Arizona Statute of Limitations: Civil and Criminal Deadlines

The Arizona statute of limitations sets how long you have to file a lawsuit or bring criminal charges, and the deadlines range from one year for misdemeanors and claims against the government to six years for debts backed by a written contract. Some serious crimes, including murder and certain sex offenses, have no deadline at all. Miss the window and the case is almost always gone, no matter how strong it would have been.

Arizona Deadlines at a Glance

Personal injury, wrongful death, property damage: 2 years
Medical malpractice: 2 years (discovery rule may apply)
Fraud or mistake: 3 years from discovery
Oral debt or open account: 3 years
Written contract debt (including credit cards and medical bills): 6 years
General catchall for civil claims: 4 years
Product liability: 2 years, with a 12-year outer limit from first sale
Claim against a government entity: 1 year to sue, 180 days to serve notice
Misdemeanor prosecution: 1 year
Felony prosecution (Class 2–6): 7 years
Homicide and certain other serious offenses: no limit

Civil Filing Deadlines

Injury, Death, and Property Damage

You get two years to file for personal injury, wrongful death, or property damage under A.R.S. 12-542.¹ That covers car crashes, slip-and-fall injuries, medical malpractice, and damage someone else negligently caused to your property.

The clock usually starts the day the injury happens. Wrongful death is the exception: the two years run from the date of death, not the date of the original injury.¹ If someone is hurt in a January crash and dies in August, the window opens in August.

Arizona also applies a discovery rule when the harm isn’t immediately obvious. The two years then start when you discover the injury or reasonably should have discovered it. This comes up most in medical malpractice, where a surgical error or misdiagnosis may not surface for months or years. You carry the burden of showing you couldn’t have found the problem sooner.

Debts and Contracts

Arizona treats written and unwritten debts very differently. Debt backed by a written contract or a credit card has a six-year limit under A.R.S. 12-548.² Most credit card balances, medical bills, and signed loan agreements fall here. The Arizona Judicial Branch confirms medical debt and credit card debt both sit inside this six-year window.³

Debt without a written agreement gets only three years under A.R.S. 12-543, including handshake loans and open accounts between individuals.⁴ For open accounts, the three years run from the date of the last transaction.

A written contract dispute that isn’t about collecting a debt may fall under the four-year general limitation in A.R.S. 12-550 instead, which also catches any civil claim that doesn’t fit another category.⁵

Fraud

Fraud claims get three years, and the statute itself builds in a discovery rule: the clock starts when you actually discover the facts showing the fraud, not when the fraud happened.⁴ Someone deceived in 2020 who uncovers the scheme in 2025 can still sue in 2028.

Product Liability

Product liability follows the two-year personal injury deadline, but A.R.S. 12-551 adds a hard outer boundary: no claim is allowed if the cause of action arose more than twelve years after the product was first sold.⁶ Claims based on the manufacturer’s or seller’s negligence, or on a written warranty they provided, aren’t subject to that twelve-year cap.

Claims Against a Government Entity

Suing a public body in Arizona runs on a much tighter schedule, and there’s a procedural trap that defeats most claims. You have one year from when the claim arises to file suit against a public entity or employee under A.R.S. 12-821.⁷

Before you can file, though, you must serve a written notice of claim on the government entity within 180 days of when the cause of action accrues. The notice has to describe the facts and state a specific dollar amount you’d accept as settlement. Miss the 180-day notice and the claim is dead, even if the one-year lawsuit deadline hasn’t run.⁸ This is where most government liability cases fall apart. If you’re even thinking about a claim against a city, county, state agency, or public school, the clock is already running.

Criminal Prosecution Deadlines

Arizona’s criminal time limits are in A.R.S. 13-107. They run from the date the state discovers the offense or reasonably should have discovered it through investigation.

Misdemeanors

Prosecutors have one year to bring misdemeanor charges, including petty theft, simple assault, disorderly conduct, and most DUI charges.⁹ Some DUI-related offenses have their own timelines under separate statutes.

Felonies

Class 2 through Class 6 felonies carry a seven-year limit.⁹ That covers the bulk of Arizona felonies, including burglary, aggravated assault, theft above the misdemeanor threshold, and drug offenses.

Crimes With No Deadline

Arizona has no statute of limitations for homicide, conspiracy to commit homicide that results in death, violent sexual assault, certain Class 2 felony sex offenses, human trafficking, misuse of public funds, and falsifying public records.⁹ Attempts to commit any of these are also exempt. Prosecutors can bring these charges at any time.

When the Clock Pauses

A few circumstances delay or pause an Arizona deadline, and they can be the difference between a live claim and a dead one.

If the person entitled to sue is under 18 or mentally incapacitated when the cause of action arises, the period of disability doesn’t count. Once the person turns 18 or regains capacity, the full original limitation period starts.¹⁰ A child injured at age 10 in a crash has until age 20 to file a personal injury suit, not age 12.

The discovery rule delays the start of the clock when harm isn’t immediately apparent, and Arizona courts apply it most often in medical malpractice and fraud cases. You still have to show the injury genuinely couldn’t have been found earlier through reasonable diligence.

Active-duty military members get added protection under the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. Time on active duty doesn’t count toward any state statute of limitations, whether the servicemember is bringing or defending the claim.¹¹ This protection does not extend to federal tax deadlines.

What Happens If You Miss the Deadline

Once a statute of limitations runs out, the other side can raise it as a defense, and the court will almost certainly dismiss the case. In civil matters, you lose the right to recover anything, no matter how clear the other party’s fault. In criminal cases, prosecutors lose the ability to charge. There is no “good cause” exception for simply missing the date. The only way to revive an expired claim is to show a tolling provision applied all along and the deadline hasn’t actually passed.

Federal Deadlines Still Apply

Living in Arizona doesn’t shield you from federal filing deadlines, and some of the most important ones are shorter than state law.

The IRS generally has three years from the due date of your return (or the date you filed, if later) to assess additional tax.¹² Once tax is assessed, the IRS has ten years to collect, including penalties and interest, though actions like bankruptcy or an installment agreement can pause that clock.¹³

Employees in Arizona have 300 calendar days from a discriminatory act to file a charge with the EEOC, because Arizona has a state enforcement agency.¹⁴ Federal employees have just 45 days to contact an EEO counselor.¹⁵

If a federal employee or agency harms you in Arizona, the Federal Tort Claims Act requires an administrative claim in writing within two years of when the injury occurred or should have been discovered.¹⁶ You have to file the administrative claim before any lawsuit. For federal crimes not punishable by death, the standard prosecution deadline is five years.¹⁷

1
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 12-542 – Injury to Person; Injury When Death Ensues; Injury to Property
2
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 12-548 – Contract in Writing for Debt; Six Year Limitation
3
Arizona Judicial Branch. Statute of Limitations (SOL)
4
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 12-543 – Oral Debt; Stated or Open Account
5
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 12-550 – General Limitation
6
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 12-551 – Product Liability
7
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 12-821 – General Limitation; Public Employee
8
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 12-821.01 – Authorization of Claim Against Public Entity
9
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 13-107 – Time Limitations
10
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 12-502 – Effect of Minority or Insanity
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 U.S. Code 3936 – Statute of Limitations
12
Internal Revenue Service. Time IRS Can Assess Tax
13
Internal Revenue Service. Time IRS Can Collect Tax
14
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits for Filing a Charge
15
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Contacting an EEO Counselor
16
eCFR. 32 CFR 750.36 – Time Limitations
17
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3282 – Offenses Not Capital