Every legal claim has a shelf life. Wait too long and it prescribes — the right to sue is lost, no matter how strong the case was. This tool tells you the prescriptive period for a claim and estimates the deadline from the date it accrued, and shows the provision each period comes from.
Read the warning below first: prescription is one of the most fact-sensitive things in law, and a simple date calculation can mislead. Use this to see roughly where you stand — not to decide that a claim is dead or safe.
Your claim
Different claims start their clock at different moments — select one and this will explain when.
The day the clock started — see the note above for this claim. If you are unsure, use the earliest date it could have started; that is the safer assumption.
Read this before you rely on the number
This calculator does a simple date calculation: it adds the prescriptive period to the date you enter. Three things it cannot do — and any one of them can change the answer completely:
- When the clock actually started. "The right of action accrues" is a legal conclusion, not a calendar date. For a contract it is usually the breach; for a hidden defect or fraud it may be when you discovered it. Choosing the wrong start date is the most common error.
- Interruption. Under Civil Code Art. 1155 the period is interrupted — and starts over — when you file the case, make a written extrajudicial demand, or the other side acknowledges the debt in writing. Barangay conciliation also pauses the clock. So a claim that looks expired may not be.
- The right period. Some claims have special periods in their own statutes, and criminal and tax deadlines follow entirely different rules not covered here.
The prescriptive periods
- Ten years — actions on a written contract, on an obligation created by law, or on a judgment (Civil Code Art. 1144).
- Six years — actions on an oral contract or a quasi-contract (Art. 1145).
- Four years — injury to the rights of the plaintiff and quasi-delict (Art. 1146); illegal dismissal is treated as an injury to rights and prescribes in four years.
- Three years — all money claims arising from employer-employee relations (Labor Code Art. 306, formerly 291): "filed within three (3) years from the time the cause of action accrued; otherwise they shall be forever barred."
- One year — forcible entry and unlawful detainer, and defamation (Art. 1147).
- Five years — all other actions whose periods are not fixed by law (Art. 1149).
- Interruption — filing suit, a written extrajudicial demand, or a written acknowledgment of the debt interrupts prescription (Art. 1155).