New York Debt Collection Statute of Limitations
New York runs two clocks over an unpaid balance, and CPLR 213(2) decides between them inside its own sentence: six years for a contractual obligation, and hands consumer paper away inside its own exception clause. CPLR 214-i is that exception – three years for an action arising out of a consumer credit transaction where a purchaser, borrower or debtor is a defendant, and then a sentence saying that once the applicable period expires, payment, written or oral affirmation and other activity on the debt do not revive or extend it. It took effect April 7, 2022. Every section below is quoted from the published text; the records half – which individual on the paper, and where that person is now – is the part we do. General information about New York law, not legal advice.
Which Clock, in Short
Three years under CPLR 214-i for an action arising out of a consumer credit transaction where a purchaser, borrower or debtor is a defendant. Six years under CPLR 213(2) for a contractual obligation its own exception clause does not hand away – and six years again at 213(3) for a sealed instrument, because New York put the seal in the same list. After the applicable period expires, 214-i names four acts that do not revive or extend the period: payment, written affirmation, oral affirmation, other activity on the debt. That arrived with the Consumer Credit Fairness Act on April 7, 2022, and the same act added the clerk-mailed notice at CPLR 306-d, pleading particularity at CPLR Rule 3016(j) and default proof at CPLR 3215. General information about New York law, not legal advice.
Watch: Two Clocks, One Sentence Apart
How CPLR 213(2) hands consumer paper to 214-i.
Watch Overview
Which Clock Applies: 213(2) Decides Inside Its Own Sentence
CPLR 201 sets the frame; CPLR 213 sets the default and then gives part of it away.
CPLR 201, the lead-in to article 2, provides that an action “must be commenced within the time specified in this article unless a different time is prescribed by law or a shorter time is prescribed by written agreement,” and that “No court shall extend the time limited by law for the commencement of an action.” So these periods are defaults another law can displace – the mechanism the three-year rule uses – and no New York court may lengthen one.
CPLR 213 is that default. Its heading runs, in full, “Actions to be commenced within six years: where not otherwise provided for; on contract; on sealed instrument; on bond or note, and mortgage upon real property; by state based on misappropriation of public property; based on mistake; by corporation against director, officer or stockholder; based on fraud.” Then the lead-in, “The following actions must be commenced within six years:”, and nine numbered paragraphs. Paragraph 2 is the contract paragraph, and it has to be read to the end of its own sentence: “an action upon a contractual obligation or liability, express or implied, except as provided in section two hundred thirteen-a or two hundred fourteen-i of this article or article 2 of the uniform commercial code or article 36-B of the general business law.” It surrenders a class of action mid-sentence, and one of the four provisions it names is CPLR 214-i.
Paragraph 3 is short enough to quote whole – “3. an action upon a sealed instrument;” – and its position is the point: New York filed the sealed instrument inside the same six-year list as an ordinary contract. Paragraph 4 covers a bond or note secured by a mortgage and carries two conditional subparagraphs on acceleration; (b), which by its own words is confined to an action seeking cancellation and discharge of record under RPAPL 1501(4), estops a defendant in such an action from arguing the period has not expired because the instrument “was not validly accelerated prior to, or by way of commencement of a prior action, unless the prior action was dismissed based on an expressed judicial determination, made upon a timely interposed defense, that the instrument was not validly accelerated.”
Three of the four provisions 213(2) names sit outside what was verified here: CPLR 213-a, article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code and article 36-B of the General Business Law appear as exceptions and nothing more, with no period stated for any of them. This page states only what the New York provisions say; other states are covered in the wider statute of limitations on debt collection by state overview.
Three Years That Follow the Transaction, Not the Plaintiff
Sentence one of CPLR 214-i, and four things it leaves open.
The section is captioned “Certain actions arising out of consumer credit transactions to be commenced within three years,” and its first sentence reads in full: “An action arising out of a consumer credit transaction where a purchaser, borrower or debtor is a defendant must be commenced within three years, except as provided in section two hundred thirteen-a of this article or article 2 of the uniform commercial code or article 36-B of the general business law.”
