How Long Do You Have to File a Discrimination Lawsuit?

The time you have to file a workplace discrimination lawsuit depends on which law you are suing under, but for most federal claims the answer comes in two parts: 180 or 300 days to file a charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, then 90 days after the EEOC issues a right-to-sue notice to file the lawsuit itself.¹ Miss either deadline and the court will almost certainly dismiss your case no matter how strong the underlying facts are.

The 180- or 300-Day EEOC Charge Deadline

Before you can sue under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, or the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, you have to file a signed charge of discrimination with the EEOC.² You cannot skip this step and head straight to court.

The baseline deadline is 180 calendar days from the day the discriminatory act happened. That clock starts on the date of a specific event like a firing, demotion, or refusal to hire.³ If multiple discriminatory acts occurred, each one carries its own separate 180-day window.

That window extends to 300 days if you live in a state or locality with its own law banning the same type of discrimination and an agency to enforce it.⁴ Most states have such laws, so in practice most workers get 300 days rather than 180. Age claims are the exception. For age discrimination, the 300-day extension only applies when both a state law and a state enforcement agency exist. A local ordinance alone will not trigger it.³

When the Clock Starts, and When It Resets

For a one-time event, the start date is straightforward: the day the firing, demotion, or denial happened. Pay discrimination works differently because the harm repeats with every paycheck.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 changed how the deadline runs for compensation discrimination under Title VII, the ADEA, and the ADA. The filing window restarts each time you receive a paycheck reflecting a discriminatory pay decision.⁵ If your employer set your salary lower than colleagues’ for a discriminatory reason years ago, you can still file a charge as long as a discriminatory paycheck arrived within the last 180 or 300 days.⁶

The 90-Day Deadline to File in Court

Filing the EEOC charge is an administrative step, not a lawsuit. When the EEOC finishes with your charge, it sends you a Notice of Right to Sue. From the day you receive that notice, you have exactly 90 days to file your lawsuit in federal court.⁷ Courts enforce this deadline rigidly. Day 91 is too late.

You do not have to wait for the EEOC to finish investigating. Once your charge has been on file for 180 days, you can request the right-to-sue notice yourself, and the EEOC is required by law to issue it.⁷ That matters because EEOC investigations take about 10 months on average.⁸ Requesting the notice early gets you into court sooner, but once the EEOC issues it, the agency generally stops investigating.

Age Discrimination Has Its Own Timing

Age discrimination claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act still require an EEOC charge on the same 180- or 300-day timeline. But you do not need a right-to-sue notice to file suit. Sixty days after filing your charge, you can go to court on your own.⁹ The 60-day wait gives the agency a brief window to attempt conciliation before litigation.

Claims That Skip the EEOC

Two important categories of discrimination claim let you go directly to court without filing a charge first.

Equal Pay Act

The Equal Pay Act, which prohibits sex-based wage differences for substantially equal work, does not require an EEOC charge. You can sue directly. The deadline is two years from the last discriminatory paycheck, or three years if the violation was willful.³ You can still file an EEOC charge if you prefer, but you are not required to.

Section 1981 for Race Discrimination

Race discrimination claims may also proceed under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, a federal civil rights statute covering discrimination in contracts, including employment contracts. Section 1981 claims do not go through the EEOC. The statute of limitations is four years, far longer than Title VII’s timeline.¹⁰ Section 1981 also allows uncapped compensatory and punitive damages, unlike Title VII’s statutory caps. It only covers race and ethnicity, though. It does not reach claims based on sex, age, disability, or religion.

Federal Employees Have Much Shorter Deadlines

Federal workers do not file EEOC charges. They go through their own agency’s Equal Employment Opportunity process, and the deadlines are considerably tighter.

The first step is contacting an EEO counselor at your agency within 45 days of the discriminatory act. This is where most federal employees lose their claims. Forty-five days is not much time, especially if you are hoping the situation resolves on its own. If counseling does not settle the matter, you then have 15 days from the date you receive notice that counseling has ended to file a formal complaint with your agency’s EEO office.¹¹

State Agencies and Dual Filing

Most states have their own anti-discrimination laws enforced by Fair Employment Practices Agencies, and state filing deadlines are often more generous than the federal timeline. The EEOC has worksharing agreements with roughly 90 of these agencies.¹² A charge filed with either agency is automatically dual-filed with the other, preserving your rights under both federal and state law without requiring two separate complaints.¹³ File within whichever deadline expires first.

Some states also let you sue under state law without going through the administrative process at all, or with a shorter waiting period than the federal system requires. Because those rules differ significantly, check your state agency’s requirements rather than assuming the federal timeline governs.

Narrow Exceptions That Can Extend a Deadline

The deadlines above are enforced strictly, but two doctrines occasionally provide relief.

Continuing Violation Doctrine

When discrimination takes the form of ongoing harassment creating a hostile work environment, the filing deadline can run from the most recent act rather than the first one. In National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, the Supreme Court held that a hostile work environment claim is timely as long as at least one contributing act falls within the 180- or 300-day window. Earlier acts that would otherwise be time-barred can still be considered part of the same unlawful pattern.¹⁴

The same case drew a firm line for one-time events. Discrete acts like firings, demotions, or failures to promote each start their own independent filing clock. Even when a discrete act relates to other discriminatory conduct, it becomes permanently time-barred once its individual window closes.¹⁴

Equitable Tolling

Courts sometimes pause a filing deadline when extraordinary factors prevented timely filing. Qualifying situations usually involve something beyond your control: an employer that actively concealed the discrimination, incorrect information from the EEOC about your deadline, or a serious medical condition that made filing impossible. Not knowing about the deadline almost never qualifies, and neither does hiring a lawyer who missed it. The Morgan decision confirmed that courts retain power to apply equitable tolling, but the bar is deliberately high.¹⁴

Key Deadlines at a Glance

Title VII, ADA, GINA charge with the EEOC: 180 days from the discriminatory act, or 300 days if a state or local agency enforces a similar law.
Title VII, ADA, GINA lawsuit: 90 days after receiving the right-to-sue notice.
Age discrimination charge: 180 days, or 300 days if both a state law and a state agency cover age discrimination.
Age discrimination lawsuit: 60 days after filing the EEOC charge, no right-to-sue notice needed.
Equal Pay Act lawsuit: two years from the last discriminatory paycheck, three if willful, no EEOC charge required.
Section 1981 race discrimination lawsuit: four years, no EEOC charge required.
Federal employee EEO counselor contact: 45 days from the discriminatory act.
Federal employee formal complaint: 15 days after receiving notice that counseling ended.
Pay discrimination under the Lilly Ledbetter Act: the 180- or 300-day EEOC window restarts with each affected paycheck.

The single biggest mistake people make is assuming they have more time than they do. If you think you have experienced workplace discrimination, contact the EEOC or your state agency as soon as possible rather than trying to calculate exactly how many days you have left.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 2000e-5 – Enforcement Provisions
2
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Filing A Charge of Discrimination
3
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits For Filing A Charge
4
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. How to File a Charge of Employment Discrimination
5
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Notice Concerning the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009
6
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009
7
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Filing a Lawsuit
8
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What You Can Expect After You File a Charge
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 626 – Recordkeeping, Investigation, and Enforcement
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1658 – Time Limitations on the Commencement of Civil Actions Arising Under Acts of Congress
11
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Overview Of Federal Sector EEO Complaint Process
12
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Fact Sheet – The EEOC and FEPA Data-Sharing
13
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Fair Employment Practices Agencies (FEPAs) and Dual Filing
14
Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Morgan