Statute of Limitations on Debt by State (2026): Every Deadline, Verified

The invoice is four years old and still unpaid. Whether you can even sue on it now comes down to the statute of limitations on debt by state, the deadline past which no court will help a creditor collect. Some states cut it off at three years. Others let a claim run a full decade. And the number shifts again with the kind of debt, since a signed promissory note tends to outlive a spoken deal by years.

We checked every figure here in July 2026 against each state’s current statute. A few states break the mold, and those get their own note directly under the table. Deadline coming up fast? Send your demand or cease and desist letter before it passes, because a claim filed one day late is a dead claim. Two states have shifted their deadlines in recent years, and most charts online still show the outdated numbers.

The 2026 Statute of Limitations on Debt by State Table

Last updated: July 2026. Four columns. The statute of limitations on debt by state table lists the suing deadline for a written contract, an oral contract, and a promissory note, plus the statute driving each one. A few states will not fit a single number in the box. Colorado splits by the amount owed, Indiana by what the contract is for, Kentucky by when it was signed, so those cells carry the fork. Before you lean on a borderline figure, read the odd-rows note underneath.

What the 2026 Numbers Show

With every state’s figures sitting in one place, the statute of limitations on debt by state starts to show its shape. A few things jump out:

• Written contracts cluster at six years. More than half the states land on six for written debt. The short end is three years (Delaware, the Carolinas, Maryland, New Hampshire, Mississippi, and DC); the long end is ten (Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Rhode Island, Missouri, West Virginia, and Wyoming).
• Oral debt is where states diverge most. California drops to two years, several states sit at three or four, and a large group treats oral and written contracts the same. Wyoming’s eight-year oral period is the longest.
• Promissory notes often outlast the contract they came from. The uniform UCC rule gives negotiable notes six years, so in short-deadline states a signed note buys the creditor extra time.
• Six states never adopted the uniform note rule. Arkansas, West Virginia, and Louisiana run notes at five years; Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri run them at ten.
• Two states moved recently. Montana and Ohio both shortened their written periods, and most competitor charts still show the old numbers.

How to Read These Deadlines

The statute of limitations on debt by state turns on two questions, plus one piece of vocabulary. First, what kind of debt is it? A written contract is a signed agreement you can hold in your hand, like a loan agreement or a signed invoice. An oral contract is a spoken deal with no signature, which is harder to prove and often carries a shorter deadline. A promissory note is a signed, dated promise to pay a set sum, and it runs on its own UCC clock.

Second, when does the clock start? For most debts it starts ticking at the breach, which often means the first payment you missed. We do not attach a specific day count to that. The exact trigger shifts, and tolling, the set of events that can pause or reset a running clock, works differently in every state.

A word you will hear a lot is time-barred. It means the deadline on a debt has already run out. The debt itself does not disappear, and a collector can keep calling to ask for the money. But the moment they sue, the case falls apart if you point out that the clock expired. Paying an old debt like that is your decision, and not one this page makes for you.

Two limits on the table. It covers contract, oral, and note debt, not open-account or credit-card balances, which many states time on a separate schedule. And it does not touch federal exceptions: federal student loans, child support, and most tax debts follow their own rules and can outlast every number here.

The Shortest and Longest States

For a creditor, the friendliest states pair a long written deadline with a matching note period. Rhode Island and Illinois allow ten years on written debt; Florida gives five on both written contracts and notes. Kentucky reaches ten on newer written contracts. The extra years matter most when a debtor goes quiet and you are deciding whether to keep waiting.

For a debtor, the shortest deadlines cut the other way. Delaware holds ordinary written and oral contracts to three years, and Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and DC do the same. California keeps written debt at four years and oral debt at two, one of the tightest oral windows in the country.

Here is the catch that trips people up: the paper controls the outcome. In a three-year written-contract state, a signed promissory note can still be enforceable at six years under the UCC. The document, not the handshake, decides which column you land in.