The sentence conditions on the transaction and on the defendant – “where a purchaser, borrower or debtor is a defendant” – and on nothing else. The words “debt buyer” appear nowhere in the section, and neither does “original creditor.” There is no plaintiff class in the text at all, so a bank that still holds the paper it originated and a portfolio buyer three assignments downstream are both bringing an action arising out of the same consumer credit transaction against the same borrower, on the same three years. That is an observation about the words of the section, not a prediction about how a court will apply them. Texas reached a comparable anti-revival result by a different route, building its rule around the statutory term “debt buyer,” which its section defines and expressly excludes two categories from – a defined class of plaintiff, where 214-i runs on the transaction and the defendant. The Texas text read for this page carries a May 2025 currency stamp, so nothing here states what that section says today; our Texas debt collection statute of limitations page has it.
Four things 214-i does not do are worth naming. It does not define “consumer credit transaction” – neither sentence contains a definition, and whether an account arose out of one is a legal determination this page does not make. It does not say when the period starts running; accrual belongs to counsel. Neither sentence mentions a demand letter, a notice or any other out-of-court contact – the section is written about commencing an action, and this page takes no position on conduct it does not address. And neither sentence speaks to the obligation itself as distinct from the action: both are written about when an action “must be commenced.” What an expired period leaves behind is a legal question this page does not answer; the same question in another state’s words is on our page covering the West Virginia statute of limitations on debt. Where a debtor has filed for bankruptcy, our New York bankruptcy exemptions page covers what property survives the case.
The No-Revival Sentence: Four Acts, Two Conditions
Sentence two, taken apart.
The second sentence of CPLR 214-i reads: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, when the applicable limitations period expires, any subsequent payment toward, written or oral affirmation of or other activity on the debt does not revive or extend the limitations period.” Count what it disposes of. A payment toward the debt. A written affirmation of it. An oral affirmation of it. And a fourth term, “other activity on the debt.” Reading that phrase as reaching past the three acts named before it is a reading of the words, not something the sentence states in terms. The verbs are doubled – the act does not “revive or extend” – and both sit under the same opening condition, so each is denied once the applicable limitations period has expired.
Two conditions are easy to skip. The rule operates “when the applicable limitations period expires,” so on the face of the text it is a post-expiry rule; and it says “the applicable limitations period,” whichever one governs that claim rather than three years automatically. The opening words explain why it exists at all: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law” is what makes 214-i, rather than the older acknowledgment machinery in the General Obligations Law, the operative anti-revival rule for the actions it covers.
A second source dates it. On the day the section took effect the New York Department of Financial Services issued industry guidance dated April 7, 2022 to debt collectors governed by 23 N.Y.C.R.R. Part 1, because the Department’s own regulation at 23 N.Y.C.R.R. § 1.3(b) then required collectors to warn consumers that if they paid or acknowledged a time-barred debt “the statute of limitations may restart.” The letter said that debts addressed by the new CPLR 214-i are collected by debt collectors subject to the Department’s regulation, and that as to those debts, “under the new law, it is no longer true that a consumer’s making or promising to make a payment on, or admitting, affirming, or acknowledging such time-barred debt can restart the statute of limitations period.” That is what the Department said in April 2022; this page states nothing about the regulation’s text today. What it establishes is the date, and one more dated fact in the Department’s own words that April: the amendments it had proposed to the regulation in November 2021 were, as of the letter, “not yet final.” New Jersey’s own answer is on our New Jersey limitations rules page.
What Else the Act Rewired: Notice, Pleading and Proof
Fifteen sections. Only one of them is the clock.
CPLR 214-i is section 4 of the Consumer Credit Fairness Act, signed November 8, 2021 as chapter 593 of the Laws of 2021, whose enacting clause is “AN ACT to amend the civil practice law and rules and the judiciary law, in relation to consumer credit transactions” – two bodies of law and no others. The act runs to fifteen sections. Section 15 gives section four effect “on the one hundred fiftieth day after this act shall have become a law,” and ten others effect on the one hundred eightieth day. One hundred fifty days after November 8, 2021 is April 7, 2022, the date the Department of Financial Services letter also gives. That is the only calendar effective date this page prints; the 180-day group stays as the act’s own formula, because no source read here converts it.
The addition that matters most to a file is CPLR 306-d. At the time of filing proof of service in a consumer credit action, the plaintiff must submit to the clerk “a stamped, unsealed envelope addressed to the defendant together with a written notice in clear type of no less than twelve-point in size, in both English and Spanish,” and subdivision (b) requires that envelope to be “addressed to the defendant at the address at which process was served.” The clerk mails it. Subdivision (c) then contains two sentences that decide cases: “No default judgment based on the defendant’s failure to answer shall be entered unless there has been compliance with this section, and at least twenty days have elapsed from the date of mailing by the clerk. No default judgment based on the defendant’s failure to answer shall be entered if the additional notice is returned to the court as undeliverable.”
