The civil filing deadline — the statute of limitations — is the most consequential rule of procedure most non-litigators have never thought about. Miss it by a day and the strongest case in the world is dead. The frustrating part: there is no national rule. Each state legislature picks its own number, and the numbers do not agree.
We collected the civil statute of limitations for nine common causes of action across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, with each entry verified against the official state legislature's online code. The maps below show how five of those deadlines vary across the country. Each map uses a different base color so you can hold them side by side; in every case, lighter shades mean a shorter filing window and darker shades mean a longer one.
If you want the underlying numbers, citations, and an interactive lookup tool, jump to the live tool; the full dataset is also available as a downloadable CSV.
1. Personal injury — only two states give you just one year
The personal-injury map is dominated by 2- and 3-year deadlines. Two outliers stand out at the lighter end of the scale: Kentucky and Tennessee, the only jurisdictions in the survey that hold injured plaintiffs to a one-year filing window. A car wreck in Knoxville has half the filing window of the same wreck across the border in Atlanta.
Louisiana used to share the one-year distinction; Act 423 of 2024 extended its general delictual prescription to two years for acts on or after July 1, 2024 (La. Civ. Code art. 3493.11). That move alone affects an estimated 4.5 million plaintiffs over time. Florida went the other direction in 2023: HB 837 cut its general negligence statute from four years to two (Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5)(a)), joining the two-year majority.
2. Medical malpractice — five states allow only one year, and three changed in 2025
Medical malpractice has the fastest-changing rules of any civil cause of action we tracked. Five states still allow only one year for medical-malpractice claims: California, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Tennessee. California softens its one-year rule with a discovery rule capped at three years from injury (Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 340.5); the other four are stricter.
Three states cut their medical-malpractice deadline in 2025 alone: Missouri from five years to two (HB 68, August 2025), Minnesota from four years to two (SF 3489, August 2025), and the same direction is reflected in the live data. Utah went the opposite way (HB 288, May 2025) — it extended the discovery period to four years and the statute of repose to eight. Louisiana doubled its general delictual prescription to two years in mid-2024.
For a doctor or hospital, this means the legal exposure window for any given act of care now varies by a factor of four depending on where the care was delivered. For a patient, it means the same alleged injury can be timely in one state and time-barred in another.
3. Defamation — the silent one-year trap
Defamation is the shortest civil deadline in most of America. 28 of the 51 jurisdictions in our survey allow only one year for libel and slander claims, including every populous state except Florida, Massachusetts, and Washington. People who plan to sue over a damaging social-media post often discover the trap too late: by the time they retain counsel and gather evidence, the clock has already run.
Tennessee compounds the trap by drawing a distinction between libel (one year) and slander (six months). A defamatory tweet may be timely; the same content spoken at a podium or on a podcast may not be.
The single-publication rule, recognized in most states, means that the clock for an online article generally starts at first publication, not at every share. That is good news for defendants and bad news for plaintiffs who notice the article late.
4. Written contract — a 3.3× spread, three to ten years
Written-contract deadlines stretch from three years (Alaska) to ten years in 9 states (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Wyoming). Same paper agreement, same breach — your remedy is good for three to ten years depending on where the suit is filed.
If you have a real choice of forum (a non-exclusive venue clause, an out-of-state defendant, multiple defendants in different states), this matters a lot. Picking the wrong state can dismiss an otherwise valid claim before discovery starts. Picking the right one can keep a claim alive for nearly a decade longer.
The same UCC § 2-725 four-year rule applies almost everywhere for sales-of-goods warranty claims, but the contract-of-services side is where the variance lives.
5. Wrongful death — short, and triggered by death rather than accrual
Wrongful-death deadlines tend to cluster at two and three years, but the trigger date is what makes them different from other torts: the clock typically starts at the date of death, not the date of the underlying injury. A patient injured in 2024 who dies in 2026 of those injuries does not get a fresh four-year window — the underlying tort claim has to have been timely as of death, and the wrongful-death period runs from death itself.
Several states have unusual procedural overlays. Kentucky requires appointment of a personal representative within one year of death before the suit can be filed. Massachusetts ties wrongful-death timeliness to the underlying tort statute. Pennsylvania and a handful of others apply a discovery rule for occupational-disease deaths.
Recent changes (2023–2026)
The maps above reflect current law as of April 30, 2026. Five state legislatures have moved their civil SOLs in the last three years:
- Florida — General negligence shortened from 4 years to 2 years (HB 837, March 24, 2023).
- Louisiana — Delictual prescription extended from 1 year to 2 years (Act 423 of 2024, effective July 1, 2024).
- Nevada — Medical malpractice restructured to a 4-years-from-injury / 2-years-from-discovery dual-track rule (AB 404 of 2023, in effect 2024).
- Utah — Medical malpractice discovery period extended from 2 to 4 years; repose extended from 4 to 8 years (HB 288, May 7, 2025).
- Minnesota — Medical malpractice shortened from 4 years to 2 years (SF 3489, August 1, 2025).
- Missouri — Medical malpractice shortened from 5 years to 2 years (HB 68, August 28, 2025).
California opens a new two-year revival window for adult sexual-assault claims from January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2027 (AB 250 of 2025) — a category outside the main grid because revival windows by definition reset, rather than describe, the limitations clock.
What to do with this
If you are evaluating a potential claim, three questions matter more than the headline number on the map:
- Has the discovery rule started the clock? Many states delay the limitations period until the plaintiff knew or should have known of the injury and its cause.
- Does a statute of repose cut the claim off regardless? A repose statute runs from a fixed event — usually the negligent act or product sale — and is not tolled by discovery. Roughly two-thirds of states have a separate repose for medical malpractice; one-third do for product liability.
- Is the defendant a government entity? Suing a federal, state, or local government typically requires a notice of claim filed within months of the underlying event, not years. Missing that notice deadline kills the claim even if the underlying SOL has not run.
For a state-by-state lookup that surfaces all of these factors — period, statute citation, discovery rule, repose, exceptions — use the interactive lookup tool. Every cell is linked to the official state code.
About the data. The dataset behind these maps was assembled from official state legislature and code sites for 459 (state × cause-of-action) cells, with secondary verification against the 50-state surveys published by Nolo, Justia, and Matthiesen Wickert & Lehrer. Period values reflect headline rules; the linked statute should always be read for the full text. Last verified April 30, 2026.