Florida injury filing deadlines
Two years is the answer for most Florida injury claims, and it is the wrong answer often enough to matter. It depends on the date your claim arose, on who you are suing, and on what kind of injury it is — and three of the deadlines that can end a claim run out long before the two years do.
The two-year rule came in with Florida’s 2023 tort reform. What almost nothing published on this subject gets right is the fine print of when it took hold, because the act that created it carries two different applicability clauses and they point in opposite directions. One turns on when your claim arose. The other turns on when it is filed. Which one governs decides whether you have two years or four.
That is settled below, from the act itself. Then the deadlines that are shorter than two years, the completely separate scheme that applies if you were hurt on government property, and the one thing most parents believe about a child’s claim that is not true.
Written by the attorney who handles the cases. Reviewed by Paul R. Shalhoub.
The two-year rule, and the exact date it starts applying
24 March 2023 is the line, and which side of it you are on depends on a single word in the act.
Before 2023, an action founded on negligence had four years. House Bill 837 became chapter 2023-15, which struck negligence from the four-year list and put it in the two-year list, now section 95.11(5)(a). Section 31 of the act says it takes effect on becoming a law, and section 27 directs that “the effective date of this act” be replaced with the date it became law. The Governor approved it and it was filed with the Secretary of State on 24 March 2023.
Now the part that decides your case. The act ends with two applicability sections, and they are not the same:
| Section of the act | What it says | What it reaches |
|---|---|---|
| Section 28 | “The amendments made by this act to s. 95.11, Florida Statutes, apply to causes of action accruing after the effective date of this act.” | The two-year deadline. Only claims that arose after 24 March 2023 |
| Section 30 | “Except as otherwise expressly provided in this act, this act shall apply to causes of action filed after the effective date of this act.” | Everything else the act changed. Claims filed after 24 March 2023, whenever they arose |
| Section 29 | The act does not impair a right under an insurance contract in effect on or before the effective date, and applies to a contract issued or renewed after it | Policy rights, by the date of the policy rather than the date of the crash |
So, for the deadline: if your claim arose on or before 24 March 2023, the former four-year period applies to it. A crash in February 2023 was not on a two-year clock and never became subject to one. A crash in April 2023 was. Section 28 is express, and it says accruing, not filed.
And for everything else in that act — the 50 percent comparative-fault bar in section 768.81(6), and the rules on what evidence of medical bills is admissible — section 30 governs, and section 30 says filed. An older crash that is filed today is subject to those changes even though the crash predates them. That is the opposite of what most people assume, and it is why an old claim that has never been filed is not simply an old claim under old law.
Not every injury claim is two years
The two-year period covers negligence. Several of the claims people actually bring are somewhere else in the statute.
| Kind of claim | Period | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinary negligence — a crash, a fall, most injury claims | 2 years | s. 95.11(5)(a), for claims accruing after 24 March 2023 |
| Wrongful death | 2 years | s. 95.11(5)(e) |
| Medical malpractice | 2 years from the incident or from discovery, and in no event more than 4 years from the incident | s. 95.11(5)(c), with a seven-year outside limit where there was fraud or concealment |
| Injury from a defective product | 4 years on the face of the statute | s. 95.11(3)(d) — injury founded on the design, manufacture, distribution or sale of personal property. The 2023 act did not touch it |
| A claim against the state, a county or a city | 4 years to file suit, but written notice within 3 years | s. 768.28(14) and s. 768.28(6)(a). Wrongful death follows s. 95.11(5) |
| Intentional tort based on abuse | 7 years after majority, 4 years after leaving the dependency, or 4 years from discovering the injury and its connection to the abuse — whichever is latest | s. 95.11(8) |
| Death from an intentional tort described in s. 782.04 or s. 782.07, against a natural person | No time limit | s. 95.11(11) — may be commenced at any time |
Two of those rows are worth stopping on. A defective-product injury sits in a four-year paragraph that the 2023 act left alone, so it is not automatically on the two-year clock — though which period governs a particular claim depends on how it is pleaded, and that is a question to settle with a lawyer rather than from a table. And where a death resulted from an intentional act of the kind described in the murder and manslaughter statutes, and the defendant is a person rather than a company, section 95.11(11) puts no deadline on the civil action at all.
The deadlines that expire long before the lawsuit deadline
Two years is the last deadline, not the first. These come first, and missing one of them costs money whether or not you ever sue.
Fourteen days, for medical benefits. Section 627.736(1)(a) conditions personal injury protection medical benefits on the injured person receiving initial services and care within 14 days of the crash. There is no tolling, no good-cause exception and nothing a lawyer can do about it afterward. It is the shortest and least forgiving deadline in Florida injury law and it runs while people are waiting to see whether the pain goes away.
