Personal Injury Filing Deadlines: How to Check Your State

A personal injury deadline check starts with the state, the type of claim, and when the claim legally arose. A calculator can illustrate a date, but it cannot resolve those questions from the incident date alone.

This guide explains how to look up your state's deadline, how our statute of limitations calculator does its date math, and — just as important — what the calculator does not decide for you. A Spanish-language version of the calculator is also available: calculadora de plazos de prescripción.

This article is educational only and is not legal advice. The examples below cover five reviewed states. They do not cover all states, and the absence of a state here does not mean its deadline matches any example.

Why deadlines vary — and change

Deadlines are set by state statutes, and legislatures amend them. Two recent examples show why you should never rely on an old article or a remembered number:

• Florida shortened its ordinary-negligence period from four years to two years under HB 837, effective March 24, 2023 (enrolled bill text, bill history, current Fla. Stat. § 95.11).
• Louisiana lengthened its period from one year to two years under Act 423, which applies prospectively and took effect July 1, 2024 (signed act, current codification).

For Florida and Louisiana, the calculator uses the earlier period for dates before the change and two years for dates after it. An incident or selected discovery date on the effective day, or incident and discovery dates spanning the change, produces a review message instead of a filing estimate. That message does not mean the claim has no deadline. The applicable period and legal accrual date still need verification.

Five reviewed state examples

The linked sources for these five examples were checked on September 12, 2026. This is a selected comparison, not a complete fifty-state survey. Specific claims, public defendants and exceptions require separate review.

A federal decision from May 2, 2025 applying Minnesota law describes the six-year period for common negligence, citing Kaiser v. Memorial Blood Center (decision PDF).

Our broader statute of limitations by state lookup is currently under editorial review for the remaining states and should not be treated as verified legal authority.

Government claims: a much shorter clock

If your claim involves a public entity, a separate notice deadline may run before any lawsuit deadline. Two reviewed examples: California Government Code § 911.2 requires a claim within six months for covered injury or death claims (source), and New York General Municipal Law § 50-e requires notice within 90 days for covered claims, with specific exceptions (source). Note the units: months and days are not interchangeable, and our tool does not convert a months-based rule into a fixed day count.

How the calculator's date math works

The calculator performs calendar arithmetic only:

• It adds calendar years to the date you enter. Example: April 20, 2025 plus 2 years equals April 20, 2027. That is a software date calculation, not a legal determination that April 20, 2027 is your filing deadline.
• If the start date is February 29 and the target year has no February 29, the result clamps to February 28.
• Notice-period calculations add calendar days.
• It makes no adjustment for weekends, holidays, court closures, filing cutoffs, tolling, or service-of-process rules.
• The date you enter is treated as an assumed accrual date. The calculator does not decide when your claim legally accrued — accrual, delayed discovery, and tolling are legal questions for an attorney.

Steps to record and verify your dates

1. Write down the incident date immediately, plus when you first noticed the injury if different.
2. Gather corroborating records: medical visits, police or incident reports, photos with timestamps, correspondence.
3. Keep insurance records separate from court deadlines. Record when the insurer received the claim and when any court papers were filed or served. Do not assume an insurance discussion changes a court deadline; verify any claimed extension or tolling rule separately.
4. Read your state's statute at the official source, using links like those in the table above, and note the version date.
5. Run the numbers with the calculator, remembering its software-only limits, and optionally track everything in our Google Sheets deadline organizer.
6. Confirm with a licensed attorney in your state well before any calculated date.

Questions to resolve before relying on a date

Identify every potential defendant and claim type. Ask which event starts the period, whether a separate notice or service requirement applies, and whether any supported exception changes the calculation. A later diagnosis, minority, military service, alleged concealment or lost evidence is a reason to investigate the applicable rule; none is treated here as an automatic extension or restart. Save the statute, its version date, relevant records and the basis for any professional advice in your deadline log.