New York Debt Collection Statute of Limitations

Every debt in New York comes with a deadline. Miss it and the money is still owed, but the courthouse door is shut, and a debtor who raises the defense will win. Creditors lose recoverable accounts to the calendar more often than they lose them to insolvency, usually because nobody was watching the clock while the file sat in a collections queue.

This page sets out the periods that apply to commercial and consumer accounts in New York, when the clock starts, what can restart it, and what changes once you have a judgment. If you are holding an aging account and want to know whether it is still enforceable, call us at 212-233-1233.

The Deadlines That Matter Most

Type of claim	Deadline	Authority
Consumer credit transaction	3 years	CPLR 214-i
Sale of goods	4 years	UCC 2-725
Written or oral contract, unpaid invoice, account stated	6 years	CPLR 213(2)
Promissory note or other negotiable instrument	6 years	CPLR 213(2), UCC 3-118
Voidable transfer of assets	4 years, or 1 year from discovery	Debtor and Creditor Law 279
Judgment lien on real property	10 years from docketing	CPLR 5203
Enforcing a money judgment	20 years	CPLR 211(b)

These are the general periods. Which one applies depends on how the transaction is characterized, and when the clock started depends on the facts of the account. The sections below explain both.

Contracts, Invoices, and Accounts Stated: Six Years

The workhorse period in New York commercial collections is six years. CPLR 213(2) gives a creditor six years to sue on a contractual obligation, whether the contract was written or oral. That covers most unpaid invoices, service agreements, leases of personal property, and breach of contract claims generally.

The same six years applies to an account stated. An account stated arises when you send a statement of the balance, the customer receives it, and the customer neither objects within a reasonable time nor disputes the figure. Silence in the face of repeated invoices can itself become the claim, which is useful when the underlying paperwork is thin.

Sale of Goods: Four Years

If the transaction was a sale of goods, the period is four years, not six. UCC 2-725 governs, and it applies whether or not anyone thought about the Uniform Commercial Code when the order was placed. Wholesalers, distributors, suppliers, and manufacturers shipping product on open account get two years less than a service business does, and this catches people out constantly.

Two further points on UCC 2-725. The clock runs from the breach, which for a sale on credit terms is normally the date payment came due, and it runs regardless of whether the seller knew of the breach. And the parties can shorten the period by original agreement to as little as one year, though they cannot lengthen it. If your standard terms and conditions were drafted by the buyer, check them.

Mixed transactions, where goods and services are both supplied, are characterized by which predominates. A contract to fabricate and install equipment can fall on either side of the line depending on the facts, and the answer changes the deadline by two years.

Consumer Credit Transactions: Three Years

New York's Consumer Credit Fairness Act cut the period for consumer credit transactions to three years under CPLR 214-i, effective in 2022. A consumer credit transaction is one for personal, family, or household purposes, which takes in credit cards, retail installment accounts, consumer loans, and much medical debt.

The Act also removed the revival rules for these accounts. On an ordinary commercial debt a payment or a signed acknowledgment can restart the clock. On a consumer credit transaction, once the three years have run, a later payment or acknowledgment does not bring the claim back. There are also stricter pleading requirements and mandatory notices in consumer collection suits, and the penalties for getting them wrong are real.

Promissory Notes and Demand Notes

A promissory note payable on a fixed date carries six years from that date. A demand note is different: the six years run from the date demand is made, but if no demand is ever made and neither principal nor interest has been paid for ten years, the claim is barred. A note sitting in a drawer with no payments on it does not stay enforceable forever.

Where a note calls for installments and contains no acceleration clause, each missed installment starts its own six-year period. That means part of the balance can be time barred while the rest is still collectible. Where the note accelerates automatically on default, the whole balance comes due at once and a single period runs on all of it.

When the Clock Starts Running

The period runs from accrual, which is the moment the creditor first had the right to sue. In practice that usually means:

• An invoice on terms: the day after the terms expired, not the invoice date and not the last time you chased it.
• An open account with continuing purchases: generally each delivery or each invoice carries its own date, unless the parties treated the account as a single running balance.
• An account stated: when the customer failed to object to the statement within a reasonable time.
• A loan or note: the maturity date, or the default date if the instrument accelerates.
• A guarantee: when the guarantor's own obligation was triggered, which is not always the same date as the principal debtor's default.

Sending reminders, making collection calls, or handing the file to an agency does nothing to the deadline. Only filing suit stops the clock.

What Restarts the Clock, and What Does Not

On a commercial debt, two things can give you a fresh period. Under General Obligations Law 17-101, a written acknowledgment of the debt signed by the debtor, or a written promise to pay it, restarts the period from the date of the writing. Under General Obligations Law 17-107, a part payment can do the same where the circumstances show the debtor recognized the whole debt and intended to pay the rest.

