Statute of limitations calculator

What a statute of limitations actually does

A statute of limitations is a hard deadline for starting a lawsuit. The clock usually starts on the date the harm happened — the crash, the breach, the missed payment — and once it runs out, the court will dismiss the case no matter how strong it is. The rule exists to keep claims fresh: evidence fades, memories blur, and defendants should not have to defend stale disputes indefinitely. Each state sets its own periods, and they differ by the type of claim, which is why the same accident can have a two-year window in one state and a six-year window across the border.

Tolling — when the clock pauses

Tolling is anything that stops or delays the clock. The most common triggers are the discovery rule (the clock starts when you reasonably should have discovered the injury, not when it happened — critical for hidden defects or latent medical harm), the claimant being a minor or legally incapacitated, the defendant leaving the state or fraudulently concealing the wrong, and ongoing treatment in malpractice cases. Tolling can buy years, but it is fact-specific and easy to get wrong — this calculator ignores it entirely, so treat its dates as a floor, not a guarantee.

Why the same claim has a different deadline in every state

There is no federal statute of limitations for ordinary civil claims, so each legislature draws its own lines. Some states bundle most tort claims under one general personal-injury period; others carve out shorter windows for defamation (often one year) or longer ones for written contracts (up to ten years). Recent reforms shift these too — Florida cut its general negligence window from four years to two in 2023. Use the comparator above to see the spread, then check the live days-between calculator if you need to count exact days between events.