A statutory period is a deadline set by law for taking a specific legal action, such as filing a lawsuit, submitting an administrative claim, or appealing a government decision. Miss it and you generally lose the right to pursue the claim at all, no matter how strong the underlying facts. These deadlines run across almost every area of law and range from as little as 60 days to several decades, depending on the type of claim and the jurisdiction.
When the Clock Starts
Most statutory periods begin the day your claim “accrues,” meaning the moment all the elements of a valid legal claim exist. For a car crash, that’s usually the day of the collision. For a broken contract, it’s the day the other side failed to perform. Once you have a reason to sue, the countdown is on.
Some harms, though, aren’t visible right away. A surgical sponge left inside a patient, a hidden construction defect, a fraud that only surfaces years later: in those situations, the discovery rule applies. The clock starts when you actually discovered the injury or when a reasonable person in your position should have discovered it. The rule shows up in most jurisdictions for medical malpractice, fraud, and certain product defect claims, but the specifics vary, and you shouldn’t assume it covers your situation without checking.
Statutes of Repose Are Not the Same Thing
People commonly treat “statute of limitations” and “statute of repose” as interchangeable. They aren’t, and the difference can decide a case.
A statute of limitations runs from the date your claim accrues or when you discover your injury. A statute of repose runs from a fixed event, such as the completion of a building or the sale of a product, whether or not anyone has yet been harmed. You could discover a serious construction defect on the final day of a repose period and still have no claim.
Repose deadlines also tend to be rigid. The tolling doctrines that pause limitations periods generally don’t apply, so the clock runs without interruption once the triggering event occurs. Most states set construction-defect repose periods somewhere between 5 and 20 years after project completion, and some apply repose rules to product liability and medical device claims as well. If your situation involves an older building or a long-standing product, the repose deadline may matter more than the limitations deadline.
Common Deadlines by Claim Type
How long you have depends heavily on what kind of claim you’re bringing. A few of the categories people run into most often:
Personal Injury and Contract Disputes
Personal injury suits, from car accidents to slip-and-falls, generally must be filed within one to six years of the injury or its discovery. Written contract claims usually get longer windows, typically four to ten years. Oral contracts tend to carry shorter deadlines than written ones, often three to six years, because courts treat them as less reliable evidence of what was agreed. The exact number depends on your state.
IRS Audits
The IRS has three years from the date you filed your return (or the due date, whichever is later) to audit and assess additional tax. The window stretches to six years if you underreported gross income by more than 25%. For a fraudulent return or no return at all, there is no deadline at all — the IRS can act whenever it wants.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6501 – Limitations on Assessment and Collection Skipping a filing doesn’t make the exposure go away. It makes it permanent.
Claims Against the Federal Government
Suing a federal agency isn’t like suing a private party. Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, you must first file a written administrative claim with the responsible agency within two years of the incident. If the agency denies it, you then have six months from the denial to file in federal court.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2401 – Time for Commencing Action Against United States Miss either deadline and the claim is, in the statute’s own words, “forever barred.”
Employment Discrimination
To bring a federal discrimination claim based on race, sex, religion, national origin, age, or disability, you generally have to file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission within 180 calendar days of the discriminatory act. The window stretches to 300 days if a state or local agency also enforces a law covering the same type of discrimination.3U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits For Filing A Charge Each discriminatory event has its own clock. If you were demoted months before being fired, the demotion claim can expire on its own timeline even if the termination claim is still alive.
Social Security Appeals
If the Social Security Administration denies your claim, you have 60 days to appeal. The agency presumes you got the denial notice five days after its printed date, so the real window from the notice date is closer to 65 days.4Social Security Administration. GN 03101.010 – Time Limit for Filing Administrative Appeals Blowing the deadline typically means starting the entire application over, which can add months or years to an already slow process.5Social Security Administration. Understanding Supplemental Security Income Appeals Process
What Can Pause the Clock
The law recognizes that rigid deadlines sometimes produce unfair results. “Tolling” is the term for pausing a statutory period, and it comes in several forms.
Minors and People Lacking Capacity
If the person with the claim is a minor, the statutory period typically does not begin until they turn 18. If a person lacks the mental capacity to understand and pursue their rights, the clock may pause until that incapacity ends. Once the minor becomes an adult or capacity returns, the countdown resumes.
A Defendant Who Hides
If the person you need to sue leaves the jurisdiction or actively conceals themselves to avoid service, many states pause the clock during the absence. A related doctrine, fraudulent concealment, applies when a defendant deliberately hides the wrongdoing itself. If a contractor buried evidence of defective work behind finished drywall, for instance, the clock may not start until the deception is uncovered or reasonably should have been.
Equitable Tolling
Courts can sometimes pause a deadline even without a specific statute allowing it. The U.S. Supreme Court’s standard requires two showings: that you pursued your rights diligently, and that some extraordinary circumstance beyond your control prevented timely filing. Equitable tolling is narrow. Not knowing the law, or an attorney missing the date, usually will not qualify.
What Happens If You File Late
An expired statutory period doesn’t automatically dissolve your case. In a lawsuit, it gives the defendant an affirmative defense, which they have to raise in their answer. If they fail to raise it, the case can proceed. In practice, defense attorneys rarely miss it, so counting on a waiver is not a plan.
Once the defense is raised and the court agrees the period has run, the case is dismissed on procedural grounds. The court never reaches the merits. The underlying facts could be overwhelming and it won’t matter — this is where statutory periods feel harshest, because the strength of your evidence stops being relevant the moment the deadline passes.
Administrative deadlines are even more automatic. There’s no opposing party who needs to object. The agency itself refuses to process a late filing.6U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Filing A Charge of Discrimination
Protecting Your Claim
The most common mistake is assuming you have more time than you do. The second most common is confusing the deadline for one type of claim with another. A single car accident can produce a personal injury claim and a property damage claim with different deadlines in the same state. Identify every potential claim early and look up the deadline for each one individually.
Watch for required preliminary steps. EEOC charges and FTCA administrative claims are prerequisites to suing, not alternatives. Filing a lawsuit without first completing the administrative step gets the case thrown out regardless of how fast you moved. When the window is short, as with the 60-day Social Security appeal or the 180-day EEOC charge period, the margin for error is essentially zero. If you’re anywhere near a deadline and uncertain whether a claim is still timely, a professional opinion is almost always worth more than the cost of the consultation.