Three years, to notify a government agency. If a city, a county, the state or one of its agencies is responsible, section 768.28(6)(a) requires a written claim presented to the agency within three years of accrual, and the next section explains how different that whole scheme is.
Whatever your own policy says about prompt notice. Reporting a crash to your own insurer is a term of the contract you signed, and it is not measured in years. Late notice is a defense a carrier raises on its own, separately from anything in chapter 95.
And the deadline nobody writes down: the evidence. Store and parking-lot surveillance is routinely overwritten in days or weeks on an ordinary retention cycle. A vehicle goes to salvage. A roadway gets repaired. None of that is a legal deadline and all of it is final. Two years is how long you have to file; the first two weeks are how long you have to preserve the case you would be filing.
If you were hurt on government property, the rules change entirely
A county sidewalk, a city park, a public hospital, a school bus or a government vehicle puts your claim under a different statute with a different clock and a ceiling on what it can be worth.
Section 768.28 is the statute that waives the state’s sovereign immunity, and it waives it on conditions:
| Step | What is required | The number |
|---|---|---|
| Written notice of the claim | Presented in writing to the appropriate agency — and also to the Department of Financial Services, except for a claim against a municipality, a county or the Florida Space Authority | Within 3 years of accrual. 2 years for wrongful death, to the Department |
| Waiting out the agency | You cannot sue until the claim is denied in writing, or until the time runs out, which counts as a denial. The limitations period is tolled while you wait | 6 months, or 90 days for medical malpractice and wrongful death |
| Filing suit | The action is forever barred unless the complaint is filed in time. Medical malpractice and wrongful death follow s. 95.11(5) instead | Within 4 years of accrual, under s. 768.28(14) |
| What it can pay | The cap is on the entity, not on your injury. Anything above it is payable only by a further act of the Legislature — a claim bill | $200,000 per person, $300,000 per incident |
Read the asymmetry. Sue the driver who hit you and you have two years. Sue the county whose sidewalk you fell on and you have four — but you must have given written notice inside three, you must sit out the agency’s six months, and a catastrophic injury recovers $200,000 unless the Legislature passes a bill about you personally. Which of those two situations you are in is decided by who owned the property or the vehicle, and that is the first thing to establish, not the last.
When the clock starts, and the narrow list of things that pause it
It starts when the cause of action accrues, and the list of things that stop it is closed.
For a crash or a fall, the claim ordinarily accrues on the date of the injury — not on the date you learned how bad it was, not on the date a doctor connected it to the incident, and not on the date the insurance company denied anything. People lose claims waiting for one of those three things to happen.
Section 95.051(1) sets out what tolls a limitations period, and the whole list is short: the absence from the state of the person to be sued; that person’s use of a false name unknown to you; concealment in the state so that process cannot be served; the adjudicated incapacity of the person entitled to sue, where it existed before the claim accrued; voluntary payments by an alleged father in a paternity action; payment on an obligation founded on a written instrument; a pending arbitral proceeding on the same dispute; an intervening bankruptcy as it affects a tax certificate; and minority or previously adjudicated incapacity, on the narrow terms in the next section.
Two limits on all of it. The first three grounds do not apply where service of process or service by publication could confer jurisdiction anyway — so a defendant who has moved out of Florida but can still be served does not stop your clock. And subsection (2) closes the door on everything else: “A disability or other reason does not toll the running of any statute of limitations except those specified.” Not being able to work, not knowing the law, waiting on treatment, being told by an adjuster that the claim was being handled — none of those is on the list.
The one thing most parents believe about a child’s claim
That the clock waits until the child turns eighteen. In Florida it generally does not.
This is the most common and most expensive misunderstanding on this subject. Section 95.051(1)(i) does list the minority of the person entitled to sue as a tolling ground — but only on conditions, and they are narrow. It applies only during a period when no parent, guardian or guardian ad litem exists, or when the one who exists has an interest adverse to the child, or has been adjudicated unable to sue. A child with a parent who could have brought the claim is not getting the clock stopped. Even where it does apply, the action must be begun within seven years of the act or occurrence. And it does not apply at all to medical malpractice under section 95.11.
Medical malpractice has its own narrow protection for a child instead, inside section 95.11(5)(c): the four-year outside limit “shall not bar an action brought on behalf of a minor on or before the child’s eighth birthday.” That is a specific rule about a specific claim, and it is not a general grace period for injured children.
The practical version: if a child was hurt, the family’s deadline is the ordinary one, and waiting for the child to grow up is how a claim is lost. There are separate questions about who signs and about court approval of a minor’s settlement, and none of them change the clock.
