Florida Statute of Limitations: The 2023 Law Change — Does It Affect You?

If you were hurt in Florida and are trying to figure out how long you have to file a lawsuit, there is one law you cannot afford to overlook. In 2023, Florida passed a sweeping tort reform bill, HB 837, that cut the personal injury statute of limitations in half — from four years down to two. That single change has caught a lot of people off guard, and understanding the Florida statute of limitations personal injury 2023 change could be the difference between having a valid claim and losing the right to sue entirely.

Here is the part that trips everyone up: the deadline that applies to your case depends almost entirely on when your incident happened. The new two-year clock does not apply to every Florida injury claim. Whether you fall under the old four-year rule or the new two-year rule is determined by the date your cause of action accrued — usually the date you were injured. Get that date wrong, and you can badly miscalculate your deadline. Below, we break down exactly what changed, who it affects, and how to find the date that controls your case.

What changed: 4 years to 2 years

For decades, Florida gave most injury victims four years to file a negligence-based personal injury lawsuit. That was one of the more generous windows in the country. The 2023 reform changed it.

Florida’s HB 837, often called the “Tort Reform” bill, reduced the general negligence and personal injury limitations period from four years to two years. The change applies to causes of action accruing on or after March 24, 2023. Incidents that occurred before that date keep the old four-year period.

That effective date — March 24, 2023 — is the hinge everything turns on. It is not the date you file, the date you hire a lawyer, or the date you discover the full extent of your injuries. It is the date your claim accrued, which for most accident cases is the day the injury happened. Florida’s current personal injury deadline of two years is codified at Fla. Stat. § 95.11(4)(a).

Which deadline applies to MY case?

This is the most important question, and the answer is refreshingly simple once you know the rule. The Florida statute of limitations personal injury 2023 change draws a hard line at the effective date:

• Incident BEFORE March 24, 2023 → you generally keep the old 4-year deadline.
• Incident ON OR AFTER March 24, 2023 → you get the new 2-year deadline.

A few concrete examples make this clear:

• Injured January 10, 2023. Your claim accrued before the cutoff, so you generally have the old four-year window — meaning a deadline around January 10, 2027.
• Injured March 24, 2023 or later. You fall under the new rule and generally have two years — for a March 24, 2023 injury, that points to roughly March 24, 2025.
• Injured in 2025 or 2026. The two-year rule clearly applies. An injury on, say, May 1, 2026 generally needs to be filed by around May 1, 2028.

The takeaway: an older incident may actually give you more time than a newer one, because pre-reform claims ride out the longer four-year period. Do not assume that because the law “is now two years,” your specific claim is limited to two years. The date of the incident controls.

Why this matters so much right now

Here in 2026, this is not an abstract legal-history lesson — it is an active deadline problem for thousands of people.

Think about anyone injured in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, or early 2023. Those claims fall under the old four-year rule. A four-year clock that started in 2021 runs out in 2025. One that started in early 2022 runs out in early 2026. In other words, the pre-reform claims are now reaching the end of their longer windows — and people who assumed they had plenty of time may be down to their final months.

At the same time, anyone hurt in 2024 or later is on the tighter two-year clock, which closes fast. A 2024 injury under the new rule is already past or nearly past its deadline. The combined effect is that, right now, a large group of Florida injury claims from very different years are all approaching their cutoffs at once. If your incident falls anywhere in this range, this is the moment to check your exact date rather than guess.

What else HB 837 changed

HB 837 was broad tort reform, and the shortened limitations period was only one piece of it. Among other things, the bill reshaped how Florida handles comparative negligence, moving the state toward a modified comparative negligence standard with a 50% bar. In general terms, that means an injured person found to be more than 50% at fault for their own harm can be barred from recovering damages in many negligence cases.

We are keeping this part general on purpose. HB 837 touched several areas of Florida civil litigation beyond the filing deadline, and how those provisions apply depends heavily on the facts of an individual case. For our purposes, the limitations change is the piece that affects your filing deadline directly — but it is worth knowing the reform was wider than a single number.

Other Florida deadlines

The two-year reform applies to general negligence and personal injury claims, but Florida has separate deadlines for related claim types. A few of the common ones:

• Florida personal injury — the general 2-year deadline discussed here.
• Florida car accident — most auto injury claims follow the same 2-year personal injury period.
• Florida medical malpractice — medical negligence has its own framework, generally a 2-year period with discovery and statute-of-repose rules that work differently from a standard injury claim.

Because each claim type can have its own accrual rules, discovery provisions, and exceptions, the deadline for one kind of case will not always match another — even within Florida.

How to check your exact deadline

The cleanest way to pin down your date is to work backward from the incident:

1. Find your accrual date. For most accident cases, this is the day you were injured.
2. Apply the right rule. Before March 24, 2023 generally means four years. On or after means two years.
3. Run the numbers. Use the deadline calculator to get a specific date. The Florida claim pages can pre-fill the state for you, so you are starting from the correct limitations period.

You can also see how Florida stacks up against the rest of the country in our personal injury statute of limitations by state guide, our car accident statute of limitations by state breakdown, and the broader statute of limitations by state overview.

Frequently Asked Questions

My accident was in 2022 — do I have 4 years or 2?

A 2022 accident accrued before March 24, 2023, so it generally falls under the old four-year rule. But four years from a 2022 date means your window may be closing in 2026. Do not let the longer period lull you into waiting — check the exact date now.

What’s the exact cutoff date?

March 24, 2023. Causes of action accruing on or after that date are subject to the new two-year limitations period. Claims that accrued before it generally keep the prior four-year period.

Does this affect medical malpractice too?

Medical malpractice in Florida runs on its own track — generally a 2-year period with separate discovery and statute-of-repose rules — rather than the general negligence provision HB 837 amended. If your claim involves medical care, review the Florida medical malpractice deadline specifically rather than assuming the general rule applies.

What if my incident was right around March 24, 2023?

Then the exact date matters enormously, and you should treat it as urgent. A claim that accrued a day before the cutoff and one that accrued a day after can have deadlines years apart. The transition rules are fact-specific, so talk to a Florida attorney immediately rather than relying on your own read of the calendar.

Check your deadline before it’s too late

The Florida statute of limitations personal injury 2023 change rewards people who know their incident date and punishes those who guess. Whether you are on the old four-year clock or the new two-year clock comes down to a single day, and missing the deadline usually means losing the claim for good.

Start by running your date through our deadline calculator — it can pre-fill Florida so you are working from the right limitations period. This article is general information, not legal advice. If your incident falls anywhere near the March 24, 2023 cutoff, or if your deadline appears to be approaching, consult a licensed Florida attorney immediately, because the transition rules are fact-specific and the cost of waiting can be permanent.