What Is the Federal False Claims Act Statute of Limitations?

The federal False Claims Act statute of limitations gives the government and whistleblowers two possible deadlines, and the case is timely if it meets whichever runs longer: six years from the date of the violation, or three years from when a responsible government official learns of the fraud, with an absolute ceiling of ten years from the violation itself.¹

Six Years From the Violation

The baseline rule sits at 31 U.S.C. § 3731(b)(1). A lawsuit must be filed within six years of when the fraud occurred. The violation date is usually the moment a false claim is submitted to the government for payment, whether that means an inflated invoice, a fraudulent reimbursement request, or a bogus certification.¹

Each separate submission starts its own six-year clock. A contractor who bills the government every month creates a new deadline with every invoice. This period runs whether or not anyone in the government suspects a thing. If the fraud surfaces quickly, six years is plenty. If it stays hidden, six years can be far too short, which is where the second deadline matters.

Three Years From Discovery, Capped at Ten

Under 31 U.S.C. § 3731(b)(2), a case can also be filed within three years of the date a responsible government official learned of the fraud, or reasonably should have learned of it. This clock does not start when a line auditor notices something odd. It starts when a senior official with authority to act on the information becomes aware of the material facts.¹

The discovery rule is not open-ended. No case can be filed more than ten years after the violation, no matter when the government pieced the scheme together. A fraudulent invoice submitted in 2016 was time-barred once 2026 arrived, whatever the government knew or didn’t know.¹

How the Two Deadlines Combine

The statute says the case must be filed by “whichever occurs last” between the two periods. The plaintiff always gets the longer window. A few worked examples show what that means:

Fraud discovered early. The violation happens in Year 0 and the government learns about it in Year 2. The six-year clock runs to Year 6. The three-year discovery clock runs to Year 5. The deadline is Year 6.
Fraud discovered late. The violation happens in Year 0 and the government finds out in Year 7. Six years has already expired, but the discovery clock gives three more years from Year 7. The deadline is Year 10.
Fraud discovered very late. The violation happens in Year 0 and nobody catches it until Year 9. The discovery clock would run to Year 12, but the ten-year hard cap cuts it off at Year 10.

In most complex fraud cases, the six-year deadline barely matters. The real timeline is set by when the government learned and by the ten-year ceiling.¹

Whistleblower Cases After Cochise Consultancy

Private citizens, called relators, can sue on behalf of the government through a qui tam action. Courts once disagreed about whether the three-year discovery extension applied when the government declined to join. In 2019 the Supreme Court settled it in Cochise Consultancy, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Hunt: both limitation periods apply to every FCA case, whether or not the government intervenes.²

The Court also decided whose knowledge starts the three-year clock. It’s the responsible government official, not the whistleblower. A relator might sit on information for years, but the discovery period doesn’t begin until a government official with authority to act acquires the material facts. That distinction can push the effective deadline well past what defendants expect.²

Filing Under Seal Still Counts as Filing

Qui tam complaints must be filed under seal, and the defendant isn’t told about the case at the outset. The relator delivers a written disclosure of substantially all material evidence to the Attorney General and the local U.S. Attorney, and the government has at least 60 days (usually much longer, through extensions) to decide whether to intervene.³

For limitations purposes, the seal doesn’t delay anything. Filing the sealed complaint stops the clock. The case doesn’t have to be unsealed or served on the defendant before the deadline expires. A complaint filed under seal on the last day of the limitations period is timely.

Retaliation Claims Have Their Own Three-Year Clock

Employees who are fired, demoted, or harassed for reporting suspected fraud have a separate cause of action under 31 U.S.C. § 3730(h). The deadline is three years from the retaliatory act. There is no discovery extension and no ten-year backstop. Miss it and the retaliation claim is gone, even if the underlying fraud case is still moving.⁴

Wartime Suspension Can Pause the Clock

The Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3287, suspends the statute of limitations for fraud against the government when the United States is at war or when Congress has authorized the use of military force. The suspension lasts until five years after hostilities officially end, either by presidential proclamation or by concurrent resolution of Congress.⁵

Because Congress has authorized the use of military force in overlapping contexts since 2001, whether the standard six-year and ten-year clocks were paused (and for how long) can be a live question in older cases. Working out when those clocks resumed requires tracking the status of each authorization.

Timely Filing Isn’t Enough

Two procedural bars can end a qui tam case even when the limitations period hasn’t run.

The First-to-File Rule

Once a qui tam complaint is pending, 31 U.S.C. § 3730(b)(5) blocks any other private party from filing a separate case based on the same underlying facts. Only the government itself is exempt. If two whistleblowers independently uncover the same scheme, the second to file is out. Courts disagree about whether the rule is jurisdictional or a merits defense, but either way, waiting can be fatal even inside the limitations window.³

The Public Disclosure Bar

A court must dismiss a qui tam action, unless the government objects, if the same allegations were already publicly disclosed through a federal hearing, a congressional or Government Accountability Office report, or the news media. A relator who qualifies as an “original source” can still proceed. That means either voluntarily disclosing the information to the government before it went public, or having knowledge that is independent of and materially adds to the public disclosures, with voluntary disclosure to the government before suit.³

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC 3731 – False Claims Procedure
2
Supreme Court of the United States. Cochise Consultancy, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Hunt
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC 3730 – Civil Actions for False Claims
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC 3730 – Civil Actions for False Claims – Section: Relief From Retaliatory Actions
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3287 – Wartime Suspension of Limitations