Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.090: Counting Days and Extensions

Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.090 is the deadline rule for civil cases in Florida state court. It does three things: it tells you how to count the days for any deadline, it sets the standard for asking the court for more time, and it identifies a short list of deadlines no judge is allowed to move. The counting method itself lives in Florida Rule of General Practice and Judicial Administration 2.514, which Rule 1.090 incorporates by reference.¹

How to Count the Days

Rule 2.514 governs every deadline in Florida civil procedure, in local rules, in court orders, and in statutes that don’t specify their own method.² The counting rules change depending on the length and unit of the period.

Periods of Seven Days or More

You do not count the day of the triggering event. Day 1 is the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday. If a judge enters an order on a Friday, Day 1 is Monday, not Saturday. Every calendar day after that counts, weekends and holidays included, until you reach the end of the period. If the last day lands on a Saturday, Sunday, legal holiday, or any day within a period extended by administrative order of the Chief Justice, the deadline rolls forward to the next business day.²

Periods of Fewer Than Seven Days

Short deadlines are counted more generously. When the period is stated in fewer than seven days, intermediate Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays are skipped entirely.² A five-day deadline that starts running on a Wednesday does not expire the following Monday. Saturday and Sunday drop out of the count, and the deadline falls on the next Wednesday. This distinction is one of the more common sources of calendaring errors in Florida practice.

Periods Stated in Hours

When the deadline is measured in hours, the clock starts immediately when the triggering event happens, and every hour counts, including hours on weekends and holidays. If the period would expire on a Saturday, Sunday, legal holiday, or during a Chief Justice extension, it continues until the same time on the next eligible day.

Which Days Are Legal Holidays

The legal holidays that affect these calculations come from Florida Statutes section 110.117: New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans’ Day, Thanksgiving Day, the Friday after Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day. When one of those holidays falls on a Saturday, the preceding Friday is observed; when it falls on a Sunday, the following Monday is observed.³

Rule 2.514 also treats as a legal holiday any day observed as a holiday by the clerk’s office or designated by the chief justice or chief judge.² That second category matters when a hurricane or similar emergency closes courts and the Chief Justice issues an administrative order extending time statewide. Any day inside the extended period is treated like a holiday for counting purposes.

Getting an Extension

Rule 1.090(b) is the mechanism for asking the court for more time. The standard the court applies depends on when you ask.¹

Asking Before the Deadline Passes

If you ask before the deadline runs out, the process is relatively easy. The court can grant an extension for good cause, and it can do so with or without a motion or notice to the other side.¹ Many pre-deadline extensions are handled through an agreed order between the parties or an informal request to the court. Good cause is a flexible standard at this stage, and judges have broad discretion. If you can see the deadline coming and know you will not make it, file the request early.

Asking After the Deadline Has Passed

Once the deadline expires, the standard tightens. You must file a formal motion, and you must show that the missed deadline was the result of excusable neglect.¹ A busy schedule, plain oversight, or disorganization is not enough. The rule contemplates genuinely unforeseen circumstances that prevented timely action despite reasonable diligence.

Florida courts evaluate excusable neglect through the factors the U.S. Supreme Court laid out in Pioneer Investment Services Co. v. Brunswick Associates, which many Florida courts have adopted: prejudice to the other side if the extension is granted, the length of the delay and its effect on the case, the reason for the delay, and whether the party acted in good faith. No single factor decides the question. A short delay with a strong explanation and no harm to the opposing party has a much better chance than a months-long gap caused by neglect. Courts can also weigh whether denying relief would permanently strip the movant of substantive rights, such as when a statute of limitations would bar refiling.

Deadlines the Court Cannot Extend

Rule 1.090(b)(2) lists deadlines that no judge is allowed to extend, regardless of the excuse offered. Even a strong showing of excusable neglect will not move these dates. The rule prohibits extensions for:¹

Motions for new trial, rehearing, or to alter or amend a judgment under Rule 1.530.
Motions for relief from a judgment under Rule 1.540(b).
Taking an appeal or filing a petition for certiorari.
Motions for a directed verdict under Rule 1.480.

These bars exist to enforce finality. The appeal deadline is the one that catches people most often, and it is jurisdictional: once it passes, appellate review is generally gone for good.

Extensions of deadlines set in case management orders are handled under Rules 1.200 and 1.201, and trial continuances are handled under Rule 1.460.¹ Those situations have their own standards and are not handled through a generic 1.090(b) motion.

Notice on Motions and Court Terms

Two shorter provisions round out the rule. Subsection (c) establishes that the expiration of a court term does not limit any deadline or strip the court of its power to act in a pending case, which prevents the old common-law problem of actions dying when a term ended.¹

Subsection (d) covers motion notice. Any written motion that cannot be heard without notice to the other side must be served, along with a notice of hearing, a reasonable time before the scheduled hearing.¹ The rule does not attach a specific number of days to “reasonable time,” so err on the side of more notice.

The Five-Day Mail Rule Is Gone

Older versions of Rule 1.090 included a subsection (e) that added five days to a response deadline when the triggering document was served by mail. The current version of the rule, as published by the Florida Bar effective April 2026, contains only subsections (a) through (d). Subsection (e) is no longer there.¹ The change tracks Florida’s shift to mandatory electronic filing and service through the statewide e-filing portal, which largely removed the transit-time problem the five-day addition was designed to solve. Practitioners who learned the rule under the older framework should confirm current service requirements rather than assuming the mail buffer still applies.

How Rule 1.090 Compares to Federal Rule 6

Attorneys who practice in both state and federal court in Florida need to hold the two systems apart, because they are similar enough to create false confidence. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 6 also excludes the triggering day, counts forward, and extends deadlines that fall on weekends or legal holidays. The extension standard is the same in shape: good cause before the deadline, excusable neglect after. The federal rule also bars extensions for functionally the same categories of post-trial motions.⁴

The differences sit in the details. Federal Rule 6(d) still adds three days to response deadlines when service is made by mail, by leaving a copy with the clerk, or by other consented means, but not for electronic service. The federal holiday list also includes holidays Florida does not recognize under section 110.117, such as Washington’s Birthday, Juneteenth, and Columbus Day, so a deadline that survives a weekend in state court can get pushed an extra day in federal court. Federal Rule 6 also directly addresses inaccessibility of the clerk’s office: if the office is closed or the electronic filing system is down on the last day for filing, the deadline extends to the next accessible business day.⁴

1
The Florida Bar. Florida Rules of Civil Procedure – Rule 1.090
2
The Florida Bar. Florida Rules of General Practice and Judicial Administration – Rule 2.514
3
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 110.117 – Paid Holidays
4
Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 6 – Computing and Extending Time