Short answer. You have ten calendar days from service to present your objections to the court, with notice as in a motion. Section 3 then defers your obligation to answer until those objections are resolved, which the rule directs should happen at as early a time as is practicable, so you are not left waiting indefinitely.
What the law says
Objections to any interrogatories may be presented to the court within ten calendar days after service thereof, with notice as in case of a motion; and answers shall be deferred until the objections are resolved, which shall be at as early a time as is practicable.
Rule 25, Section 3 — Objections to interrogatories. Read the full provision →
The ten-day objection window
Objections to the interrogatories must be presented to the court within ten calendar days after they are served on the responding party, following the same notice procedure used for an ordinary motion. That ten-day clock starts running from the date of service of the interrogatories themselves, not from any later date, so a party who intends to object needs to act on that timeline promptly rather than waiting to see whether the interrogatories actually end up getting answered first. This ten-day window binds the party served with the interrogatories; it does not extend or shorten the separate period within which that same party would otherwise have to answer if no objection is ever filed at all.
Answers are deferred, not excused
The section doesn't let a party simply skip answering altogether just because objections were filed. Instead, it postpones the deadline to answer until the court actually rules on the objections that were raised, which Section 3 says should happen 'at as early a time as is practicable.' Once the court resolves the objections — sustaining some, overruling others, or some combination of the two — the responding party then has to answer whatever interrogatories remain properly before it, on whatever schedule the court's resolution sets.
Why the deferral matters
A party served with overbroad or objectionable interrogatories is not forced to answer improper questions on a fixed clock while the fight over their propriety is still pending before the court; the deferral protects against being compelled to respond before the actual scope of the interrogatories has been settled. Without this deferral, a party could effectively be forced to answer, and thereby risk undercutting the very objection it was raising, well before a court ever had the chance to weigh in on whether the questions were proper in the first place. That protection would be largely hollow if a party had to answer first and object later, since the answers themselves could effectively moot the very objection being raised.