If you were hurt in Florida by someone else's conduct on or after March 24, 2023, you generally have two years from the date of the injury to file a personal-injury lawsuit. The deadline comes from Florida Statute section 95.11(4)(a), as amended by HB 837. For accidents that occurred before March 24, 2023, the prior four-year SOL still applies. Which version governs your case depends entirely on the accident date, and getting it wrong is the single biggest deadline trap in Florida PI practice today.
The two-year number is the post-HB 837 default. The exceptions are no-fault PIP, the serious-injury tort threshold, a 90-day pre-suit notice for medical malpractice, and a three-year written-notice deadline to a state agency. This post walks through what the post-HB 837 SOL really means in 2026, where the exceptions are, and the fact patterns we see trip people up most.
The default Florida PI window: two years under section 95.11(4)(a)
HB 837 (2023) cut the Florida general PI statute of limitations from four years to two. The change took effect March 24, 2023, and applies to causes of action accruing on or after that date. Causes of action that accrued before March 24, 2023 retain the four-year SOL under the prior version of section 95.11(4)(a).
The clock starts on the date of injury. For a car accident, that is the date of the crash. For a slip-and-fall, the date of the fall.
Florida no-fault, PIP, and the serious-injury tort threshold
Florida is a no-fault auto-insurance state with personal-injury protection under Florida Statute section 627.736. Every Florida driver carries minimum PIP coverage that pays medical and lost-wage benefits to the injured party regardless of fault. PIP benefits are not the personal-injury lawsuit; they are insurance benefits.
Tort recovery for pain and suffering in a Florida auto case requires crossing the serious-injury threshold under section 627.737(2): significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function, permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement, or death. If the injury does not cross the threshold, PIP is the only recovery; if it does, a third-party tort claim becomes available.
For PIP benefits themselves, the 14-day rule under section 627.736 requires the insured to receive initial medical treatment within 14 days of the accident or PIP coverage is forfeited. The 14-day rule is not an SOL on the lawsuit but a benefits-eligibility deadline that often acts like one in practice.
Exception one: claims against a government entity
Florida's sovereign-immunity waiver under Florida Statute section 768.28 requires a written notice of claim to the agency and to the Department of Financial Services within three years of accrual under section 768.28(6). After notice, the agency has six months to admit or deny; suit may not be filed before that period ends (or until final denial).
Damage caps under section 768.28(5): $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident. Recovery beyond the cap requires a claims bill passed by the Florida Legislature, which is a discretionary political process.
Exception two: medical malpractice
Medical-malpractice cases run under section 95.11(4)(b): a two-year SOL from the incident or its discovery, whichever is later, with a four-year statute of repose from the date of the incident (narrow tolling for fraud or concealment, and special rules for minors).
Section 766.106 requires a pre-suit notice and a 90-day investigation period before filing, with reciprocal discovery during the investigation. The investigation period tolls the SOL.
Medmal is excepted from HB 837's modified 51% comparative-fault bar; the prior pure-comparative regime continues to apply to medmal cases.
What HB 837's comparative-fault bar means
HB 837 also moved Florida from pure comparative fault to modified 51% comparative fault for most negligence cases. A plaintiff who is 51% or more at fault recovers nothing. A plaintiff 50% or less at fault recovers, reduced by the percentage of plaintiff fault. Medmal cases keep the pre-HB 837 pure-comparative rule.
The 51% threshold is where Florida defense lawyers focus. Pushing fault from 49% to 51% is the difference between a partial recovery and zero.
A common Florida fact pattern that ends cases early
The single most common HB 837 trap: a Florida driver assumes the old four-year window applies, contacts an attorney 28 months after the accident, and learns that because the accident was after March 24, 2023, the two-year SOL has run. The four-year window does not apply. Cases die this way every week in Florida courts.
If your accident was on or after March 24, 2023, act inside the two-year SOL, full stop. If it was before, the four-year window still applies, but you should still not wait.
Other Florida-specific PI rules worth knowing
Dog bites. Florida Statute section 767.04 imposes strict liability on dog owners for bites suffered by a person in a public place or lawfully on private property, regardless of the dog's prior history. Comparative-fault analysis under HB 837 still applies (provocation, for example). Two-year SOL.
Wrongful death. Florida Statute section 95.11(4)(d) sets a two-year SOL from the date of death. HB 837 did NOT change the wrongful-death SOL; it was already two years. The personal representative of the decedent's estate has standing under section 768.20.
Premises liability and slip-and-fall. Two-year SOL. Transitory-substance slip-fall claims in business premises require the plaintiff to prove the business had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition under section 768.0755. Constructive knowledge requires showing the condition existed long enough or recurred with such frequency that the business should have known.
How the LawSensai Personal Injury Recovery Center helps with Florida matters
We built the Recovery Center to handle the day-one organizational work in a Florida PI case so that nothing falls through the cracks during the now-two-year window. We document the incident through a calm, save-and-resume intake, build a medical-and-evidence timeline, and surface every applicable deadline, including the 14-day PIP-eligibility rule, the 90-day medmal pre-suit notice, the three-year sovereign-immunity notice deadline, and the underlying section 95.11(4)(a) post-HB-837 two-year window. When the matter is well-documented and ready, we route it to a verified personal-injury attorney licensed in Florida. Start your Florida intake here.
We are not a law firm and we do not give legal advice. We are the file-organization and deadline-surfacing layer that sits in front of a real attorney.
Personal injury statute of limitations in other states
Each state has its own SOL window, government-notice deadline, comparative-fault regime, and case-type quirks. The deep-dive posts here cover the ten highest-volume jurisdictions. The full LawSensai PI Recovery Center routes 50-state coverage at /personal-injury.
- California (CCP 335.1, MICRA, pure comparative)
- Texas (CPRC 16.003, TTCA 6-month notice, 51% bar)
- New York (CPLR 214(5), 90-day GML notice, serious-injury threshold)
- Illinois (1-year SOL for local public entities under the Tort Immunity Act)
- Pennsylvania (MVFRL limited tort, MCARE 7-year repose)
- Ohio (1-year medmal SOL, 180-day letter)
- Georgia (Tiered ante-litem notice, 50% comparative-fault bar)
- North Carolina (Pure contributory negligence)
- Michigan (No-fault threshold, 1-year PIP)
Informational only
LawSensai is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. The information in this post is general and does not account for your specific facts. No attorney-client relationship is created by reading this post or by using the Personal Injury Recovery Center. Deadlines, exceptions, and procedural rules vary by case type and by the parties involved; verify your specific situation with a licensed attorney in Florida before relying on any window described here.
Last verified: 2026-06-03.