Federal Statute of Limitations: Criminal Clock and Civil Deadlines

The federal statute of limitations for most crimes is five years, meaning prosecutors must file charges within five years of the offense or lose the case forever.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3282 – Offenses Not Capital Federal civil deadlines are a different story. There is no single time limit for civil lawsuits; the window depends entirely on which federal law you are suing under, and some of those windows are as short as six months. Both systems also contain exceptions that shorten, extend, or freeze the clock in ways that surprise people who assume the deadline is fixed.

The Five-Year Default for Federal Crimes

The baseline is simple. For any federal crime that is not punishable by death, the government has five years from the date of the offense to file an indictment or criminal information, unless a different statute sets a different deadline.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3282 – Offenses Not Capital Everyday federal offenses like making false statements to a federal agent, minor fraud, and regulatory violations fall under this window.

If prosecutors miss the deadline, the case is done. The statute of limitations acts as a complete defense, the charges are dismissed, and the defendant cannot be retried. It does not matter whether the government knew about the crime during those five years. That is why long financial investigations sometimes become a sprint against the calendar.

Crimes With Longer or No Time Limit

Congress has singled out many offenses for longer windows, and some for none at all.

Capital offenses can be charged at any time.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3281 – Capital Offenses That covers any federal crime punishable by death, including certain murders and treason. Terrorism offenses that killed someone or created a foreseeable risk of death or serious bodily injury also have no deadline, even if the offense itself is not technically a capital crime.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3286 – Extension of Statute of Limitation for Certain Terrorism Offenses

Between five years and no limit, the specific windows Congress has set include:

Two more rules can effectively restart or extend a criminal deadline. When DNA testing identifies a suspect in a federal felony, prosecutors get an additional period equal to the original limitation window, measured from the date of the DNA match.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3297 – Cases Involving DNA Evidence And during any period the United States is at war or Congress has authorized the use of armed forces, the statute of limitations is suspended for fraud against the government and related offenses involving government property or military contracts. That suspension lasts until five years after hostilities officially end by presidential proclamation or congressional resolution.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3287 – Wartime Suspension of Limitations

When the Criminal Clock Starts, Pauses, and Ends

For most crimes, the clock starts on the date the offense was completed. A robbery on March 1 has to be charged by March 1 five years later. Conspiracies work differently. The clock does not start until the last act taken in furtherance of the agreement, which lets prosecutors reach back years as long as the conspiracy remained active. Continuing offenses like failure to register work the same way: the violation renews each day the person fails to comply, and the clock only begins when the conduct stops.

Two rules pause the clock. Anyone fleeing from justice does not benefit from the passage of time; the statute simply does not run against a fugitive.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3290 – Fugitives From Justice Separately, when evidence is located abroad, the government can ask a court to suspend the limitation period from the date of an official foreign evidence request until the foreign authority takes final action, capped at three years total.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3292 – Suspension of Limitations to Permit United States to Obtain Foreign Evidence

One more thing about the criminal deadline matters, and it can cost a defendant the entire defense. The statute of limitations is an affirmative defense, not a jurisdictional bar. A defendant has to raise it at or before trial, or it is waived. A guilty plea waives it. So does silence: a defendant whose case falls outside the window but whose lawyer overlooks the issue gets no benefit from the expired clock. Prosecutors sometimes also ask defendants to waive the defense as part of a plea or cooperation agreement while an investigation continues.

Federal Civil Deadlines Have No Single Rule

There is no civil version of the five-year criminal default. Each federal cause of action sets its own deadline, and those deadlines vary widely by statute. Employment discrimination, securities fraud, tort claims against the government, and antitrust cases each operate on their own timelines.

Congress did create one backstop. Any civil claim arising under a federal law enacted after December 1, 1990, that does not specify its own deadline is subject to a four-year limitation from the date the claim accrues.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 1658 – Time Limitations on the Commencement of Civil Actions Arising Under Acts of Congress For older federal statutes that provide no deadline, federal courts typically borrow the most closely analogous state limitation period. Civil rights suits under 42 U.S.C. ยง 1983 are the most common example: courts apply the forum state’s personal injury deadline, which can range from one to six years depending on the state.

The Civil Deadlines That Trip People Up

Several federal civil deadlines are much shorter than what people expect, and missing them permanently ends the claim.

Tort Claims Against the Federal Government

The Federal Tort Claims Act allows suits against the United States for injuries caused by negligent federal employees, but it enforces two strict deadlines. You must first file a written administrative claim with the responsible agency within two years of when the claim accrued. If the agency denies it, you then have six months from the date the denial was mailed to file a lawsuit.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2401 – Time for Commencing Action Against United States Miss either one and the claim is barred. The administrative filing step catches many people who assume they can go straight to court.

Employment Discrimination

Federal discrimination claims generally require you to file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission before suing. The standard deadline is 180 days from the discriminatory act, extended to 300 days if your state has its own agency enforcing a similar anti-discrimination law. Weekends and holidays count. A separate deadline applies to each discriminatory event, so a timely charge about a firing does not revive an untimely complaint about an earlier demotion. Equal Pay Act claims are the exception. You can skip the EEOC and sue directly within two years of the last discriminatory paycheck, or three years for a willful violation.14U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits for Filing a Charge

Securities Fraud

Private securities fraud suits must be filed within two years of discovering the facts that reveal the violation, but no later than five years after the violation occurred.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 1658 – Time Limitations on the Commencement of Civil Actions Arising Under Acts of Congress The five-year outer boundary is a hard cutoff even if the fraud stays hidden longer.

Government Enforcement for Civil Penalties

When a federal agency seeks civil fines, penalties, or forfeiture rather than criminal charges, it must bring the action within five years of when the claim first accrued.15Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 2462 – Time for Commencing Action The Supreme Court held in Kokesh v. SEC (2017) that this five-year cap also applies to SEC disgorgement, which the Court treated as a penalty.16Supreme Court of the United States. Kokesh v. SEC, 581 U.S. 455 (2017)

Discovery, Tolling, and the Repose Trap

Civil deadlines usually run from the date of injury, but many federal claims use the discovery rule instead. Under that rule, the clock starts when the injured person knew or reasonably should have known about the harm. It matters most in cases of concealed wrongdoing, latent injuries, and complex financial fraud where the damage is not obvious.

Federal courts also recognize equitable tolling as a narrow exception when circumstances beyond the plaintiff’s control prevented a timely filing. Legal incapacity (being a minor or mentally incompetent when the claim arose) and fraudulent concealment by the defendant are the usual grounds. Concealment requires more than silence: the defendant must have taken affirmative steps to hide the wrongdoing, and the plaintiff must have exercised reasonable diligence anyway. Plaintiffs and defendants can also enter written tolling agreements that voluntarily pause the deadline while they explore settlement or exchange information.

The deadline that surprises people most is not a statute of limitations at all. A statute of repose starts running from the defendant’s last act, not from when the plaintiff was injured or discovered the injury. If the repose window closes before you know you were harmed, the claim is barred anyway. The five-year outer limit on securities fraud is one example. Repose periods generally cannot be extended by the discovery rule, equitable tolling, or the plaintiff’s incapacity, and when both a limitation period and a repose period apply, the repose deadline controls if it expires first.