If you were hurt in a Texas car accident, you have two years from the date of the crash to file a personal injury lawsuit. That deadline comes straight from Section 16.003(a) of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, and it applies whether you're suing over a broken leg, a totaled car, or both.1 Miss it, and a Texas court will dismiss your case no matter how clear the other driver's fault was.
Two years sounds like plenty of time. It isn't, once you factor in the exceptions that shorten or extend that window depending on who was driving, how old you were, and whether a government vehicle was involved.
When the two-year clock actually starts
The statute measures from the day the cause of action accrues, which for a car accident is the day of the wreck itself, not the day you're diagnosed with a herniated disc or the day your pain finally shows up on an MRI.1 Texas has a narrow discovery rule that can delay accrual for injuries that are inherently undiscoverable, but the Texas Supreme Court limits it to injuries unlikely to be found within the normal limitations period despite due diligence, where the evidence of injury is also objectively verifiable.2 A car crash doesn't qualify. You know the collision happened the moment it happens, so courts start the clock that day even if soft-tissue or brain injuries take weeks to fully surface.
Property damage claims run on the identical schedule. If an insurer is dragging its feet on your vehicle damage claim, you still have only two years from the crash date to sue over the loss in value or repair cost, the same Section 16.003(a) deadline that governs your injury claim.1 If your car lost resale value even after a proper repair, that's a separate claim worth understanding before the clock runs; see our diminished value guide for Texas.
Wrongful death runs from the date of death, not the crash
If a crash victim dies from their injuries, Texas starts a new two-year clock on the date of death rather than the date of the collision.3 That distinction matters most when someone lingers in a hospital for weeks or months before passing. The suit belongs first to the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the deceased, and any one of them can sue on behalf of all of them. If none of them files within three calendar months of the death, the executor or administrator of the estate is required to bring the claim unless every eligible family member has asked them not to.4
Minors and incapacitated victims get the clock paused
Texas treats anyone under 18, or anyone of unsound mind, as under a legal disability, and it doesn't count that time against the two-year deadline.5 Practically, a 10-year-old injured in a crash doesn't lose the right to sue on their twelfth birthday. The disability period is simply skipped, so the two-year clock doesn't start until the child turns 18, giving them until their 20th birthday to file. The same rule can apply to someone left with a serious cognitive impairment from the crash itself, though the statute is strict about it: a person can't stack one disability onto another to stretch the deadline further, and a disability that begins after the clock has already started doesn't pause anything.5
A government vehicle hides a much shorter deadline inside the two years
When a city bus, county truck, school district van, or TxDOT maintenance vehicle causes the crash, the two-year lawsuit deadline stays exactly the same. A separate, much shorter clock starts running anyway, and it catches people constantly. Under the Texas Tort Claims Act, you generally must give the government unit formal written notice of your claim within six months of the crash, describing the injury, the time and place, and your identity.6 Home-rule cities can shorten that window further through their own charter provisions, and some of the state's largest cities have done exactly that. Houston's city charter requires written, notarized notice to the mayor and city council within 90 days of the crash, delivered through the City Secretary, or the city is excused from liability entirely.7 The notice requirement doesn't apply if the government unit already had actual notice that someone was injured or that property was damaged, but nobody should count on that exception rescuing a late claim.6
If you weren't hurt badly enough to think about a lawsuit within the first three months, that's often too late to preserve a claim against a Texas city.
Your insurance deadline usually arrives before your lawsuit deadline
Nothing above changes how quickly you need to deal with your own insurer. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage is bundled into Texas auto policies by default unless you rejected it in writing,8 but UM/UIM claims are contract claims governed by your policy's own notice and proof-of-loss deadlines, and insurers routinely set those far shorter than two years. Waiting until the statute of limitations is close before you even file a claim is a common way injured drivers lose negotiating power in settlement talks, since adjusters know a plaintiff running short on time has fewer options left.
What actually happens if you miss the deadline
Once the applicable deadline passes, the at-fault driver's insurer has no reason to keep negotiating. File suit even one day late and the defendant can move to dismiss, and Texas courts grant it regardless of how strong the underlying case was. The same is true, often more harshly, for a missed government notice deadline: a six-month or 90-day notice failure can end a claim before the two-year lawsuit clock would ever have been a problem.6 There's no general grace period and no "I didn't know" exception outside the narrow tolling rules above.
What to do while the clock is running
Pull your official crash report early. TxDOT's Crash Records Information System (CRIS) is the state's system of record for reports filed by investigating officers, and you'll want the report number before you get far into a claim.9 See our guide to getting a Texas crash report for the process. And if a government vehicle, a minor, or a fatality is anywhere in the picture, don't wait to talk to a lawyer. The six-month and 90-day notice traps run out long before most people are done healing. You can find Texas attorneys who handle these deadlines in our legal directory.
This is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
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Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003(a), https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.16.htm
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Computer Associates International, Inc. v. Altai, Inc., 918 S.W.2d 453 (Tex. 1996), https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2417385/computer-associates-intern-v-altai/
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Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003(b), https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.16.htm
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Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 71.004, https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.71.htm
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Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.001, https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.16.htm
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Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 101.101, https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.101.htm
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City of Houston Legal Department, Filing a Claim, https://www.houstontx.gov/legal/fileclaim.html
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Texas Insurance Code Section 1952.101, 1952.104, https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/IN/htm/IN.1952.htm
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Texas Department of Transportation, Crash Records Information System (CRIS), https://cris.dot.state.tx.us/public/Purchase/