The Promissory Note Column, Explained

Most states adopted a shared rule, UCC section 3-118, that gives a negotiable promissory note six years from its due date. A negotiable note is a clean, transferable promise to pay a fixed amount, the kind a bank or a private lender uses. That single rule is why the note column reads “6” for a large block of states even where written contracts run shorter, as in New York, which times both contracts and notes at six under CPLR 213.

Six states went their own way. Arkansas, West Virginia, and Louisiana enacted a five-year note period instead of six. Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri run notes for ten years, matching their long written periods. And Pennsylvania is a genuine tangle: one statute reads four years for a note while a newer one reads six, so treat four as the floor.

The practical lesson for lenders: a well-drafted note is the most durable debt you can hold. If you are formalizing a loan to family or a customer, our promissory note template spells out the amount, rate, and due date that start this six-year clock.

What Changed Recently

Two states have rewritten their contract deadlines lately, and that is exactly where a stale statute of limitations on debt by state chart will burn you. Take Montana. Its written-contract deadline fell from eight years to six under MCA 27-2-202, effective October 2025. Nearly every aggregator article online still lists eight.

Ohio moved earlier and further. Senate Bill 13, effective in June 2021, dropped the written-contract deadline from eight years to six and the oral-contract deadline from six years to four. Charts that predate the change, and there are many, still show the old eight-year written number.

None of this means the law is a moving target. These deadlines sit still for decades at a stretch. The trouble comes the one time a state does move, because the secondhand charts keep repeating the old figure, and a creditor relying on one can march into court on a claim that expired months ago. Before you trust any number, open the statute in your row and read what it says today.

Why This Matters Before a Demand Letter

A demand letter is only as strong as the deadline behind it. Send one the week before the statute runs, and you keep the option to sue if it is ignored. Send one after the deadline, and a debtor who knows the law can wait you out with no consequence.

California shows the timing problem cleanly. Written debt there expires at four years and oral debt at two. A business chasing a two-year-old verbal agreement has almost no runway left, so the demand and the decision to file have to happen together. On a written contract, the same creditor has twice the time to negotiate before filing becomes urgent.

Here is where creditors get caught: they treat the demand letter as the start of a long process, when in a short-deadline state it is closer to the last exit. Map your state’s written and oral numbers from the table first, then work backward from the earlier of the two to set your real deadline to act.

Cite, Download, or Reuse This Data

Each number in the statute of limitations on debt by state dataset traces back to the state’s own code, read in July 2026, or to the session law itself for the 2025 and 2021 changes. When an official site would not load, we print the citation in full so you can find the primary text in one search. Every January the whole set gets run again against the current statutes, and any row a legislature moved gets moved here too.

Researchers, reporters, and collections teams are welcome to reuse the table with attribution.

Every column in the table is in the CSV too, one row per jurisdiction: the written, oral, and note periods and the statute citation. If you catch a state that updated its law before this page did, send it through the contact form. We re-check every report against the primary statute.

Using the Numbers: Creditors and Debtors

If you are owed money: find your state’s row, note the written and oral figures, and calendar the earlier one from the first missed payment. If the deadline is close, send a demand letter that quotes the statute, and be ready to file in small claims court, which covers most consumer-sized debts. A signed promissory note gives you the longest window of all.

If you are being pursued: read the statute of limitations on debt by state for your row before you respond. If a collector is suing on a debt older than your state’s deadline, the expired clock is a defense you have to raise, because a court will not apply it for you. Be careful with old debts, because in many states a partial payment or a written acknowledgment can restart the clock, and the revival rules differ from state to state.

In practice, the side with the better paperwork wins more often than not, whether you are collecting or defending. So get the next agreement in writing, and keep the signed copy somewhere you can find it. Before you send a demand or answer one, check the table.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long can a debt be collected in my state?

The statute of limitations on debt by state moves with both the kind of debt and the state you are in. Written contracts run anywhere from three years up to ten, with most landing at six. Oral debts get that same window or a shorter one, bottoming out at two years in California. Notes follow their own rule, six years under the UCC in most states. Find your row, compare the written and oral columns, and work from whichever is earlier. One thing the table leaves out: open-account and credit-card debt, which runs on a separate schedule.

What is the difference between a written and an oral contract deadline?

