Most injured adults have three years to start a personal injury claim — running from the date of the accident, or from the later "date of knowledge" that the injury was caused by negligence. Children have until three years after their 18th birthday (so until they turn 21). CICA criminal-injury claims have a much shorter two-year limit. Different rules again cover fatal claims and people who lack mental capacity. For the full picture, read our detailed guide to personal injury claim time limits.
One of the first questions after an accident is simply: how long do I have? Time limits — lawyers call them limitation periods — are unforgiving. Miss the deadline and an otherwise strong claim can be lost for good, with no compensation at all. This page gives you a clear summary of the rules, the main exceptions, and why it pays to act sooner rather than later. For a deeper treatment of every scenario, our companion personal injury claim time limits guide goes into far more detail.
As with everything on this site, what follows is information, not legal advice. We are an independent educational resource, not a law firm. Limitation is one of the most technical areas of injury law, and the only safe course is to have an SRA-regulated solicitor confirm the deadline that applies to your own circumstances.
The standard three-year limit
Under the Limitation Act 1980 — with broadly equivalent rules in Scotland and Northern Ireland — most injured adults have three years to issue court proceedings for a personal injury claim. Crucially, this means actually starting a case at court within the three years, not just contacting a solicitor or notifying an insurer. The two starting points to understand are the date of the accident and the date of knowledge.
The date of the accident is the obvious one: for a road-traffic collision or a fall in a supermarket, the clock starts on the day it happened. But not every injury is apparent straight away. That is why the law also uses the date of knowledge — the date on which you first realised, or reasonably should have realised, that you had a significant injury and that it was caused by someone else's negligence. The three years then runs from whichever of those dates is later. For a sudden accident the two usually coincide; for a condition that develops slowly, the date of knowledge can be much later.
Key exceptions to the three-year rule
The standard limit is only the starting point. Several situations follow different rules, and getting the category right matters enormously. The table below summarises the main ones.
| Situation | Time limit to start a claim |
|---|---|
| Adults (the standard rule) | 3 years from the date of the accident or the date of knowledge, whichever is later. |
| Children (under 18) | The 3 years does not begin until the 18th birthday, so a claim can be brought up to the age of 21. |
| People who lack mental capacity | No time limit runs while the person lacks the capacity to manage a claim; the period only starts if and when capacity is regained. |
| Fatal claims | Generally 3 years from the date of death, or from the date the dependants or estate had the relevant knowledge. |
| Criminal injuries (CICA) | A much shorter limit — usually 2 years — applies to applications to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. |
| Industrial disease | 3 years from the date of knowledge, which can fall many years after the original exposure (for example with long-latency conditions). |
These categories can overlap, and the correct deadline is not always obvious — particularly for diseases that emerge long after exposure, or where capacity has fluctuated. The full time-limits guide works through each scenario in more depth, and our overview of claim types explains how limitation interacts with different kinds of injury.
Why you should act early
Even with three years on the clock, leaving a claim late rarely helps and often hurts. Evidence is at its strongest immediately after an accident and weakens steadily afterwards: CCTV is routinely overwritten within weeks, accident-book entries and maintenance records can be lost, and the memories of witnesses fade — or those witnesses simply become impossible to trace. Acting promptly protects exactly the material a solicitor needs to prove what happened and how the injury was caused. Our guide on gathering evidence for a personal injury claim explains what to preserve and how.
It is true that the courts hold a narrow safety net. Under section 33 of the Limitation Act 1980 a judge has a limited discretion to let an injury claim proceed even though it is out of time, weighing matters such as the length of and reason for any delay and whether a fair trial is still possible. But that discretion is exercised sparingly, is never guaranteed, and turns the case into a fight before it has even begun. It is something to fall back on in genuine hardship — not a plan. The sensible approach is to treat the three-year limit as a firm deadline and start well within it.
The three-year clock is ticking
For most adults a claim must be started at court within three years. The s.33 discretion to allow late claims is rare and cannot be relied on. If you are unsure which deadline applies to you, check it early — our full time-limits guide sets out every exception in detail.
Frequently asked questions
How long do I have to make a personal injury claim?
Most injured adults have three years to start a claim. The clock usually runs from the date of the accident, or from the later date of knowledge — when you first realised your injury was significant and linked to someone else's negligence. You must issue court proceedings within that window, not merely make an enquiry. Children, fatal claims, criminal-injury (CICA) claims and people who lack mental capacity follow different rules, so check your own deadline as early as you can.
What if the injured person is a child?
For a child, the three-year clock does not start until their eighteenth birthday, so they generally have until the age of 21 to bring a claim themselves. Before then a parent or guardian can act as a litigation friend at any time, and any settlement must usually be approved by the court to protect the child's interests.
Can I still claim after the time limit has passed?
Occasionally. Courts have a limited discretion under section 33 of the Limitation Act 1980 to allow an injury claim to proceed out of time, weighing factors such as the reason for delay and whether a fair trial is still possible. It is granted rarely and cannot be relied on, so you should always treat the three-year limit as a hard deadline and seek advice from an SRA-regulated solicitor without delay.
Ready to take the next step?
If your deadline still has time to run, see how to make a claim, learn how a case is valued in our compensation guide, and check how funding works under no win, no fee. When you instruct a solicitor, our notes on choosing a solicitor list the questions to ask.
Get help from official, free sources
- Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) — check a solicitor is regulated
- The Law Society — Find a Solicitor — accredited PI specialists
- Citizens Advice — free, impartial guidance on your rights
- GOV.UK — courts, time limits and the Official Injury Claim portal