Colorado Civil Statute of Limitations: Deadlines, Tolling, and Judgments

Colorado’s civil statute of limitations is not a single deadline but a schedule that varies by claim type, running from as short as one year for defamation to as long as 18 years for adverse possession of real property. Most personal injury cases get two years; car accidents and contract disputes get three; unpaid debts for a fixed amount get six. Miss the deadline and the court will almost always throw the case out, no matter how strong the facts are. The sections below lay out the specific deadlines, when each clock starts, and the exceptions that can pause or shorten the time you have.

Deadlines by Claim Type

Personal Injury

Two years is the default for negligence-based injury claims — slip-and-falls, dog bites, and similar harm caused by someone else’s carelessness.¹ Settlement talks with an insurer do not pause the clock; it keeps running while you negotiate.

Motor Vehicle Accidents

Injuries or property damage from a car, truck, or motorcycle collision get three years instead of two.²

Wrongful Death

Two years from the date of death, not from the date of the injury or negligent act that caused it.³ When someone lingers for weeks or months before dying, the family’s two-year window begins when they pass, not when they were hurt.

Breach of Contract

Three years for both written and oral contracts under C.R.S. 13-80-101(1)(a).² The clock starts when the breach is (or reasonably should have been) discovered, not when the contract was signed.

Sales of Goods

Also three years under Colorado’s version of the UCC, which shortens the standard four-year UCC period. The parties cannot change this by agreement.⁴

Liquidated Debts and Promissory Notes

Six years to collect a fixed amount of money — a promissory note, a loan balance, or an unpaid invoice for a set figure. The period also covers actions to enforce any instrument securing or evidencing a debt, and it begins when the debt becomes due.⁵

Fraud and Misrepresentation

Three years from the date you discover the deception (or should have, through reasonable diligence).² Financial schemes often run undetected for years, so the discovery trigger matters.

Defamation and Libel

One year from the date of injury under C.R.S. 13-80-103(1)(a). It is Colorado’s shortest civil deadline, and the tight window catches people off guard when damaging statements take time to surface.

Medical Malpractice

Two years from when the claim accrues, with a hard outer limit of three years from the act or omission that caused harm, regardless of when it is discovered.⁶ That three-year cap is a statute of repose; it extinguishes the right entirely. Narrow exceptions give you two years from discovery when a provider knowingly concealed the wrongdoing, when a foreign object was left in the body, or when both the injury and its cause were genuinely unknowable at the time.

Legal and Other Professional Malpractice

Two years, under the general tort rule, for claims against attorneys, accountants, architects, and other licensed professionals.¹ For legal malpractice, accrual often lands when a client realizes an attorney’s error cost them a case or a right.

Construction Defects

Two years from when physical signs of the defect are (or should have been) discovered, capped at six years from substantial completion of the project.⁷ A defect first appearing in year five or six gets a two-year filing window from that discovery date even if that pushes past six years. The six-year repose also does not protect anyone who owns or occupies the building when a defect causes injury.

Trespass and Nuisance

Two years under the general tort rule in C.R.S. 13-80-102(1)(a). Encroachment problems — a fence crossing the line, a structure overhanging your land — generally fall into this window under trespass or nuisance theories.

Adverse Possession and Prescriptive Easements

Eighteen years of continuous, open use lets an occupant claim legal ownership, and the original owner’s right to challenge expires at that point.⁸ The same 18-year clock applies when someone uses a path or access route across your land.

Quiet Title Based on Tax Deeds

Seven consecutive years. A buyer at a tax sale who maintains actual possession, pays all taxes, and holds the property under a good-faith claim of title for that period is treated as the legal owner, and a prior owner must act before those seven years run.⁹

When the Clock Starts

Knowing the deadline does not help if you misjudge when it begins. Colorado’s master accrual statute, C.R.S. 13-80-108, sets different start dates for different claims.¹⁰

Personal injury and property damage accrue when you know or should know both that an injury exists and what caused it.
Wrongful death accrues on the date of death.
Contract breach accrues when the breach is discovered or should have been discovered through reasonable diligence.
Fraud accrues when the deception is discovered or reasonably should have been.
Debt accrues when the money becomes due.

The “reasonable diligence” standard means ignoring obvious warning signs will not buy you more time. Courts expect you to investigate when the circumstances would make a reasonable person suspicious.

Suing a City, County, or State Agency

Claims against Colorado governmental entities carry an extra deadline that trips up more people than any other rule here. Before filing suit, you must deliver a written notice of claim within 182 days of discovering your injury. Missing it does not just delay the case; it permanently bars it. The statute calls compliance a “jurisdictional prerequisite,” meaning no court has the power to hear the case without it.¹¹

The notice must identify you, describe what happened (date, time, place), name any government employee involved, describe your injuries, and state the dollar amount you are seeking. Claims against the state go to the attorney general; claims against local governments go to the governing body or its attorney. After filing the notice, you have to wait until the entity denies the claim or 90 days pass, whichever comes first, before suing.

The ordinary two-year tort deadline still applies on top of the notice requirement, but in practice the 182-day notice is what matters because it arrives first.

When the Clock Can Be Paused

Minors and Incapacitated Plaintiffs

Tolling for people under 18 or mentally incapacitated is narrower than most readers expect. If a legal representative — a guardian or conservator — has been appointed, the limitations period runs normally against the person with the disability, though the representative gets at least two years from the date of appointment to file.¹² If no representative is ever appointed, the person gets the normal limitations period or two years after the disability ends, whichever is longer. A child hurt at 16 with no appointed representative will not automatically get a fresh full period starting at 18; the analysis turns on whether and when a representative was in place.

Defendants Who Leave or Hide

Time a defendant spends outside Colorado without being reachable through service of process does not count against the limitations period. The same rule applies if they conceal themselves inside the state to evade service.¹³ If they are out of state but still subject to Colorado’s long-arm jurisdiction, the clock keeps ticking.

How Long a Judgment Lasts

Winning before the filing deadline is only part of the problem. A Colorado district court judgment can be enforced for 20 years from the date entered, after which it is treated as satisfied unless revived through a court proceeding. County court judgments carry a shorter six-year enforcement window.¹⁴ Judgment liens on real property also expire after six years unless revived, so staying on top of revival is often the difference between collecting and watching the judgment lapse.