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judgment-renewal-deadlines-by-state

base_period stringclasses 8 values	citation stringclasses 8 values	derived_fields listlengths 3 3	id stringclasses 8 values	renewal_mechanism stringclasses 8 values	source stringclasses 8 values	source_quote stringclasses 8 values	state stringclasses 8 values	statutory_language stringclasses 8 values	url stringclasses 8 values	verified_fields listlengths 2 2
10 years from the date the judgment was entered. At the end of it the judgment may not be enforced at all: enforcement procedures must cease, and any lien created by an enforcement procedure is extinguished.	683.020	[ "base_period", "renewal_mechanism", "state" ]	california	Renewal by application, filed before the 10 years run out. The creditor files an application for renewal with the court that entered the judgment, and the filing itself extends enforceability for a further 10 years from the date the application is filed - no hearing and no new judgment. A narrow class of judgments iden...	https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CCP&sectionNum=683.020	683.020. Except as otherwise provided by statute, upon the expiration of 10 years after the date of entry of a money judgment or a judgment for possession or sale of property: (a) The judgment may not be enforced. (b) All enforcement procedures pursuant to the judgment or to a writ or order issued pursuant to the judgm...	California	upon the expiration of 10 years after the date of entry of a money judgment or a judgment for possession or sale of property: (a) The judgment may not be enforced.	https://referencesource.org/judgment-renewal-deadlines-by-state/california/	[ "citation", "statutory_language" ]
20 years from the date of entry. After that, no judgment, order, or decree of any court is a lien upon real or personal property anywhere in the state. A recorded lien reaches that outer limit only if it is re-recorded on the way there.	55.081	[ "base_period", "renewal_mechanism", "state" ]	florida	Re-recording, not a court application. The lien on real property lasts 10 years from recording, and is extended for one further 10-year period by re-recording a certified copy of the judgment before the existing lien expires, together with an affidavit giving the creditor's current address - the extension fails if that...	https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/0055.081	no judgment, order, or decree of any court shall be a lien upon real or personal property within the state after the expiration of 20 years from the date of the entry of such judgment, order, or decree.	Florida	no judgment, order, or decree of any court shall be a lien upon real or personal property within the state after the expiration of 20 years from the date of the entry of such judgment, order, or decree	https://referencesource.org/judgment-renewal-deadlines-by-state/florida/	[ "citation", "statutory_language" ]
Seven years from the time the judgment is rendered. After that it may not be enforced at all unless it has been revived. Three things sit outside the seven years: real estate levied upon inside them may still be sold to enforce the judgment for one further year; a judgment for damages for an injury described in section...	12-108	[ "base_period", "renewal_mechanism", "state" ]	illinois	Revival on a petition, not an act of enforcement. The judgment may be revived by filing a petition to revive it in the seventh year after its entry, or in the seventh year after its last revival, or in the twentieth year after its entry, or at any other time within 20 years after entry if the judgment has become dorman...	https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=073500050K12-108	(a) Except as herein provided, no judgment shall be enforced after the expiration of 7 years from the time the same is rendered, except upon the revival of the same by a proceeding provided by Section 2-1601 of this Act; but real estate, levied upon within the 7 years, may be sold to enforce the judgment at any time wi...	Illinois	no judgment shall be enforced after the expiration of 7 years from the time the same is rendered, except upon the revival of the same by a proceeding provided by Section 2-1601 of this Act	https://referencesource.org/judgment-renewal-deadlines-by-state/illinois/	[ "citation", "statutory_language" ]
Ten years from entry. The judgment survives, and its lien on the debtor's real property in the county continues, for that period and no longer.	548.09	[ "base_period", "renewal_mechanism", "state" ]	minnesota	No renewal application. Minnesota's route is to sue on the judgment: an action upon a judgment must be begun within ten years after entry, and a creditor who brings that action in time and wins it holds a new judgment with its own ten years. Child support judgments are the exception - those are renewable under section ...	https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/548.09	The judgment survives, and the lien continues, for ten years after its entry. Child support judgments may be renewed pursuant to section 548.091	Minnesota	The judgment survives, and the lien continues, for ten years after its entry.	https://referencesource.org/judgment-renewal-deadlines-by-state/minnesota/	[ "citation", "statutory_language" ]
