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Texas Personal Injury Claim Deadlines: The Two-Year Rule, When It Doesn't Apply, and What to Do Before It Runs Out

By Accident Atlas Editorial Team · Reviewed by Phil Ayres · Updated July 12, 2026 · 12 min read

Quick Answer: The Two-Year Deadline for Personal Injury Claims

Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(a), a person injured in Texas must generally file suit for personal injury, trespass to property, conversion of personal property, or forcible entry and detainer no later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues. For a wrongful death claim, § 16.003(b) sets the same two-year period, running from the date of death. This is the default rule that governs the vast majority of injury cases in Texas — car crashes, slip-and-falls, dog bites, and similar incidents.

The statute itself warns that it doesn't operate in isolation. Section 16.003(a) opens with the phrase "Except as provided by Sections 16.010, 16.0031, and 16.0045," signaling that certain claims are carved out of the standard two-year clock. Before assuming your case runs on the default schedule, confirm that none of those exceptions — or the extended-period statutes discussed below — apply to your specific facts.

Practical takeaway: identify the accrual date, which is typically the date of injury, and calendar the date two years later as your hard filing deadline unless one of the alternative rules in this article changes that calculation.

Is Your Claim Really Governed by the Two-Year Rule? A Limitations Comparison

Not every claim that involves an injury runs on the standard two-year clock. Texas law sets different limitations periods depending on what caused the harm and who is being sued, particularly when the injury traces back to real property, construction, design, or a recorded instrument rather than an ordinary accident.

Construction or repair defects. Under § 16.009(a), a claimant must generally sue a person who constructs or repairs an improvement to real property within 10 years of substantial completion of that improvement, in an action arising from a defective or unsafe condition or a deficiency in the construction or repair. This matters if your injury stems from a collapsed staircase, a defective balcony, or another structural failure — the 10-year construction statute, not the two-year personal injury clock, may control the claim against the builder. The 10-year period is the rule for private claimants; when the party bringing the claim is a governmental entity, § 16.009(a-1) shortens the period to eight years, and for certain claims involving a new residence whose contractor provided a qualifying written warranty, § 16.009(a-2) shortens it to six years.

Design and inspection defects. Section 16.008(a) applies a comparable 10-year period, measured from substantial completion of the improvement or the start of equipment operation, to claims against a registered or licensed architect, engineer, interior designer, or landscape architect who designed, planned, or inspected the construction. Under § 16.008(b), this covers personal injury, property damage, wrongful death, contribution, and indemnity claims arising from a defective or unsafe condition — a distinctly different clock than the standard personal injury statute. As with construction claims, the 10-year period applies to private claimants; a governmental entity bringing the claim generally has eight years under § 16.008(a-1).

Surveyor errors. Section 16.011(a) requires suit for damages caused by an error in a survey conducted by a registered public surveyor or licensed state land surveyor within 10 years of the survey's completion if completed on or after September 1, 1989, or by September 1, 1991 (or 10 years, whichever is later) for older surveys. Section 16.011(c) confirms this is a statute of repose, independent of other limitations periods.

Real property liens. If an injury claim is bundled with a dispute over recovery or foreclosure of a real property lien, § 16.035(a) requires that action within four years of accrual — a much shorter window than the construction and design statutes, and different from the standard personal injury period.

Technical instrument defects. Section 16.033(a) gives a claimant two years from the date an instrument was filed with the county clerk to sue for recovery of real property conveyed by an instrument containing certain technical defects, such as a missing corporate signature or seal, or a defective acknowledgment.

Decision guidance: if your injury arose from a defective building, faulty design, a surveying error, or a property lien dispute, check whether one of these longer or shorter statutes applies instead of, or alongside, the standard two-year personal injury deadline before you calendar your filing date.

Comparison Table: Texas Limitations Periods by Claim Type

Can a Contract or Waiver Shorten Your Two-Year Deadline?

Section 16.070(a) provides that, with a limited exception, a person may not enter a stipulation, contract, or agreement that purports to limit the time to sue on that agreement to less than two years — and any agreement that tries to set a shorter period is void in Texas. This directly matters for injury claimants who signed a release, waiver, or service agreement — for a gym, repair shop, or rental company — containing language that appears to require a lawsuit within some shorter window tied to the incident.

Section 16.070(b) does carve out an exception: the void-shortened-period rule does not apply to an agreement relating to the sale or purchase of a business entity where a party pays, receives, or is obligated to pay or entitled to receive consideration of at least $500,000. That exception is narrow and unlikely to apply to a typical consumer waiver, but anyone whose contract contains a shortened suit clause should have that specific provision reviewed rather than assume it automatically controls.

Decision point: don't let a contractual clock scare you away from pursuing a claim. Verify whether the two-year statutory floor still protects your right to sue before treating a shorter deadline in a signed document as final.

