The Statute of Limitations on Debt in Texas

In Texas, a creditor or debt buyer generally has four years to sue on a debt, counted from the day the claim accrues, under Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 16.004. When that window closes, the debt is time-barred: it still exists, and a collector may still ask for it, but a lawsuit to collect it can be defeated if the defense is raised. A debt buyer may not sue on it at all, and a payment does not bring it back to life. A court judgment is a different animal, with a 10-year dormancy rule and a two-year revival window of its own.

The four-year rule and what it covers

Section 16.004(a) lists five kinds of claims that must be filed no later than four years after the day the cause of action accrues, and the third item on the list is, simply, debt. The statute does not split debt into types, so section 16.004 sets no separate period for a credit card balance, a medical bill, or a personal loan. Subsection (c) adds a matching four-year limit for suits on an open or stated account and gives that subsection its own starting point: the claim accrues on the day the dealings between the parties cease.

Promissory notes can carry six years

A written note can fall under a different statute. Under Business and Commerce Code section 3.118(a), a suit to enforce a note payable at a definite time must be started within six years after the due date stated in the note, or within six years after an accelerated due date if the lender called the whole balance due early. For a note payable on demand, section 3.118(b) starts the six years at the demand, and bars the claim outright if no demand is made and nothing has been paid for 10 straight years. This rule applies only to a negotiable instrument as chapter 3 defines it in section 3.104, so whether a given loan gets four years or six depends on the paper itself. The debt buyer statute discussed below names both periods.

Home loans and liens

Foreclosure has its own four-year clock. Under section 16.035, a suit to foreclose a lien on real property, or a sale under a deed of trust, must happen within four years after the claim accrues, and once the period expires the lien and the power of sale become void. For a note paid in installments, subsection (e) holds the clock until the last installment matures. Subsection (f) says the six-year note rule in section 3.118 does not change this.

When the clock starts

Every period above runs from the day the claim accrues, and for an ordinary debt the statute does not say what day that is. Chapter 16 does not define accrual for an ordinary debt. Courts decide it, and the answer depends on the account history and the contract, so no single date applies to every account.

A collection lawsuit in justice court does have to put the key dates on the table. For a credit card, revolving credit, or open account, Rule 508.2(a)(1) of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure requires the petition to state the date of charge-off or breach, if known. For a loan, Rule 508.2(a)(2) requires the date final payment was due and whether repayment was accelerated, if known. If the debt was sold, Rule 508.2(a)(4) requires the date of transfer, the names of prior holders, and the original creditor. Those dates are where any argument about the age of a debt begins.

Two smaller rules can move the end date. Under section 16.072, a period that would end on a Saturday, Sunday, or holiday runs to the next day county offices are open. And section 16.063 suspends the clock while the person who owes the debt is absent from Texas. How that suspension applies to someone who moved out of state and could still be served is a question that turns on the facts and on court decisions this guide does not cover.

Does paying restart the clock?

This is the question that worries people most, and the answer depends on who owns the debt.

If a debt buyer owns it, Texas law gives a firm answer. Finance Code section 392.307(d) says that once the buyer's suit is barred, the claim is not revived by a payment, by an oral or written reaffirmation, or by any other activity on the account. Section 392.307(b) makes that section control over any conflicting Texas law unless another law expressly says otherwise. Under subsection (a)(2), a debt buyer is anyone who buys or otherwise acquires a consumer debt from the creditor or a later owner, whether it collects the debt itself, hires a collection agency, or hires a lawyer to sue. The definition leaves out a check services company and a buyer that picks up defaulted accounts only as a side part of a portfolio made up mostly of accounts that are not charged off.

For a debt still held by the original lender, section 392.307 does not apply, and the general rule in section 16.065 is the starting point. It says an acknowledgment that a claim is just, made after the claim was due, cannot be used to defeat limitations on a claim that appears barred unless the acknowledgment is in writing and signed by the person who owes it. A phone promise to pay does not meet that test. Whether a payment by itself has any effect against an original creditor is a question the statute does not answer directly, and the outcome depends on the facts and on how courts have read section 16.065.

Time-barred debt: collection is allowed, lawsuits are not

A debt does not disappear when the limitations period ends. What ends is the ability to win a lawsuit over it. Texas and federal law handle the rest in layers.

Under section 392.307(c), a debt buyer may not, directly or indirectly, file suit or start arbitration against a consumer once the four-year period in section 16.004 or the note period in section 3.118 has run. Arbitration does not offer a way around the deadline either: section 16.073 applies the same limitations period to an arbitrated claim that would apply in court.

