How long you have to sue a company runs anywhere from 180 days to six years or more, depending on what the company did, which state you are in, whether federal law applies, and what any contract you signed says. Personal injury, breach of contract, and property damage claims typically fall between one and six years. Employment discrimination charges can expire in as little as 180 days. Missing the deadline by a single day is usually enough to end an otherwise strong case.
Typical State Deadlines by Claim Type
Most lawsuits against companies run on deadlines set by state law, and those deadlines change with the kind of harm involved. The common categories:
- Personal injury. A slip and fall at a store, an accident caused by a delivery truck, or any other physical injury generally carries a two- to three-year deadline from the date of injury. A handful of states allow as little as one year; a few permit up to six.
- Breach of contract. When a company breaks a written agreement, you typically have three to six years to sue, and some states allow up to ten years for written contracts. Oral contracts usually carry shorter deadlines.
- Property damage. If a company damaged your home, vehicle, or belongings, most states set the deadline at two to three years from the date of the damage.
- Professional malpractice. Claims against companies for substandard professional work often carry shorter windows, commonly one to three years. Some states start counting from the date you discovered the problem rather than the date it occurred.
Because state deadlines vary this much, confirming the exact number in your jurisdiction is the first practical step. State court websites and local bar associations publish this information.
Federal Deadlines That Override State Law
Several types of claims follow federal timelines that apply everywhere in the country. Some are much shorter than people expect.
Employment Discrimination
If a company discriminated against you based on race, sex, religion, disability, or another protected characteristic, you generally need to file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission within 180 days of the discriminatory act. That deadline extends to 300 days if your state or local government has its own anti-discrimination agency enforcing a similar law.1U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits For Filing A Charge Filing with the EEOC is a required first step; you cannot go straight to court. Once the EEOC issues a right-to-sue letter, you have 90 days to file a federal lawsuit.
Unpaid Wages and Overtime
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, you have two years to sue a company for unpaid minimum wages or overtime. If the violation was willful, meaning the company knew it was breaking the law or showed reckless disregard, the window extends to three years.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 255 – Statute of Limitations
Employee Benefits Under ERISA
If your employer denied retirement or health benefits governed by ERISA, the deadline depends on what you knew and when. You have three years from the date you first gained actual knowledge of a fiduciary breach, or six years from the date the breach occurred, whichever comes first.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 1113 – Limitation of Actions When the breach involved fraud or concealment, the six-year clock runs from the date of discovery.
Securities Fraud
If a company defrauded you as an investor through manipulated financial statements, deceptive disclosures, or insider trading, federal law gives you the earlier of two years after you discover the fraud or five years after the violation occurred.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 1658 – Time Limitations on the Commencement of Civil Actions The five-year outer limit is a hard cutoff, even if you had no way of knowing sooner.
Toxic Exposure
When a company releases hazardous substances that cause injury or property damage, federal law overrides any state deadline that would start the clock too early. Under CERCLA, the filing window begins on the date you knew or should have known your injury was connected to the exposure, not the date the substance was released.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 9658 – Actions Under State Law for Damages From Exposure to Hazardous Substances A worker exposed to a chemical in 2016 who develops a related illness in 2026 would see the clock start at diagnosis.
When the Clock Actually Starts
For most claims, the deadline starts ticking the moment the harm happens: the day of the accident, the date the contract was broken, or when the property was damaged. But not every injury shows up right away. The discovery rule delays the start of the clock until you actually discover the harm, or until a reasonable person in your situation would have.
Corporate fraud is the classic example. A company that manipulates its accounting can hide losses from investors for years, so the clock does not start until statements or audit results reveal the loss. Courts apply similar logic to defective products, environmental contamination, and structural defects in buildings.
The discovery rule is not automatic. If you file after the standard deadline and rely on it, you have to show when and how you discovered the injury and why you could not have found out sooner despite reasonable care. Courts will look for warning signs a diligent person would have caught. A company that can show the harm was obvious, or that you ignored red flags, can argue the standard deadline should apply.
Statutes of Repose: The Absolute Cutoff
Even when the discovery rule extends your deadline, a statute of repose can cut it off entirely. A statute of repose is an absolute outer limit measured from a specific triggering event, like the date a product was sold or a building was completed, regardless of whether you have discovered the injury yet. It cannot be paused or extended through tolling or the discovery rule.
These deadlines are most common in product liability and construction defect cases. For defective products, states that impose a statute of repose typically set it between 10 and 15 years from the date of sale. Construction defects follow a similar pattern, with cutoffs ranging from about 4 to 15 years depending on the state. If you discover a problem after the repose period has expired, you lose the right to sue no matter how serious the defect or how well it was hidden.
