How Long Do You Have to File a Claim After an Accident in Georgia?
What is the deadline to file an injury claim in Georgia?
Two years from the date of the accident for injuries to your body, and four years for damage to your vehicle or other property. If a government entity was involved, a separate written notice is due in as little as six months, long before either deadline arrives.
Those three numbers cover most Georgia accident claims. The rest of this page explains which one applies to you and what can change it.
Georgia filing deadlines at a glance
| Type of claim | Deadline | Statute |
|---|---|---|
| Personal injury | 2 years from the date of injury | O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33 |
| Property damage, including your vehicle | 4 years from the date of damage | O.C.G.A. § 9-3-32 |
| Wrongful death | 2 years from the date of death | O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33 |
| Medical malpractice | 2 years, with a 5 year outer limit | O.C.G.A. § 9-3-71(a) and (b) |
| Claim against a city | Written notice in 6 months, suit in 2 years | O.C.G.A. § 36-33-5 |
| Claim against a county | Written notice in 12 months, suit in 2 years | O.C.G.A. § 36-11-1 |
| Claim against the State of Georgia | Written notice in 12 months, suit in 2 years | O.C.G.A. § 50-21-26 |
Personal injury: two years
Most Georgia injury claims must be filed within two years of the date you were hurt. That covers car crashes, pedestrian and bicycle collisions, slip and fall injuries, dog bites, and other negligence claims.
The clock starts the day of the accident, not the day your treatment ends and not the day the insurance company denies your claim. Negotiating with an adjuster does not pause it. Neither does waiting on medical records.
If you are not sure whether what happened to you amounts to a claim at all, our post on the signs you may have a personal injury case in Georgia covers what to look for.
Property damage: four years, not two
This is the deadline people get wrong most often, and a number of published guides state it incorrectly.
Damage to your vehicle or other personal property carries a four year deadline in Georgia, not two. That means one crash can run two clocks at the same time: two years for your injuries and four years for your car.
The practical consequence matters. If you settled or abandoned your injury claim and assumed everything else expired with it, your property damage claim may still be alive. Anything damaged inside the vehicle counts too, including car seats, which manufacturers generally consider unsafe to reuse after a crash.
Wrongful death: two years from the date of death
When an accident is fatal, surviving family members generally have two years from the date of death to file, which is not always the date of the crash.
Two things can extend that window. Georgia law allows tolling for a period while an estate representative is being appointed, and a pending criminal prosecution can pause the clock as described below. Wrongful death claims also involve a separate estate claim with its own rules, which is why these cases benefit from early legal review rather than a wait and see approach. Our Atlanta wrongful death page covers how these claims are structured.
Working the dates
The deadlines are easier to apply against an actual calendar.
Car crash injury. A driver hurt on March 4, 2025 has until March 4, 2027 to file an injury lawsuit. Damage to the vehicle from that same crash runs until March 4, 2029.
Fatal crash. If a person injured on March 4, 2025 dies of those injuries on June 20, 2025, the wrongful death deadline runs from the date of death — June 20, 2027 — not from the date of the crash.
Surgical error. A patient injured by a surgical error on March 4, 2025 generally has until March 4, 2027. That runs from the date of the injury, not the date the patient discovered it — Georgia does not apply a general discovery rule to malpractice claims, which is a common and costly misunderstanding. An absolute five year cutoff applies regardless. The narrow exception is a foreign object left in the body: one year from the date you discover it, under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-72.
City vehicle. A pedestrian struck by a City of Atlanta vehicle on March 4, 2025 must deliver ante litem notice by September 4, 2025. The lawsuit deadline is still March 4, 2027, but miss that six month notice and the two remaining years are worthless.
Write your own date down before you do anything else.
Claims against a government entity: the deadline that ends cases quietly
If a city bus, a county vehicle, a state road crew, or any government employee was involved, ordinary deadlines are not your problem. The ante litem notice is.
Ante litem means “before the lawsuit.” Georgia requires you to send the government written notice of your claim before you can sue, and that deadline runs far shorter than the two year statute of limitations.
| Entity | Written notice due | Deadline to file suit |
|---|---|---|
| City or municipality | 6 months from the injury (§ 36-33-5) | 2 years |
| County | 12 months from when the claim accrues (§ 36-11-1) | 2 years |
| State of Georgia or a state agency | 12 months from discovery of the loss (§ 50-21-26) | 2 years |
The two year filing deadline does not disappear. The notice is an additional, earlier requirement layered on top of it.