The address the statute tests is the address at which process was served. Establishing which of several same-named people is the obligor named on the instrument, and where that person is now, is a public-records exercise rather than a legal one – it is what skip tracing done for debt collection is for, and you can start a New York file with us under a stated permissible purpose.
A reader who takes 306-d as a general rule will be wrong. CPLR 3215(g)(3)(i) governs a default judgment “based upon nonappearance” sought against a natural person “in an action based upon nonpayment of a contractual obligation,” and requires an additional first-class mailing to the defendant’s residence. Where that mailing “is returned as undeliverable by the post office before the entry of a default judgment, or if the place of residence of the defendant is unknown,” the statute does not stop – it directs the mailing to the place of employment if known, and failing that to the last known residence. Subparagraph (ii) is explicit: “Where there has been compliance with the requirements of this paragraph, failure of the defendant to receive the additional notice shall not preclude the entry of default judgment.” New York therefore runs two additional-notice regimes at once and they treat a bad address differently: a hard bar in the consumer-credit section, a cascade in the general one. Nothing here supports a general proposition that a stale address stops a New York default judgment.
The same act rewrote the complaint. CPLR Rule 3016(j) – a rule, not a section, and worth citing that way – requires that in a consumer credit action “the contract or other written instrument on which the action is based shall be attached to the complaint,” or for a revolving credit account that “the charge-off statement may be attached to the complaint instead,” followed by eight numbered paragraphs, the first of which is “The name of the original creditor”. Where the plaintiff is not the original creditor, paragraph (7)(B) requires the complaint to state, among other items, “the name of each previous owner of the account from the original creditor to the plaintiff and the date on which the debt was assigned to that owner by the original creditor or subsequent owner”. Put that beside 214-i: the limitations clock is written so the plaintiff’s identity is irrelevant, while the pleading rule traces that identity through every hand the account passed through.
Proof on a default runs through CPLR 3215. Where the plaintiff in a consumer credit action is not the original creditor, subdivision (f) requires an affidavit by the original creditor of the facts constituting the debt and the default, an affidavit of sale for each subsequent assignment, and “an affidavit of a witness of the plaintiff, which includes a chain of title of the debt, completed by the plaintiff or plaintiff’s witness.” Subdivision (j) adds that a clerk’s default judgment “must be accompanied by an affidavit by the plaintiff or plaintiff’s attorney stating that after reasonable inquiry, he or she has reason to believe that the statute of limitations has not expired” – a sentence that is not confined to consumer credit actions. It is the second sentence, on form affidavits, that names “consumer credit transactions and actions arising from medical debt” – and those words are why this page quotes the codified provisions rather than the 2021 act, because “medical” appears nowhere in the enacted bill. The act’s remaining amendments are named and not quoted: CPLR 105, 3012(a), Rule 3211(e), Rule 3212(j), 3213, 7516, 5019(c) and Judiciary Law 212(2)(aa).
The Acknowledgment Seam: GOL § 17-101 and the § 17-105 Trap
Two provisions that have to be read together, and one that does not belong.
New York’s general rule on acknowledgments sits in a part of the General Obligations Law whose headings say what it is for: article 17, “Revival or Extension; Waiver of Defense or Bar,” title 1, “Obligations Barred By Statutes of Limitation.” Inside it, GOL § 17-101 is headed “Acknowledgment or new promise must be in writing” and reads: “An acknowledgment or promise contained in a writing signed by the party to be charged thereby is the only competent evidence of a new or continuing contract whereby to take an action out of the operation of the provisions of limitations of time for commencing actions under the civil practice law and rules other than an action for the recovery of real property. This section does not alter the effect of a payment of principal or interest.”
Note the carve-out inside the first sentence – the writing rule is stated “other than an action for the recovery of real property” – and then the second sentence, which does most of the work. Section 17-101 sets a writing requirement for words and expressly steps aside for money: a payment was never inside its scope in either direction. That silence is the gap CPLR 214-i had to legislate into, because to reach a payment after expiry the legislature had to write about payments directly. And the acknowledgment statute was not amended to do it – the act amends the CPLR and the judiciary law, and the General Obligations Law is not among the bodies of law it touches.