Consider a heating system installed in a commercial building. A hidden defect causes a fire 14 years later. If the state has a 10-year statute of repose for construction, the claim is barred, even though there was no way to know about the defect beforehand.
When the Clock Pauses
Tolling pauses a deadline that has already started running. Several circumstances can trigger it.
Age and Mental Capacity
If the injured person is a minor, the deadline typically pauses until age 18. After reaching adulthood, they get the standard number of years to file. A child injured at age 10 in a state with a two-year deadline would generally have until age 20 to sue. Mental incapacity works similarly: someone who cannot understand their legal rights because of a cognitive disability or serious mental illness can have the clock paused until capacity is restored or a legal representative is appointed.
A Company That Evades Service
If a company deliberately avoids being served with legal papers by shutting down its registered office, moving out of the jurisdiction, or concealing its officers, the time it spends evading service generally does not count toward the deadline.
Military Service
The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act excludes an active-duty member’s period of service from any filing deadline. Time spent on active duty is not counted against your statute of limitations.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 U.S. Code 3936 – Statute of Limitations The protection applies in state and federal courts, though not to federal tax matters.
Class Action Participation
When someone files a class action against a company, the deadline is paused for every member of the proposed class, even those who do not know the case exists. The Supreme Court established this rule to prevent precautionary individual filings while class certification is pending.7Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell Law School. American Pipe and Construction Co. v. Utah If the court later denies certification, individual class members regain the ability to file with the remaining time on their clocks.
Company Bankruptcy
If the company files for bankruptcy, federal law automatically halts most pending and new lawsuits against it. This automatic stay lasts until the bankruptcy case concludes or the court lifts it.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 U.S. Code 362 – Automatic Stay During that time, your statute of limitations may be tolled so you do not lose your right to sue while legally barred from proceeding.
Notice Requirements That Come Before the Lawsuit
Some claims require a formal notice step before you can file in court, with a much shorter deadline than the underlying statute of limitations. This is common when the defendant is a government entity or a company performing public services like transit or utilities. Written notice describing the incident and the damages must often be filed within 60 to 90 days after the incident. Missing this notice deadline can permanently bar the lawsuit even if the underlying statute of limitations has years left.
Federal claims against the United States follow the same pattern under the Federal Tort Claims Act. You must submit a written claim to the responsible federal agency within two years of the incident.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2401 – Time for Commencing Action Against United States If the agency denies the claim, you then have six months from the denial to file a lawsuit. If the agency does not respond within six months, you can treat the silence as a denial and proceed. Going directly to court without filing the administrative claim is not an option; the case will be dismissed.
Contract Clauses That Shorten Your Deadline
The fine print in employment contracts, purchase agreements, and terms-of-service agreements often includes clauses that cut your filing window shorter than what state law provides. You might unknowingly agree to a one-year deadline for disputes when your state normally allows three or four years. Courts generally enforce these shortened windows in commercial agreements between businesses, and often in consumer and employment contexts as well.
The limit is unconscionability. A clause that shrinks the deadline to 30 or 60 days may be struck down if a court finds it left no realistic opportunity to investigate and file. Courts weigh whether you had bargaining power when signing, whether the shortened period was conspicuous in the agreement, and whether the timeframe effectively eliminated your right to sue.10Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell Law School. UCC 2-302 – Unconscionable Contract or Clause A one-year window is commonly upheld; anything much shorter faces increasing judicial skepticism.
For contracts involving the sale of goods, the Uniform Commercial Code sets a default four-year deadline and allows parties to shorten it to no less than one year by agreement. If a contract is silent about filing deadlines, the state statute of limitations applies. Before assuming you have years to act, review every agreement you signed with the company. The answer may already be locked into a clause you overlooked.
What Happens If the Deadline Passes
An expired statute of limitations does not automatically block a lawsuit, but it hands the company a defense that ends the case quickly. The company has to raise the expired deadline; if it fails to, the case proceeds. In practice, almost every company represented by counsel raises this defense immediately. Once the court accepts it, the case is dismissed with prejudice, meaning you cannot refile.
One narrow escape exists if you filed on time but need to change the claims or the named defendant after the deadline. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15 allows an amended complaint to “relate back” to the original filing date when the new claim arises from the same set of facts and the correct defendant received notice of the lawsuit early enough that it will not be unfairly surprised.11Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell Law School. Rule 15 – Amended and Supplemental Pleadings This helps when you sued the right company under the wrong name, or when you discover an additional legal theory after filing. It does not rescue someone who never filed at all.
Courts occasionally grant equitable tolling in extraordinary circumstances, where a plaintiff did everything right and still could not file on time. It is rare and difficult to win. The safer path is to identify your deadline early and file well before it expires. If you are unsure which deadline applies, consulting an attorney while there is still time costs far less than discovering your claim is permanently barred.