20 years, running from the time the creditor was first entitled to enforce the judgment rather than from entry. At the end of it the judgment is conclusively presumed to have been paid and satisfied, and that presumption is displaced only by the debtor's own conduct - a written acknowledgment of the debt signed by the ...	CVP § 211	[ "base_period", "renewal_mechanism", "state" ]	new-york	New York gives the creditor nothing to file that extends the 20 years. What can be renewed is the lien. An action upon the judgment may be brought under CPLR 5014 once ten years have elapsed since the judgment was first docketed, and it may be commenced during the year before that ten years runs out - a one-year window...	https://codes.findlaw.com/ny/civil-practice-law-and-rules/cvp-sect-211/	(b) On a money judgment. A money judgment is presumed to be paid and satisfied after the expiration of twenty years from the time when the party recovering it was first entitled to enforce it. This presumption is conclusive, except as against a person who within the twenty years acknowledges an indebtedness, or makes a...	New York	A money judgment is presumed to be paid and satisfied after the expiration of twenty years from the time when the party recovering it was first entitled to enforce it.	https://referencesource.org/judgment-renewal-deadlines-by-state/new-york/	[ "citation", "statutory_language" ]
Ten years from the date the judgment is entered. That is how long the docketed judgment is a lien on the real property the debtor owns, or later acquires, in the county where it is docketed, measured from entry in the county where the judgment was originally entered. Time during which the creditor was restrained from p...	1-47	[ "base_period", "renewal_mechanism", "state" ]	north-carolina	An action on the judgment itself, brought within the ten years — that is the route this section gives, and it limits it twice over. Such an action may be brought only once, and it does not have the effect of continuing the lien of the original judgment. So a creditor who sues in time and wins holds a second judgment wi...	https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_1/GS_1-47.html	Within ten years an action - (1) Upon a judgment or decree of any court of the United States, or of any state or territory thereof, from the date of its entry. No such action may be brought more than once, or have the effect to continue the lien of the original judgment.	North Carolina	Within ten years an action - (1) Upon a judgment or decree of any court of the United States, or of any state or territory thereof, from the date of its entry. No such action may be brought more than once, or have the effect to continue the lien of the original judgment.	https://referencesource.org/judgment-renewal-deadlines-by-state/north-carolina/	[ "citation", "statutory_language" ]
Five years from the date of the judgment, or from the last renewal of it, whichever is later - for a judgment that is not in favour of the state. A judgment in favour of the state runs ten years from the judgment or any renewal, or fifteen years from the last execution on it, whichever is later.	2329.07	[ "base_period", "renewal_mechanism", "state" ]	ohio	Keeping it alive takes an enforcement step, not a filing. The five years reset each time the creditor issues an execution, issues and files a certificate of judgment, has an order of garnishment issued or continuing, or commences or continues a proceeding in aid of execution - the statute calls any of those a renewal o...	https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-2329.07	(B)(1) A judgment that is not in favor of the state is dormant and shall not operate as a lien against the estate of the judgment debtor unless one of the following occurs within five years from the date of the judgment or any renewal of the judgment, whichever is later: (a) An execution on a judgment is issued. (b) A ...	Ohio	A judgment that is not in favor of the state is dormant and shall not operate as a lien against the estate of the judgment debtor unless one of the following occurs within five years from the date of the judgment or any renewal of the judgment, whichever is later	https://referencesource.org/judgment-renewal-deadlines-by-state/ohio/	[ "citation", "statutory_language" ]
10 years from the date the judgment was rendered, if no writ of execution issues in that time - the judgment then becomes dormant automatically and execution may not issue on it. Issuing a writ inside the 10 years restarts the clock: a second writ may issue at any time within 10 years of the first, and the judgment onl...	34.001	[ "base_period", "renewal_mechanism", "state" ]	texas	Nothing to file in advance, and a short window afterwards. Once the judgment is dormant it can be brought back only by a separate court proceeding - scire facias, or an action of debt - and that proceeding must be brought no later than the second anniversary of the date the judgment became dormant. Two years is the who...	https://tcss.legis.texas.gov/resources/CP/htm/CP.34.htm	Sec. 34.001. NO EXECUTION ON DORMANT JUDGMENT. (a) If a writ of execution is not issued within 10 years after the rendition of a judgment of a court of record or a justice court, the judgment is dormant and execution may not be issued on the judgment unless it is revived. (b) If a writ of execution is issued within 10 ...	Texas	If a writ of execution is not issued within 10 years after the rendition of a judgment of a court of record or a justice court, the judgment is dormant and execution may not be issued on the judgment unless it is revived.	https://referencesource.org/judgment-renewal-deadlines-by-state/texas/	[ "citation", "statutory_language" ]