Medical malpractice runs on a different clock
Two years, but measured from a different place, with a hard ceiling behind it.
Section 95.11(5)(c) gives two years from the time the incident occurred, or from when it was discovered or should have been discovered with the exercise of due diligence. That second measure is the reason malpractice is different: a surgical error that nobody identifies for a year has not necessarily started its clock on the date of the surgery.
Behind it sits a ceiling that the discovery rule cannot push past. In no event may the action be commenced later than four years from the date of the incident out of which the cause of action accrued — except that this four-year period does not bar an action on behalf of a minor on or before the child’s eighth birthday. Where there was fraud, concealment or intentional misrepresentation that prevented discovery, the outside limit extends, but not beyond seven years from the incident.
One more thing that belongs here, because it is from the same 2023 act and it cuts the other way. Section 768.81(6) bars recovery by a party found more than 50 percent at fault for their own harm — and its last sentence says the subsection “does not apply to an action for damages for personal injury or wrongful death arising out of medical negligence pursuant to chapter 766.” The 50 percent bar is not a malpractice rule.
What happens the day after a deadline passes
Nothing visible. That is what makes it dangerous.
No letter arrives. The adjuster who was returning calls simply stops needing to, because the claim he was evaluating can no longer be filed and he knows it before you do. A limitations defense is raised in the answer to a complaint, which means the first time most people hear about it is after they have hired a lawyer and the lawyer has looked at a calendar.
Which is why the date to be certain about is not the deadline but today’s distance from it. If your crash or fall was more than eighteen months ago and nothing has been filed, the question has stopped being what the claim is worth and started being whether it still exists. That is a five-minute conversation and it is free.
What this looks like in practice
An illustration, not a case. No real client, no real claim, no result promised.
Suppose a man is hurt in a rear-end collision in West Palm Beach in January 2023. He treats for a few months, the carrier keeps asking for records, and the file drifts. In late 2026 he decides to do something about it.
His negligence claim accrued in January 2023, before 24 March 2023, so section 28 of the act leaves it on the former four-year period rather than the new two-year one. The claim is still alive into January 2027. Most of what he would read online would have told him it died in January 2025.
But section 30 is also waiting for him. Because he is filing after 24 March 2023, the 2023 changes that have no applicability clause of their own do reach him: the 50 percent bar in section 768.81(6), and the rules limiting what evidence of his medical bills is admissible. His deadline is the old one. His damages rules are the new ones. Both of those sentences are true at the same time, and the only way to know it is to read the act rather than a summary of it.
Change one fact — the collision happens in April 2023 instead of January — and the two-year period applies, the claim expired in April 2025, and nothing above matters.
What to do if your deadline is close
In order, and the first two are the ones that cannot wait.
- Write down the date of the injury. Everything on this page is measured from it, and whether it falls before or after 24 March 2023 changes the answer.
- Establish who you would be suing. A private driver or business, or a government body. If there is any chance it is a city, a county, the state, a public hospital or a school board, the three-year written notice under section 768.28(6)(a) is the live deadline and it is earlier than the one to file.
- Do not wait for treatment to finish. A claim can be filed while treatment continues. A claim cannot be filed after the period has run no matter how reasonable the delay was.
- Do not rely on anything an adjuster said. An assurance that a claim is being handled is not on the tolling list in section 95.051, and subsection (2) says the list is closed.
- Get the evidence preserved now. Video, the vehicle, the scene. These disappear on their own schedule, not on the statute’s.
- If the injured person is a child, do not count on minority tolling the period. Section 95.051(1)(i) applies only where no parent or guardian could bring the claim, and never to malpractice.
- Call before you are sure. Checking a date costs nothing. Discovering it in an answer to a complaint costs the claim.
What Paul checks first when a deadline is in question
Five things, and the order matters.
Paul R. Shalhoub starts with the date of the injury against 24 March 2023, because that single comparison decides whether he is working with two years or four. Then: who the defendant is, which decides whether chapter 95 or section 768.28 governs, and whether a notice deadline has already passed. Then the nature of the claim, since malpractice, a defective product and a death from an intentional act are each somewhere else in the statute. Then whether anything on the closed tolling list in section 95.051 is actually present, as opposed to a reason that feels like it should count. Then what evidence still exists, because a claim that is technically alive and has no proof left is a different problem with a different answer.
None of that takes long, and all of it is better done before the date than after.
Do you need a lawyer to protect a deadline?
Not always. Here is the honest version of both answers.