The statute also assumes a debt buyer may keep asking for payment, and it sets conditions. Section 392.307(e) requires the buyer, or a collector working for it, to include a notice in the first written communication about the old debt. All three versions of that notice begin with the sentence that the law limits how long a person can be sued on a debt, and all three say the buyer will not sue. They differ on credit reporting: one warns the buyer may keep reporting the debt as unpaid while federal law allows, one is for a buyer that does not report, and one, used once the federal reporting period is over, says the buyer will not report the debt at all. Under subsection (f), the notice must be in at least 12-point type and set apart from the surrounding text, for example in bold, capitals, or underlining.

Federal law adds a broader rule for third-party collectors. Under Regulation F, 12 C.F.R. 1006.26(b), a debt collector covered by the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act must not bring or threaten to bring a legal action to collect a time-barred debt, with an exception for proofs of claim filed in a bankruptcy case. The regulation defines a time-barred debt as one whose statute of limitations under the applicable law has expired, which in Texas points back to chapter 16 and section 3.118. What a collector may and may not say in other respects is covered in Texas debt collection rules.

Limitations is a defense, not an automatic shield

An expired deadline does not stop a lawsuit from being filed. Limitations works as a defense that the person sued has to raise, and the way it is raised depends on the court.

In county and district court, Rule 94 lists the statute of limitations among the defenses a party must set forth affirmatively when answering a lawsuit. Justice court works differently: Rule 500.1(e) says the general rules of civil procedure do not apply there unless the judge decides a rule is needed for fairness, and Rule 502.5(b) says a general denial is a complete answer that does not bar the defendant from raising any defense at trial. How a case typically moves in justice court is laid out in small claims court in Texas; the steps below track the parts that matter for an old debt.

1. The petition arrives with the dates

   A debt claim petition must include the Rule 508.2 details described above, such as the charge-off or breach date for a credit account. Comparing those dates with section 16.004 or section 3.118 is how the age of the claim gets measured.

2. The answer deadline runs

   Under Rule 502.5(d), the answer is due by the end of the 14th day after service, with extra time if day 14 lands on a weekend or legal holiday, or if the court closes before 5:00 p.m. on that day.

3. No answer means a default, old debt or not

   If the defendant does not answer or appear, Rule 508.3(a) requires the judge to promptly render a default judgment on the plaintiff's proof of damages. The proof Rule 508.3(b)(3) asks for covers the account, the breach, the balance, and ownership. The age of the debt is not on that list, so an unanswered suit on an expired claim can still end in a valid judgment.

4. Related claims have a short window

   A defendant who has a claim of their own arising from the same transaction may file it as a counterclaim even if it would be too late as a separate suit, but section 16.069 requires it to be filed no later than the 30th day after the answer was due.

Whether a specific claim is in fact time-barred, and what to argue, are questions for a lawyer who can look at the account history. Free and low-cost options are collected on the free legal help page.

Judgments run on a longer, separate clock

Once a creditor wins a judgment, collection runs on the judgment's own clock. Its lifespan is set by section 34.001, which applies to judgments of a court of record or a justice court. If no writ of execution is issued within 10 years after the judgment is rendered, the judgment goes dormant and no execution may be issued on it unless it is revived. If a first writ is issued in time, a second writ has to follow within 10 years of the first, or the judgment goes dormant then. Section 34.001(c) excludes child support judgments under the Family Code.

Dormant is not the same as dead. Section 31.006 lets the judgment creditor revive a dormant judgment by scire facias or by an action of debt, as long as it is brought no later than the second anniversary of the date the judgment went dormant. Put together, a judgment with no writ issued has at most 12 years before it can no longer be revived, and each timely writ can extend that.

Credit reports follow a federal seven-year rule

The Texas limitations period controls lawsuits, not credit reports. Reporting is governed by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. Under 15 U.S.C. 1681c(a)(4), a credit bureau may not include an account placed for collection or charged off once it is more than seven years old. Section 1681c(c)(1) fixes the starting point: the seven years begin when a 180-day period ends, and that 180-day period starts on the date the delinquency began that led to the collection or charge-off. In practice, that puts the end of reporting about seven and a half years after the account first fell behind, whatever happens with the lawsuit clock.

Judgments are treated differently. Section 1681c(a)(2) lets a civil judgment be reported for seven years from entry or until the governing statute of limitations expires, whichever is longer. Section 1681c(b) removes the seven-year limits for reports used for credit or life insurance of $150,000 or more, or for a job paying $75,000 or more a year. For other tools for managing credit files, see credit freezes in Texas.

This guide belongs to the Texas debt and small claims guides, which cover collection practices, lawsuits, and what happens after a judgment. Each deadline here is tied to a linked official source, the standard our guides to Texas law applies to every page it publishes.