If the At-Fault Party Is a Government Entity: How the Process Differs

Claims against a governmental unit under the Texas Tort Claims Act follow procedural rules that differ from private-party injury claims, which affects how negotiations unfold and what to expect if the case proceeds to litigation.

Notice comes first — and the window is much shorter than two years. Under § 101.101(a), a governmental unit is entitled to notice of the claim no later than six months after the day of the incident, and the notice must reasonably describe the damage or injury claimed, the time and place of the incident, and the incident itself. Cities can be on an even faster clock: § 101.101(b) ratifies city charter and ordinance provisions that require notice within a shorter period, so check the specific city’s charter before assuming you have the full six months. Under § 101.101(c), these formal notice requirements do not apply if the governmental unit has actual notice of the death, injury, or property damage — but actual notice is litigated case by case, so the safe course is to treat the six-month (or shorter charter) window as a hard deadline that runs long before the two-year limitations period.

Settlement authority. Under § 101.105(a), a cause of action under the Tort Claims Act may be settled and compromised by the governmental unit only if the governing body (or, in a case involving the state, the governor) determines that the compromise is in the entity's best interests. Section 101.105(b) removes that approval requirement if the governmental unit has acquired insurance under the chapter — meaning the settlement process can look quite different depending on whether the entity is insured.

Insurance is off-limits as evidence. Section 101.104(a) makes both the existence and the amount of a governmental unit's insurance coverage inadmissible at trial in a suit under the chapter, and § 101.104(b) states that neither fact is subject to discovery. This is a key expectation-setting point for claimants accustomed to standard insurance disclosure practices in private-party injury cases.

Decision relevance: if your injury involves a city, county, or state agency, give written notice within § 101.101’s six-month window (or the shorter period a city charter or ordinance may set) before anything else, then factor in these settlement-approval and insurance-disclosure rules when deciding how to structure settlement discussions or anticipate the pace and posture of litigation.

Auto Accident Claims: Choosing How to Handle Property Damage While Your Injury Clock Runs

According to guidance from the Office of Public Insurance Counsel (OPIC), your route for vehicle damage depends on your own policy’s coverages, not just the other driver’s fault. If the at-fault driver is insured and you carry neither collision coverage nor uninsured/underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) property damage coverage, you deal directly with the at-fault driver’s insurance company — your own insurer may help, but it won’t pay for the damage. If the at-fault driver is uninsured, or doesn’t have enough insurance to cover all of your damage, OPIC’s guidance is to file a claim under your own policy’s UM/UIM property damage coverage. Texas insurers must include or offer UM/UIM coverage with every auto liability policy unless a named insured rejected it in writing (Tex. Ins. Code § 1952.101), and UM/UIM property damage claims are subject to a $250 deductible (§ 1952.105(b)) — so check your declarations page before assuming a third-party claim is your only option.

In a direct-claim scenario, OPIC recommends gathering as much information as possible about the accident and your damages: photos, witness contact information, the police report, a damage estimate, and repair shop contacts. That same evidence also supports your personal injury claim, which remains subject to the two-year window under § 16.003 regardless of how the property-damage side is resolved.

If you do carry collision coverage, OPIC notes that your own insurance company can deal with the other driver on your behalf, paying the cost of your damages and attempting to collect from the other driver's insurer. You will probably have to pay a deductible upfront, although it may be recovered and refunded later.

Decision criteria: start by identifying which first-party coverages you actually carry — collision, UM/UIM property damage, both, or neither — and weigh speed of repair against the applicable deductible. If both collision and UM/UIM property damage coverage apply, § 1952.107 lets you recover under whichever you choose, or under both (one designated primary) when neither alone covers the full loss. Whatever route you take runs parallel to your personal injury claim — it does not extend the two-year deadline for the injury portion of your case.

Action Checklist Before Your Two-Year Window Closes

Pin down the accrual date — generally the date of injury — and calendar the exact two-year deadline under § 16.003.

Cross-check the comparison table above to see whether a construction, design, survey, or lien-related statute (§§ 16.008, 16.009, 16.011, 16.035, 16.033) governs part of your claim instead of, or alongside, the standard personal injury period.

Review any signed waiver or contract for a shortened suit clause. Remember that § 16.070 voids clauses attempting to shorten the two-year period, subject to the limited business-sale exception in Subsection (b).

If a governmental unit is involved, give written notice of the claim within § 101.101’s six-month window — or sooner if a city charter or ordinance sets a shorter period — then confirm whether settlement requires governing-body or governor approval under § 101.105 and prepare for the insurance non-disclosure and non-discovery rule under § 101.104.

Preserve photos, police reports, damage estimates, and witness contacts immediately, per OPIC's guidance — this evidence supports both a property-damage track and your personal injury claim inside the two-year deadline.