You probably do not need one if the injury was recent, you are being treated, and nobody is disputing anything. Nothing is expiring in the next few months and a claim does not improve by being filed early.
A call helps, and it is free, if the injury was more than a year ago, if the date is anywhere near 24 March 2023, if a government body may be responsible, if the injured person is a child, if the claim involves medical care or a product rather than a crash, or if you have simply lost track of the date. Each of those is a case where the deadline is not the one the internet would quote you.
We advance case costs, and you owe no attorney’s fees or reimbursement of those costs unless we recover compensation for you.
Common questions
My crash was in 2022. Do I have two years or four?
Four. Section 28 of chapter 2023-15 says the amendments to section 95.11 “apply to causes of action accruing after the effective date of this act,” and the act became law on 24 March 2023. A claim that accrued in 2022 accrued before that date, so the former four-year period applies to it. Verify the exact date of injury before relying on this, because the comparison is to a single day.
When exactly does the two-year clock start?
When the cause of action accrues, which for a crash or a fall is ordinarily the date of the injury. It does not start when you found out how serious the injury was, when a doctor connected it to the incident, or when an insurer denied the claim. Medical malpractice is the exception, and it is in section 95.11(5)(c).
Does the deadline change if the at-fault driver left the state?
Only if they cannot be served. Section 95.051(1)(a) lists absence from the state of the person to be sued as a tolling ground, but the statute also provides that the first three grounds do not apply where service of process or service by publication would confer jurisdiction. A driver who moved to Georgia and can still be served has not stopped your clock.
I fell on a city sidewalk. Is it still two years?
No, and the whole structure is different. Section 768.28(14) gives four years to file suit, but section 768.28(6)(a) requires a written claim to the agency within three years, you cannot sue until the claim is denied or the agency’s six months run out, and section 768.28(5)(a) caps recovery at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident. The notice deadline is the one that actually bites.
My child was injured. Does the clock wait until they turn 18?
Generally no. Section 95.051(1)(i) tolls for minority only during a period when no parent, guardian or guardian ad litem exists, or when the one who exists has an adverse interest or has been adjudicated unable to sue — and even then the action must begin within seven years of the occurrence. It does not apply to medical malpractice at all. Malpractice has its own narrow rule: the four-year outside limit in section 95.11(5)(c) does not bar an action brought on behalf of a minor on or before the child’s eighth birthday.
Is a defective-product injury also two years?
Section 95.11(3)(d) still sets four years for an action for injury founded on the design, manufacture, distribution or sale of personal property, and the 2023 act did not amend that paragraph. Whether a particular claim falls there or in the two-year negligence paragraph depends on how it is pleaded, which is a question to put to a lawyer before relying on either number.
Is there any claim with no deadline at all?
One. Section 95.11(11) provides that an action for wrongful death against a natural person, for an intentional tort resulting in death from acts described in section 782.04 or section 782.07, may be commenced at any time. The defendant has to be a person rather than a company, and the death has to have resulted from an act of that kind.
Is there a deadline I can miss and still have a case?
Yes — the 14-day rule in section 627.736(1)(a) ends your personal injury protection medical benefits, not your injury claim against the person who hurt you. Missing it is expensive and it is not fatal. The limitations period in chapter 95 and the notice requirement in section 768.28(6)(a) are the ones that end a claim outright.
The adjuster told me the claim was being handled. Does that extend anything?
No. Section 95.051(1) is a closed list and nothing on it resembles an assurance from an insurer, and subsection (2) says that “a disability or other reason does not toll the running of any statute of limitations except those specified.” An open claim file is not a tolling agreement.
What does it cost to hire Paul R. Shalhoub?
Nothing up front. We advance case costs, and you owe no attorney’s fees or reimbursement of those costs unless we recover compensation for you. The consultation is free and confidential, and it is with the attorney who would handle the case.
Written by
Paul R. Shalhoub
Personal injury attorney, West Palm Beach
Paul R. Shalhoub is the owner of Shalhoub Law Injury & Accident. He began his career defending insurance carriers and now represents the people those carriers underpay, handling every case personally from the first call through trial. He was mayor of Lake Clarke Shores in 2022 and 2023, after three terms on its town council, and sits on boards across Palm Beach County.
Where this fits
The claim types this answer touches, and how the firm runs them.
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Shalhoub Law Injury & Accident, 1011 N Olive Ave, West Palm Beach, FL 33401. This describes Florida law as of 31 October 2026 and applies to claims in Florida. Sections 95.11, 95.051, 768.28, 768.81 and 627.736 were read at leg.state.fl.us, and chapter 2023-15 was read as the enrolled act at laws.flrules.org, for this page. It is general information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome.