Short answer. Ten years. An action upon a written contract must be brought within ten years from the time the right of action accrues, which for a note means from the day payment fell due and was not made. After that the debt survives in principle but the action to enforce it does not.
What the law says
The following actions must be brought within ten years from the time the right of action accrues: (1) Upon a written contract;
Civil Code, Article 1144 — Ten-Year Actions. Read the full provision →
What the law says
The following actions must be commenced within six years: (1) Upon an oral contract;
Civil Code, Article 1145 — Six-Year Actions. Read the full provision →
Ten years, counted from accrual
A signed promissory note is a written contract, and the Code is direct about it: the following actions must be brought within ten years from the time the right of action accrues: (1) Upon a written contract. The period is generous, which is precisely why creditors lose to it — a debt that has been chased informally for years feels live long after the action has quietly expired. Article 1150 supplies the starting point in general terms, counting prescription from the day the action may be brought. For most notes that is the day the money became payable and was not paid.
Read the note before counting
What the document itself says about when payment falls due is therefore the first thing to check, and it is often less clear than the lender remembers. A fixed maturity date, an obligation payable on demand, and an instalment schedule each behave differently for the purpose of working out when the right of action arose. Verbal variations agreed along the way, extensions granted out of goodwill and part payments made without a word in writing all complicate the picture. Bring the note itself, not a description of it — the wording decides the date, and the date decides everything else.
Why the writing matters so much
The ten years attach to the writing. Where the loan was purely verbal the Code halves the horizon: the following actions must be commenced within six years: (1) Upon an oral contract. So the signed note is not merely evidence of the debt, it is what buys the longer period. A lender holding nothing but transfers and messages is in a different and shorter position, and one whose claim rests on some other footing altogether may fall under Article 1149, which gives five years to actions whose periods are not fixed elsewhere.
The clock is not always simply running
Before concluding that a period has lapsed, check whether anything interrupted it. Article 1155 recognises three interruptions: filing the action in court, a written extrajudicial demand by the creditor, and a written acknowledgment of the debt by the debtor. A demand letter you sent years ago, or a message in which the borrower conceded the balance, may matter more than anything else in the file. Gather the correspondence with its dates before deciding you are too late, and take it to a lawyer if the arithmetic is close.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- Multi-realty Devt. Corp. vs. The Makati Tuscany Condo. Corp, G.R. No. 146726, June 16, 2006 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Menandro B. Laureano vs. Court of Appeals & Singapore Airlines, Ltd, G.R. No. 114776, February 2, 2000 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Amado De Guzman and Manila Workers Union and General Workers Union (MALEGWU) vs. Court of Appeals and Nasipit Lumber Company, G.R. No. 132257, October 12, 1998 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Estate of Susano J. Rodriguez, represented by its Attorney-in-Fact Virgilio R. Valenzuela vs. Republic, G.R. No. 214590, April 27, 2022 — read the decision on LawPhil →
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 1150 — When the Clock Starts
- Civil Code, Article 1155 — The Three Ways to Interrupt Prescription