How long you have to sue someone (time limits)
Limitation of Actions Act · sources read 2 Oct 2026
Most cases must be filed in time: 6 years for a claim based on a contract, 3 years for injury or damage caused by someone's wrong (tort, like negligence in an accident), and 12 months for libel or slander. You have 12 years to recover land or to enforce a court judgment.
- Deadline
- Contract claims: within 6 years
- Deadline
- Injury or damage from someone's wrong (tort): within 3 years
- Deadline
- Libel or slander: within 12 months
- Deadline
- Enforcing a court judgment: within 12 years of the judgment
- Deadline
- Recovering land: within 12 years
- Deadline
- Claims under the Employment Act or a contract of service: within 3 years, or within 12 months after a continuing injury stops
- Where
- In court: online on the Judiciary e-filing platform (efiling.court.go.ke) or at the court registry
Steps
- Count from the day your claim arose (the day the contract was broken or the wrong happened), not from the day you decided to sue.
- If your case is based on fraud or a mistake, or fraud hid it from you, the time only starts when you discovered it, or could have with reasonable care.
- For a personal injury from negligence where key facts were outside your knowledge, you can ask the court for permission (leave) to sue after the 3 years.
- File your case before the time runs out. You can file online on the Judiciary e-filing platform (efiling.court.go.ke).
Watch out
- Even with late-discovered injury, the case must be filed within about a year of the date the key facts came to your knowledge.
- The extra time for fraud or mistake does not let you take back property from someone who bought it honestly and paid for it without knowing of the fraud.
- Interest on a judgment debt cannot be recovered more than 6 years after it fell due.
Official sources (3)
- Limitation of Actions Act (Cap. 22) new.kenyalaw.org · read 2 Oct 2026
- Employment Act, 2007 (No. 11 of 2007) labour.go.ke · read 2 Oct 2026
- Judiciary e-Filing FAQs judiciary.go.ke · read 2 Oct 2026