In Georgia, the statute of limitations on debt runs four to six years depending on the type of debt, measured generally from the date the debt became due or the date of the last activity on the account.1Justia Law. Georgia Code 9-3-24 – Actions on Simple Written Contracts; Exceptions Once that deadline passes, a creditor can still ask you to pay, but if they sue you, you can raise the expired deadline as a complete defense. The catch is that certain actions, especially making a payment or signing an acknowledgment, can restart the clock from zero.
How Long a Creditor Has to Sue
The deadline depends on how the debt was created. Getting the category right is the whole game.
Written Contracts: Six Years
A creditor has six years to sue on a simple written contract, measured from the date the debt becomes due and payable.1Justia Law. Georgia Code 9-3-24 – Actions on Simple Written Contracts; Exceptions This covers signed agreements like personal loans, leases, and home improvement contracts. Contracts for the sale of goods and negotiable instruments are excluded and handled under separate rules.
Oral Agreements: Four Years
Debts based on a handshake deal or any contract that was never reduced to a signed writing carry a four-year limit.2Justia Law. Georgia Code 9-3-25 – Open Accounts Text messages or emails discussing the debt can still be useful evidence, but the shorter deadline applies.
Open Accounts: Four Years
Open accounts — revolving arrangements where the balance moves up and down with purchases and payments — also fall under the four-year rule.2Justia Law. Georgia Code 9-3-25 – Open Accounts Credit cards and retail store cards are the everyday examples. The four-year clock generally starts from the date of the last payment or charge, and because activity comes and goes, when it started can be disputed.
Promissory Notes: Six Years
A promissory note payable at a definite time gives the creditor six years, measured from the stated due date or, if the balance was accelerated, from the acceleration date.3Justia Law. Georgia Code 11-3-118 – Statute of Limitations For demand notes where no demand is ever made, the right to sue expires if no principal or interest has been paid for ten continuous years.
Sale of Goods: Four Years
Contracts for the sale of goods sit under Georgia’s version of UCC Article 2, with a four-year limit running from the date of breach.4Justia Law. Georgia Code 11-2-725 – Statute of Limitations in Contracts for Sale The original contract can shorten that to as little as one year but cannot extend it beyond four. A breach of warranty claim accrues when the goods are delivered, unless the warranty explicitly covers future performance.
What Restarts the Clock
Two things quietly revive a creditor’s right to sue: a payment, and a written acknowledgment.
A payment entered on a written record of the debt by the debtor operates as a brand-new promise to pay, and it restarts the full limitations period from the date of that payment.5Justia Law. Georgia Code 9-3-112 – Payment or Written Acknowledgment Equivalent to New Promise The size of the payment does not matter. Paying $20 on a five-and-a-half-year-old written contract can hand the creditor another six years to sue for the entire balance.
A written acknowledgment does the same thing without any money changing hands. To count, the writing must clearly identify the specific debt as a present obligation the debtor is liable to pay, and it must actually be delivered to someone.6Justia Law. Georgia Code 9-3-112 – Payment or Written Acknowledgment Equivalent to New Promise A vague reference to owing money in general does not qualify, and neither does a private note that stays in your desk. If a debt has already expired and you want to revive it (which almost no one wants to do), the promise to pay must be in writing and signed.
The practical rule: if you owe an old debt and are not sure whether the deadline has passed, be very careful before making any payment, signing anything, or putting anything in writing that references the balance. One misstep resets everything.
What Pauses the Clock
Georgia recognizes several situations that toll — pause — the limitations period. Time that passes while one of these applies does not count against the creditor.
If the debtor leaves Georgia, the time spent out of state generally does not count toward the limitations period, and the clock resumes when the debtor returns to reside in Georgia.7Justia Law. Georgia Code 9-3-94 – Removal of Defendant From State
When the person with the right to sue is under 18 or legally incompetent due to mental illness or intellectual disability at the time the cause of action arises, the statute does not start running until the disability is removed.8Justia Law. Georgia Code 9-3-90 – Individuals Under Disability or Imprisonment When Right of Action Accrues
If a debtor uses fraud to keep the creditor from discovering the debt or from suing, the clock runs only from the date the creditor discovers the fraud.9Justia Law. Georgia Code 9-3-96 – Tolling of Limitations for Fraud
Under the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, the period of a servicemember’s active-duty military service is not counted against any state statute of limitations, whether the servicemember is the one suing or being sued.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3936 – Statute of Limitations Federal tax deadlines are not covered.
If You Are Sued After the Deadline
An expired statute of limitations does not stop a creditor from filing suit, and it does not automatically get the case thrown out. Georgia treats it as an affirmative defense, which means you have to raise it in a written answer to the lawsuit.11Justia Law. Georgia Code 9-11-12 – Answer, Defenses, and Objections; When and How Presented and Heard; When Defenses Waived; Stay of Discovery Ignore the lawsuit and the court can enter a default judgment against you, which is fully enforceable no matter how old the underlying debt was.
Filing an answer in Georgia’s magistrate courts typically costs around $60. The answer does not need to be complicated. It needs to state clearly that the creditor’s claim is barred by the applicable statute of limitations. Given that a default judgment can lead to wage garnishment and bank levies, the filing fee is a small price.
What Expiration Actually Does
Once the deadline passes without a lawsuit being filed, the creditor loses the ability to use the court system to collect. The debt itself still exists. The creditor, or a collector working on their behalf, can still contact you and ask you to pay. What they cannot do is get a judgment, and under federal regulations a debt collector is prohibited from suing or threatening to sue on a time-barred debt.12eCFR. 12 CFR Part 1006 Subpart B – Rules for FDCPA Debt Collectors
If a collector contacts you about an old debt, you can ask for validation before saying anything about the balance. Federal rules require collectors to send a validation notice with the creditor’s name, the amount owed, an itemization, and a disclosure of your right to dispute the debt.13eCFR. 12 CFR 1006.34 – Notice for Validation of Debts You have 30 days to dispute in writing, which pauses collection until they send verification. This buys time to figure out whether the statute has expired before you say or pay anything that might restart the clock.
Credit Reporting Is a Separate Clock
The statute of limitations and credit reporting timelines are often confused, but they are governed by different laws and run on different tracks. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act generally limits negative information on your credit report to seven years from the date of default, with bankruptcies allowed up to ten.14Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports
A debt can drop off your credit report while the statute of limitations is still running, and the statute can expire while the debt still shows on your report. Making a payment that resets the statute does not restart the credit reporting clock, and a debt falling off your credit report does not stop a creditor from suing you if their deadline has not yet passed.
When the Creditor Wins: Judgments Have Their Own Deadline
If a creditor does sue in time and wins, the judgment they get runs on a separate timeline. In Georgia, a judgment becomes dormant and unenforceable if seven years pass without the creditor taking steps to enforce it.15Justia Law. Georgia Code 9-12-60 – When Judgment Becomes Dormant The creditor can keep it alive by issuing execution and recording it on the county’s general execution docket within each seven-year window, and each qualifying entry starts a new seven-year period.
Once a judgment does go dormant, the creditor has three years to revive it through a proceeding called scire facias.16Justia Law. Georgia Code 9-12-61 – Dormant Judgments Renewed by Action or Scire Facias; Time of Renewal After that three-year window closes, the judgment is effectively dead. Child support and spousal support judgments are exempt from the dormancy rules entirely.15Justia Law. Georgia Code 9-12-60 – When Judgment Becomes Dormant