The statute of limitations in Texas ranges from one year to ten years for civil claims, and from two years to no limit at all for criminal offenses, depending on the type of case. A personal injury lawsuit has to be filed within two years. Breach of contract gets four. Murder and certain sexual assaults can be prosecuted with no deadline at all. Miss the applicable window and the case is almost always over, no matter how strong the underlying facts are.
Civil Deadlines by Type of Claim
Two Years
The most common civil deadline in Texas is two years, set by Section 16.003 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. It covers personal injury (car accidents, slip-and-falls, assault, and other negligence claims that harm someone’s body), wrongful death, property damage, trespass, and conversion.1State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 16.003 – Two-Year Limitations Period
One distinction matters more than most people expect: for wrongful death, the two-year clock runs from the date of death, not the date of the injury. If someone is hurt in March and dies from those injuries in September, the wrongful death deadline runs from September.
Four Years
Section 16.004 groups most business and financial disputes under a four-year deadline. That includes breach of contract (written or oral), debt collection, fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty. Open and stated accounts and mutual accounts between merchants also fall in this category.2State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 16.004 – Four-Year Limitations Period
Medical Malpractice
Health care liability claims sit outside the general personal injury rule. Under Section 74.251, you have two years from either the negligent act or the end of the course of treatment, whichever is later.3State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 74
What’s unusual is the outer boundary. Texas puts a ten-year statute of repose on all medical malpractice claims. A statute of repose is stricter than a normal limitations period because it runs from the date of the provider’s act, not from when the harm is discovered. Ten years after the treatment, the claim is dead even if the patient had no way of knowing anything went wrong. Children under twelve get one modification: they have until their fourteenth birthday to file.
Claims Against a Government Entity
Suing a Texas city, county, school district, or state agency adds a procedural trap that lives in front of the two-year deadline. The Texas Tort Claims Act requires written notice to the governmental unit within six months of the incident, describing the injury, the time and place, and what happened. Miss that six-month notice window and the case is likely over even though the two-year clock is still running.4State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 101 – Tort Claims
There is a narrow exception when the government entity already has actual notice of a death, injury, or property damage, but relying on it is risky. Sending written notice quickly is the safer path.
Employment Discrimination
Discrimination claims run on a much tighter clock and start with an agency, not a court. You generally have 180 days from the discriminatory act to file a charge with the Texas Workforce Commission Civil Rights Division. Because Texas has its own enforcement agency, the federal deadline for filing with the EEOC extends to 300 days. For harassment, the clock runs from the last incident, not the first.5U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits for Filing a Charge
You can’t skip the agency step and go straight to court. Filing with one agency typically cross-files with the other, but tracking the 180- and 300-day windows is on you.
Criminal Deadlines by Offense
Texas criminal limitations live in Chapter 12 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The time limits vary widely with the severity of the offense.6State of Texas. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 12 – Limitation
Misdemeanors
All Texas misdemeanors carry a two-year statute of limitations. An indictment or information for a Class A or B misdemeanor, or a complaint for a Class C, must be filed within two years of the offense.
Felonies
Felony deadlines break down as follows:
- Three years for any felony not assigned a specific longer period.
- Five years for theft, robbery, and burglary, with exceptions for more serious versions of those crimes.
- Ten years for arson, forgery, sexual assault (unless a longer or unlimited period applies), and theft of government property or estate assets by a public servant, executor, or trustee.
- No limitation for murder, manslaughter, and certain sexual assaults. Sexual assault of a child and aggravated sexual assault have no deadline. The same is true when biological evidence has been collected but not yet tested, or when DNA results don’t match any identified person.
The no-limit category has expanded over time. If prosecutors can show probable cause that the same defendant committed similar sex offenses against five or more victims, there is no deadline regardless of which specific sexual assault statute would otherwise apply.
When the Clock Starts
In civil cases, the deadline generally starts on the date the legal injury occurs, what Texas lawyers call “accrual.” For a car accident, that’s the day of the crash. For breach of contract, it’s the day the contract is broken.
Some injuries aren’t obvious when they happen. In limited situations, Texas applies the “discovery rule”: the clock doesn’t start until you knew, or through reasonable diligence should have known, about the injury and its cause. Courts have applied it in certain professional negligence cases and to latent defects a person couldn’t reasonably have detected.7Texas Opinions. Accrual of Cause of Action and Running of Statute of Limitations
The rule is an exception, not the default. Texas courts apply it in two categories only: cases involving fraud or fraudulent concealment, and cases where the injury is both inherently undiscoverable and objectively verifiable. Not knowing you had a legal claim isn’t enough; the injury itself has to be the kind a reasonable person wouldn’t find through ordinary diligence.
For criminal cases, the clock starts on the date the offense was committed.
When the Clock Pauses
Several situations toll the statute of limitations, giving the injured person or prosecutor more time.
Minors
When someone under eighteen is injured, the civil clock is delayed until the person’s eighteenth birthday. A child injured at age ten has until their twentieth birthday to sue. Medical malpractice is the exception: children under twelve have only until their fourteenth birthday to file a health care liability claim.3State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 74
Active Military Service
The federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act excludes time spent on active duty from any statute of limitations calculation. Service time doesn’t count against the deadline, and the protection covers actions brought by or against the servicemember, in state and federal court.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 U.S. Code 3936 – Statute of Limitations
Criminal Cases: Time Outside Texas
In criminal prosecutions, time the defendant spends outside Texas doesn’t count. Two years in another state means two years excluded from the limitations calculation. Similarly, if an indictment or information is filed and later found invalid, the time between filing and dismissal is excluded.
Old Debts and the Four-Year Rule
For anyone dealing with old debts, Section 16.004 is one of the most practically important deadlines in Texas. Once four years pass from the date a debt becomes due, the creditor or debt collector can no longer sue you to collect.2State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 16.004 – Four-Year Limitations Period
Texas gives consumers an unusual protection on top of that. Under Texas Finance Code Section 392.307, a partial payment on an old debt does not restart the statute of limitations, and debt buyers are barred from filing suit on time-barred debts even if you pay something after the deadline has passed. Many other states allow a single small payment to reset the entire clock.9Texas State Law Library. Debt Collection – Time-Barred Debts
A time-barred debt doesn’t vanish. Collectors can still contact you and, subject to separate credit reporting time limits, report it to credit bureaus. What they can’t do is use a Texas court to force payment.
What Happens If You Miss the Deadline
In a civil case, an expired statute of limitations is an affirmative defense. The defendant has to raise it; the court won’t dismiss on its own. Once raised, though, the case ends. Strength of the evidence doesn’t matter, and neither does how clear liability would have been.
Criminal cases work the same way in effect: prosecution is barred, and an indictment returned after the period expires can be challenged and dismissed. The wrinkle is that tolling provisions can make the arithmetic less obvious than it looks. A defendant who spent years outside Texas may find the clock still running long after the calendar date of the offense.
Because these deadlines are strict and the consequences for missing them are permanent, treating any statute of limitations as an approximate guideline rather than a hard cutoff is the most common, and most expensive, mistake in Texas litigation.