The 2023 law that cut Florida's deadline in half
Under Fla. Stat. § 95.11(5)(a), as amended by House Bill 837, most Florida personal injury claims now carry a two-year deadline, for claims accruing on or after March 24, 2023 — half the four years Florida gave before that date. Governor DeSantis signed HB 837 on March 24, 2023, and it took effect immediately, making it one of the most sweeping tort reform packages in the state's history. At this point, nearly every new Florida injury claim falls under the two-year rule; the older four-year period now only matters for claims that accrued before that March 2023 cutoff.
Product liability: still four years, plus a separate repose period
Product liability claims generally kept their four-year statute of limitations, largely untouched by HB 837's cut to the general rule. Separately, a statute of repose tied to a product's expected useful life can bar a claim 12 years after the product was first sold, for products with an expected life of 10 years or less — with exceptions for things like concealment or a longer labeled or warrantied life.
Government claims: a genuinely important trap
Written notice of a claim against a Florida government entity generally must reach the agency within three years — and, for state agencies specifically, also reach the Florida Department of Financial Services. But here's the detail that catches people off guard: giving that three-year notice does not extend the underlying two-year statute of limitations for the lawsuit itself. In practice, this means someone with a claim against the government still has to both notify the agency and file the actual lawsuit within the same two-year window that applies to everyone else, even though the notice statute on its own technically allows up to three years. See our full guide to Florida's government claim notice process for exactly how this works.
Before and after March 24, 2023
See our guide to Florida's discovery rule and tolling for how the clock can shift for injuries that aren't immediately apparent, and for how the pre-2023 four-year rule can still matter for older claims.