Here is why that distinction is dangerous. A person hurt by a city vehicle can be well inside the two year window and still have no case, because the six month notice expired while they were still in physical therapy. Georgia courts dismiss otherwise strong claims over notice that arrived days late, and the notice has to reach the correct official, in the correct form, containing the specific facts the statute requires.
If a government vehicle, road, sidewalk, building, or employee had anything to do with your injury, treat that as the first thing to investigate. Whether a road is city, county, or state maintained is rarely obvious from looking at it.
When the clock pauses
Georgia recognizes a limited set of circumstances that stop or extend the running of a deadline.
Injured minors. The clock generally does not run against a child’s own claim until they turn 18. A person injured at 12 typically has until age 20 to file. A parent’s separate claim for the child’s medical expenses follows the ordinary deadline.
Legal incapacity. If the injured person is mentally incapacitated at the time of the injury, the deadline may be tolled while that incapacity lasts.
A pending criminal case. Under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-99, if the person who hurt you is being prosecuted for the same incident, your civil deadline pauses while that prosecution is pending, for up to six years. This matters most in DUI, hit and run, and vehicular homicide cases, where the criminal case often outlasts the two year civil window.
The defendant leaves Georgia. If the at fault party moves out of state before you can sue, the time they spend outside Georgia may not count against your deadline.
When the discovery rule actually helps
Georgia applies the discovery rule narrowly, and it rarely rescues an ordinary accident claim.
It generally comes up with continuing exposure or a disease that develops over years, where the injury and its cause were genuinely not knowable at the time. It does not apply simply because your symptoms turned out worse than you expected, or because you did not realize how serious a soft tissue injury was until months later.
This is a real risk in whiplash and back injury cases, where symptoms build slowly and people delay. Documenting your condition early protects you twice: it preserves the claim, and it makes pre-existing conditions far harder for an insurer to use against you later.
Why waiting hurts even when you are inside the deadline
Meeting the deadline is the floor, not the goal. Cases get weaker with time for reasons that have nothing to do with statutes.
Evidence disappears. Surveillance footage is routinely overwritten within days. Skid marks fade. Vehicles get repaired or scrapped.
Witnesses forget. A witness who gave a clear account at the scene often remembers very little a year later.
Treatment gaps become arguments. Every week between the crash and your first medical visit is a week an adjuster will use to argue you were not really hurt.
The insurer is already working. The adjuster who called you the day after the crash was not being helpful. Our post on calls from insurance adjusters covers what those conversations are actually for.
What to do now
Find your date. Write down the date of the accident. Every deadline on this page runs from a specific date, and guessing is how people lose claims.
Check for a government connection. A city street, a county truck, a school bus, a transit vehicle, a public sidewalk. If any of those are in the picture, the six or twelve month clock is already running.
Get evaluated, even if you feel okay. Injuries that seem minor on day one are frequently the ones that matter on day sixty.
Do not give a recorded statement before you understand your claim. And do not sign anything the insurer sends without reading it. If an offer has already arrived, see releases in Georgia personal injury settlements before you sign, because a release ends the claim permanently.
Know that partial fault is not disqualifying. Georgia’s modified comparative negligence rule lets you recover as long as you are less than 50 percent responsible. Our post on being told the accident was your fault explains how that works.
If you are weighing whether to handle the claim yourself, our guide to choosing a personal injury attorney in Georgia covers what to look for.
Frequently asked questions
Two years from the date of the crash for your injuries, under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33. Damage to your vehicle carries a separate four year deadline, so a single crash can run two different clocks at once.
Yes. Injury claims get two years and property damage claims get four. If you already resolved your injury claim, a property damage claim from the same crash may still be open.
It is a written notice you must send a government entity before you can sue it. A city requires notice within six months, a county and the State of Georgia within twelve. Missing it bars the claim even though the two year filing deadline has not passed.
No. Settlement negotiations do not pause the statute of limitations. Insurers are not required to warn you that your deadline is approaching.
Under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-99, a pending criminal prosecution for the same incident pauses your civil deadline while that case is open, for up to six years. This comes up often in DUI and hit and run cases.
The deadline generally does not begin running against a child’s own claim until they turn 18, so a person injured at 12 typically has until age 20. A parent’s separate claim for the child’s medical bills follows the ordinary deadline.
Talk to Jonathan directly
At Flack Injury Law, you speak with Jonathan Flack from the first call forward, not a case manager or an intake service. If you are unsure which deadline applies to your situation, or whether a government entity is involved, it costs nothing to ask.
This article is general information about Georgia law, not legal advice for any specific situation. Laws change and outcomes depend on facts particular to each case. Reading this page or contacting Flack Injury Law through this website does not create an attorney-client relationship. Do not send confidential information until an attorney-client relationship has been established.