How long a money judgment stays enforceable before it must be renewed, by state

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Last verified: 2026-09-01
Stale after: 2027-09-01 (past this date, prefer the canonical copy — it re-verifies on a cadence this snapshot does not)
Records: 8

A civil money judgment does not stay enforceable forever. Every state sets a clock on it, and when the clock runs out the creditor's own state statute — not the underlying debt's statute of limitations, which is a different clock that stopped the moment the judgment was entered — decides whether the judgment can be renewed and how. This is a distinct fact from the existing state-civil-statute-of-limitations asset (which covers filing the original suit) and from time-barred-debt-revival-rules-by-state (which covers a debt that never reached judgment). The clock and the mechanism both vary sharply, and the mechanism varies more than the clock does. Ohio judgments go dormant after 5 years, California, Texas, Minnesota and Florida's recorded lien after 10, New York after 20 — but the six states built first produced five different ways of extending one. California is a true renewal: the creditor files an application before expiry and gets a fresh 10 years from the filing date. Ohio and Texas use dormancy-and-revivor: the judgment lapses automatically and can only be brought back by a separate court action, itself time-limited, and Texas gives just 2 years to revive a judgment that went dormant at 10. Florida extends by re-recording a certified copy in the county records, not by any court application. Minnesota has no renewal step: the creditor's route is to sue on the judgment within the 10 years and win a new one. New York runs two clocks at once — the judgment is conclusively presumed paid after 20 years and nothing the creditor files extends that, but the lien on the debtor's real property lasts only 10 years from the filing of the judgment-roll and is renewed by an action on the judgment under CPLR 5014, which can only be commenced in the one-year window before those 10 years expire. Florida is the same shape: a 20-year outer limit over a 10-year recorded lien. Illinois is shorter than any of them at 7 years and revives on a petition that can only be filed in particular years, not at any time inside the period. North Carolina's route is the one Minnesota uses — sue on the judgment inside the ten years — but its section caps it: the action may be brought only once, and it does not continue the lien of the original judgment, so the second judgment starts a new lien priority date rather than inheriting the first one's. A reader who learns the number but not the shape can still miss the deadline, and on New York and Florida the headline number is twice the number that actually matters. A creditor, a collection attorney or a judgment-purchasing firm pricing an aged judgment needs to know both numbers: how much life is left, and what has to be filed to extend it, because missing the window is one of the most common ways a fully valid judgment becomes worthless. One record per state, quoted verbatim from that state's own code. Answers 'how long is a judgment good for in [state]', 'can I renew a judgment after it expires', 'judgment dormancy period by state'. This is a deadline lookup, not legal advice: whether a specific judgment has already been renewed, revived, or satisfied is a case-specific question the statute alone doesn't answer.

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Facts taken from US state statutes, each with a verbatim attributed quote and a link back to the publishing legislature, revisor or statute host. The text of a state statute is an edict of government and carries no copyright (Wheaton v. Peters; restated in Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). No whole chapter is reproduced. No source used here carries a restrictive notice. Texas is on the state's own host: statutes.capitol.texas.gov became an Angular single-page app that returns the same 250,874-byte JavaScript shell for every chapter, but the file server that same app reads from, tcss.legis.texas.gov/resources, still serves each chapter as static HTML, and that is what is cited and quoted here (checked 2026-09-02). Two of the eleven pages remain on codes.findlaw.com, a commercial host, used only for New York because nysenate.gov returns 403 to our fetcher; what is quoted from FindLaw is the unmodified statute, cited to the state's own section number, and FindLaw's own commentary is not used.

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