is fatal.
Even inside the four covered states, the arithmetic is the easy part. The hard questions are when the clock started and whether anything paused it. Accrual is usually the date of injury or breach, but the discovery rule can delay it until the harm was or should have been found, which matters enormously in professional negligence and fraud. Tolling can pause it for minority, incapacity, the defendant leaving the state, or bankruptcy. Claims against a government body usually require a separate notice of claim within a far shorter window — often 90 or 180 days — that runs independently and bars the suit if missed. Get the accrual date and the tolling analysis from a lawyer; use this for the count once they are settled.
Worked example
A personal-injury claim accrues in California on Thursday, 1 January 2026. The limitation period is two years, so the deadline is Saturday, 1 January 2028 — and note that limitation deadlines do not roll forward off a weekend the way filing deadlines often do, so treat the preceding Friday as the practical last day. Select Tennessee instead and the calculator returns no date — it names the four states it has verified periods for and tells you to source Tennessee’s from the statute. That is the intended behaviour: Tennessee’s injury period is one year, so any generic two-year fallback would have pointed at 2028 when the real bar fell in 2027.
Frequently asked questions
Why will it not give me a date for my state?
Because a wrong limitation date is worse than no date. Periods for the same claim type range from one to six years across states, and the tool holds verified figures for four of them. Rather than apply one state’s number to another’s claim, it declines and tells you which states it covers. Find your state’s period in its own statute or from a local attorney, then count it from the accrual date.
Does the deadline run from the injury or from when I found out?
It depends on the claim and the state. The default is accrual at the time of the injury or breach, which is what this calculator counts from. Many states apply a discovery rule to some claim types — latent injuries, professional negligence, fraud — that delays accrual until the harm was or reasonably should have been discovered. Which rule applies is a legal question and it changes the start date, so settle it before counting.
Does this cover claims against a government body?
No, and this is a common way to lose an otherwise good claim. Suits against public entities usually require a notice of claim within a much shorter window than the general limitation period — frequently 90 or 180 days from the incident — and failing to file that notice bars the action regardless of how much time the limitation period had left. If a government defendant is involved, find the notice deadline first.
Why does it return nothing for my state?
Because that state’s data has not been verified, and a plausible wrong date here is worse than no date. Limitation periods run from one year to six depending on the state and the claim, so a default would be badly wrong somewhere — an earlier version used one and reported personal-injury deadlines a full year late in one-year states. The states marked with a tick have checked data.
Does a settlement negotiation pause the limitation period?
No. Neither does an insurer saying the file is still under review. The period runs until a claim is filed, and both of those are common ways for a deadline to pass while a claimant believes the matter is being handled. Tolling exists but comes from specific circumstances — minority, incapacity, fraudulent concealment, the defendant’s absence — not from correspondence.
What this calculator does not do
A limitation you know about costs far less than one you find after the deadline. These are the specific things this tool cannot work out for you.
- Only the states marked with a tick in the picker have verified data. For any other state the calculator deliberately returns no date rather than guessing — an assumed default was reporting personal-injury deadlines a year late in one-year states.
- It does not model the discovery rule, tolling for minority or incapacity, or tolling while a defendant is out of state, all of which can move the date substantially.
Where these rules come from
The periods this calculator applies are taken from the primary sources below rather than from secondary summaries. Verify against them before relying on a date that matters.
- Cornell LII — state statutes of limitations
Starting point for the governing state code; the periods are set state by state, not federally.