One is on paper with a signature. The other is a promise made out loud, nothing more. Courts trust the paper, so written debt almost always gets the longer deadline, and anyone suing on a handshake also has to prove the deal happened at all. In California, a written debt gives you four years to sue and an oral one only two. New York and Maine, with several other states, skip the distinction and run both on one deadline.

Does a promissory note have a different deadline than a regular contract?

In most states, yes. The UCC gives a negotiable note six years from its due date, and that runs on its own, separate from whatever the written-contract deadline happens to be. Where ordinary contracts die at three or four years, a signed note can still be alive. The exceptions are worth memorizing if you lend: Arkansas, West Virginia, and Louisiana knock notes down to five, and Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri stretch them to ten. Pennsylvania’s statutes contradict each other, so assume the shorter four years.

What is time-barred debt, and can I still be sued for it?

Time-barred means the window to sue you closed a while ago. The debt itself is still real, and a collector can keep asking you to pay. Being sued is where it changes. If a creditor files anyway, the case gets thrown out once you tell the court the deadline passed, but the court will not notice on its own, so you have to raise it yourself. As for whether to actually pay a debt that old, that is a judgment call, sometimes a strategic one, worth a lawyer’s read when the sum is large. This page gives information, not a recommendation either way.

Can the clock on an old debt restart?

This is where an old debt comes back to life. Make a small payment, or sign anything admitting you owe it, and in a lot of states the clock resets to zero, handing the creditor a fresh full term. Not every state allows that, and a few bar revival on consumer debt outright. The lesson is blunt: one careless payment can wipe out years of waiting. So check the current statute, or ask a lawyer, before you pay a cent or sign a word on a debt this old. Each state’s law is linked in the table above.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long can a debt be collected in my state?

The statute of limitations on debt by state moves with both the kind of debt and the state you are in. Written contracts run anywhere from three years up to ten, with most landing at six. Oral debts get that same window or a shorter one, bottoming out at two years in California. Notes follow their own rule, six years under the UCC in most states. Find your row, compare the written and oral columns, and work from whichever is earlier. One thing the table leaves out: open-account and credit-card debt, which runs on a separate schedule.

What is the difference between a written and an oral contract deadline?

One is on paper with a signature. The other is a promise made out loud, nothing more. Courts trust the paper, so written debt almost always gets the longer deadline, and anyone suing on a handshake also has to prove the deal happened at all. In California, a written debt gives you four years to sue and an oral one only two. New York and Maine, with several other states, skip the distinction and run both on one deadline.

Does a promissory note have a different deadline than a regular contract?

In most states, yes. The UCC gives a negotiable note six years from its due date, and that runs on its own, separate from whatever the written-contract deadline happens to be. Where ordinary contracts die at three or four years, a signed note can still be alive. The exceptions are worth memorizing if you lend: Arkansas, West Virginia, and Louisiana knock notes down to five, and Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri stretch them to ten. Pennsylvania’s statutes contradict each other, so assume the shorter four years.

What is time-barred debt, and can I still be sued for it?

Time-barred means the window to sue you closed a while ago. The debt itself is still real, and a collector can keep asking you to pay. Being sued is where it changes. If a creditor files anyway, the case gets thrown out once you tell the court the deadline passed, but the court will not notice on its own, so you have to raise it yourself. As for whether to actually pay a debt that old, that is a judgment call, sometimes a strategic one, worth a lawyer’s read when the sum is large. This page gives information, not a recommendation either way.

Can the clock on an old debt restart?

This is where an old debt comes back to life. Make a small payment, or sign anything admitting you owe it, and in a lot of states the clock resets to zero, handing the creditor a fresh full term. Not every state allows that, and a few bar revival on consumer debt outright. The lesson is blunt: one careless payment can wipe out years of waiting. So check the current statute, or ask a lawyer, before you pay a cent or sign a word on a debt this old. Each state’s law is linked in the table above.

Marcus Thorne

Marcus Thorne writes about business law and contracts for ClearLegalTips. He focuses on making non-compete agreements, buy-sell terms, and everyday business paperwork understandable for owners handling them without a lawyer.