Both rules are narrower than creditors expect. An email that disputes the amount while offering to settle is not an acknowledgment. A payment applied by the creditor without any indication of what the debtor intended may not count. If you are relying on either, keep the document that proves it.

Time can also be tolled. CPLR 207 stops the clock for periods when the debtor is outside New York, which matters when a guarantor moves out of state. And under CPLR 202, if the claim accrued outside New York in favor of someone who was not a New York resident, it has to be timely under the law of the place it accrued as well as under New York law. That borrowing statute regularly shortens the window on out of state accounts, and it is easy to miss.

Deadlines After You Have a Judgment

Winning changes the arithmetic entirely. A New York money judgment is enforceable for twenty years under CPLR 211(b), so a judgment that looked dead five years ago may still be worth pursuing today.

Two shorter periods sit inside that twenty years. Docketing the judgment with a county clerk creates a lien on real property the debtor owns in that county, and that lien lasts ten years. It can be extended, but you have to act before it lapses. Under CPLR 5014, once ten years have passed from docketing you can bring an action on the judgment to obtain a renewal judgment and a fresh lien period.

Interest runs the whole time. The statutory rate on most commercial judgments is nine percent a year under CPLR 5004, which roughly doubles a judgment over eight years. Judgments arising from consumer debt carry a reduced rate of two percent. Our judgment interest calculator will show you what an old judgment is actually worth today.

If the debtor moved assets to defeat collection, the Debtor and Creditor Law gives you four years from the transfer to attack it, or one year from when you discovered it or reasonably could have, for transfers made with actual intent to hinder creditors. Those voidable transfer claims run on their own schedule, separate from the twenty years on the judgment itself.

What Happens When the Deadline Passes

An expired period does not extinguish the debt. It gives the debtor a defense. The defense is an affirmative one, which means the debtor has to raise it: a defendant who defaults, or who answers without pleading the statute, can still have a judgment entered against them. That is not a strategy we recommend building on, and in consumer collection matters the rules are stricter and the exposure for filing a stale claim is significant.

The practical consequence is simpler. An account close to its deadline is worth far less than the same account two years earlier, because your leverage rests on the credible threat of suit. Debtors and their counsel watch these dates too.

Do Not Let a Good Account Go Stale

Age hurts collection long before the deadline arrives. Businesses dissolve, principals move, bank accounts close, and assets get retitled. A file that would have produced a restraining notice and a levy in year one can be uncollectible in year five even though the claim is technically alive.

If you carry receivables, three habits protect them. Date every account from when payment came due, not from the last contact. Flag anything that involves the sale of goods for the shorter four-year period. And escalate before the balance is old enough that a demand letter reads as an afterthought.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the clock restart when a debtor promises to pay?

On a commercial debt, a written promise or acknowledgment signed by the debtor restarts it under General Obligations Law 17-101. A verbal promise does not. On a consumer credit transaction, nothing restarts it once the three years have run.

My customer made a small payment last year. Does that help?

It may. A part payment on a commercial account can restart the period under General Obligations Law 17-107 if the circumstances show the debtor was recognizing the whole debt. How the payment was made and what was said about it matter, so keep the record.

Is it six years or four years on my invoices?

If you sold goods, four. If you sold services, six. If you did both, it depends on which predominated. This is the single most common place we see a creditor assume the longer period and lose two years they did not have.

Can I still collect a fifteen year old judgment?

Usually yes. Money judgments run twenty years, and interest has been accruing the entire time. The real property lien may have lapsed at ten years, but that can be renewed under CPLR 5014.

The debtor left New York. Does that extend my time?

It can. CPLR 207 tolls the period while the debtor is outside the state, subject to exceptions. Whether the toll applies depends on where the debtor went and whether they remained subject to jurisdiction here.

How do I know the exact date my claim expires?

Send us the account. We will identify the accrual date, the governing period, and anything that tolled or restarted it, and tell you plainly whether the claim is still worth pursuing.

Speak With a New York Collection Attorney

If an account is aging and you are not sure how much time is left, that uncertainty is itself a reason to call. We review the documents, fix the deadline, and tell you where the file stands before you spend anything else on it. Where the claim is still good we move on it, and where a judgment already exists we go straight to enforcement.

We represent creditors throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, Nassau County, Suffolk County and Westchester County. Reach us at 212-233-1233 or [email protected], or through our contact page.

This page is general information about New York law and is not advice about your account. Limitation periods turn on facts specific to each transaction.