Short answer. Fifteen calendar days. Section 6 of Rule 11 gives a party fifteen calendar days from service of the pleading responded to, to file a reply — but only where a reply is actually allowed under Section 10 of Rule 6, which requires an actionable document attached to the answer.
What the law says
A reply, if allowed under Section 10, Rule 6 hereof, may be filed within fifteen calendar days from service of the pleading responded to.
Rule 11, Section 6 — Reply. Read the full provision →
The reply's deadline, conditioned on being allowed at all
Section 6 sets a specific timeframe — fifteen calendar days from service of the pleading responded to — but this deadline only matters where a reply is actually permitted. The section itself says so: a reply, if allowed under Section 10, Rule 6, may be filed within fifteen calendar days. As covered elsewhere in the Rules, a reply is not automatic; it is available only when the answer being responded to has an actionable document attached to it. This conditional structure means the fifteen-day figure by itself tells only part of the story. Section 6 binds the party who wishes to file the reply; it does not extend or shorten any deadline the defending party has to answer, since the reply and the answer are governed by entirely separate timing rules within the Rules.
What the fifteen-day period runs from
The clock for filing a reply starts running from service of the pleading responded to — meaning from when the party received the answer containing the actionable document that opened the door to a reply in the first place. This gives the party a defined, relatively short window to prepare their reply once the triggering pleading has been served on them. Because the period runs from service rather than from when the party actually reads the pleading, tracking the exact service date matters just as much as knowing the figure itself. A party who miscounts from the wrong triggering event risks either filing too late or filing prematurely before the period has even properly started.
Practical takeaway
Before worrying about the fifteen-day deadline, a party needs to first confirm that a reply is actually allowed in their case — checking whether the defending party's answer had an actionable document attached, per Rule 6. If it did, Section 6 supplies the specific fifteen-calendar-day window within which that reply must be filed, counted from service of the answer being replied to. Treating a reply as automatically available whenever new matters are raised is a common, avoidable mistake. A party who files a reply without an actionable document actually attached to the answer is not thereby entitled to the fifteen-day period this section describes, since the deadline never comes into play unless the underlying condition for filing a reply at all is first satisfied.