How Long Do You Have to Respond to Interrogatories?

In federal court, you have 30 days after being served to respond to interrogatories under Rule 33(b)(2).¹ If the interrogatories arrived by mail, you get three extra days, which effectively turns the deadline into 33 days.² Electronic service gets no extra time. Most state courts use a similar 30-day default, but deadlines of 20 or 45 days are not unusual, so check your jurisdiction’s rules and any scheduling order in your case before you rely on the federal number.

How to Count the 30 Days

The clock starts the day after service, not the day the interrogatories arrive. Every calendar day counts, including weekends and holidays. If day 30 lands on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the deadline rolls to the next business day.²

The three-day mail cushion under Rule 6(d) also applies when documents are left with the court clerk or served by certain other non-electronic methods. It does not apply to electronic service. Both sides can agree to shorten or extend the period under Rule 29, and a judge can set a different deadline in the scheduling order.

Getting More Time to Respond

The easiest way to buy yourself more time is to ask the other side. Under Rule 29, opposing parties can stipulate in writing to a new response date without involving the judge.³ Reach out to opposing counsel before your deadline expires, agree on a new date, and confirm it in writing. Many attorneys grant a reasonable extension without a fight, because they will want the same courtesy later.

One catch: if the new date would interfere with the court’s scheduling order, such as pushing past the discovery cutoff or bumping into a hearing or trial date, the parties cannot extend it on their own. That kind of extension requires court approval.³

If the other side refuses, you can file a motion for an extension under Rule 6(b). File it before the original deadline passes. A judge can extend the deadline for good cause when the motion is timely, but if you wait until after the deadline expires, you have to show “excusable neglect,” which is a much harder standard.² Good cause typically means the complexity of the questions, the volume of records you need to review, or competing obligations in the same case. Being busy is not good cause.

What Happens If You Miss the Deadline

The first consequence is waiver of objections. Any ground for objecting that you did not raise within the 30-day window is generally gone, including attorney-client privilege, unless the court excuses the failure for good cause.¹ Courts take the timeliness requirement seriously, and “I forgot” rarely qualifies. This is why the deadline matters even when you have strong objections: a late response can gut them.

The party that sent the interrogatories can also file a motion to compel under Rule 37(a). The rule treats a complete failure to respond, evasive answers, and incomplete answers the same way. Before filing, the other side has to certify that they tried in good faith to resolve the dispute first. If the judge grants the motion, you will almost certainly be ordered to pay the other side’s attorney’s fees for bringing it, unless your failure was substantially justified.⁴

If you still don’t comply after the court orders you to respond, sanctions escalate under Rule 37(b). The judge’s options include:

Treating the unanswered matters as established in favor of the other party.
Barring you from introducing certain evidence or raising specific defenses at trial.
Striking part or all of your pleadings.
Entering default judgment against you in the most extreme cases.
Ordering you to pay the other side’s reasonable expenses and attorney’s fees, unless the failure was substantially justified.

These are not theoretical penalties. Judges impose them, particularly when a party has already been warned through a motion to compel and still fails to respond.⁴

Objections Have the Same Deadline

If you plan to object to some questions and answer others, both have to go out together within the 30-day window. Each objection must be stated with specificity; writing the word “objection” and stopping there is not enough. The ground has to be spelled out clearly enough for the court and opposing counsel to evaluate it, and any ground you fail to raise on time is waived absent good cause.¹

Your Duty Does Not End on Day 30

Responding on time doesn’t close out your obligations. Under Rule 26(e), if you later learn that one of your answers was wrong or materially incomplete, you must supplement or correct it in a timely manner.⁵ There is no fixed number of days; the standard is “timely,” and the duty continues through trial. The exception is when the corrected information has already reached the other parties through the discovery process or in writing.

If you sit on corrected information and try to introduce it at trial, the judge can exclude it entirely. Treat your interrogatory answers as living documents and update them when the facts change.

1
Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 33 – Interrogatories to Parties
2
Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 6 – Computing and Extending Time; Time for Motion Papers
3
Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 29 – Stipulations About Discovery Procedure
4
Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 37 – Failure to Make Disclosures or to Cooperate in Discovery; Sanctions
5
Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 26 – Duty to Disclose; General Provisions Governing Discovery