A third provision gets read into this gap and does not belong there. GOL § 17-105 is headed “Promises and waivers affecting the time limited for action to foreclose a mortgage,” and every operative subdivision is confined to that subject. Subdivision 4 is its sharpest sentence: an acknowledgment, waiver, promise or agreement “shall not, in form or effect, postpone, cancel, reset, toll, revive or otherwise extend the time limited for commencement of an action to foreclose a mortgage for any greater time or in any other manner than that provided in this section, unless it is made as provided in this section.” That is exclusivity, not permission – and subdivision 5 then carves payments out of the section entirely.
CPLR 211(b) presumes a money judgment “paid and satisfied after the expiration of twenty years from the time when the party recovering it was first entitled to enforce it,” conclusively except against a person who within the twenty years acknowledges the indebtedness in a signed writing or makes a payment – and it adds a sentence on involuntary collection: “Property acquired by an enforcement order or by levy upon an execution is a payment, unless the person to be charged shows that it did not include property claimed by him.” That is a presumption of payment rather than a limitations period, and it points the opposite way from 214-i. The enforcement side is in our New York judgment collection guide.
Out-of-State Paper: CPLR 202 and the Shorter of Two Clocks
The section a holder of imported accounts actually needs.
An account does not always accrue where the suit is brought. CPLR 202 is captioned “Cause of action accruing without the state” and reads in full: “An action based upon a cause of action accruing without the state cannot be commenced after the expiration of the time limited by the laws of either the state or the place without the state where the cause of action accrued, except that where the cause of action accrued in favor of a resident of the state the time limited by the laws of the state shall apply.” It is commonly called New York’s borrowing statute, though that phrase is not in the text.
The operative word is “either.” Because the action has to be within the time limited by the laws of both New York and the place of accrual, the period that expires first is the one that ends the action; the proviso then pulls a claim that accrued in favor of a New York resident back to New York’s own period. What the section does not settle matters just as much: where a money debt accrues is not defined in it, and neither is whose residency counts once a claim has been assigned. Both are questions courts answer, and no case law was read for this page – so CPLR 202 is where an out-of-state accrual question starts, not where it ends. An imported file still has to be attached to a person – the problem described in our note on finding a defendant before the limitations period runs.
Two Sections Numbered 214-i: Reading the Right One
The section number by itself is not an address.
The consumer credit section carries an asterisk in the published text, and the footnote attached to it records, in terms, that there are two § 214-i’s. The other is captioned “Action to recover damages for personal injury caused by contact with or exposure to toxic burn pits.” Both were enacted into article 2 of the CPLR under the same number. Only that caption was read for this page, so nothing here states the burn-pit section’s period, its effective date or the chapter that enacted it.
A citation checked against the bare number alone can land on the other section, whose caption is about personal injury rather than debt. Cite by the full heading, “Certain actions arising out of consumer credit transactions to be commenced within three years,” and confirm the phrase “consumer credit transaction” appears in the text in front of you before relying on it.
Every Provision on This Page, and What It Decides
Thirteen provisions, thirteen different jobs.
| Provision | What it governs | Period or effect |
|---|---|---|
| CPLR 201 | Application of article 2 | Its periods apply unless another law prescribes a different time; no court may extend one |
| CPLR 213(2) | Contractual obligation, express or implied | Six years, except as provided in 213-a, 214-i, UCC article 2 or GBL article 36-B |
| CPLR 213(3) | An action upon a sealed instrument | Six years – the same list as an ordinary contract |
| CPLR 214-i | Consumer credit transaction, borrower as defendant Since Apr 7, 2022 | Three years; after expiry, payment, affirmation and other activity do not revive or extend it |
| CPLR 202 | A cause of action accruing outside New York | Cannot be commenced after the time limited by the laws of either New York or the place of accrual, so it must be timely under both; exception where it accrued in favor of a New York resident |
| CPLR 306-d | Clerk-mailed notice in a consumer credit action | Twelve-point English and Spanish notice; twenty days; no default judgment based on failure to answer if it returns undeliverable |
| CPLR 3215(g)(3) | Plaintiff-mailed notice against a natural person | Cascades to employment, then last known residence; non-receipt after compliance is no bar |
| CPLR Rule 3016(j) | What a consumer credit complaint pleads | The contract or charge-off statement, plus eight items including each prior owner |
| CPLR 3215(f) | Default proof against an assigned account | Three affidavits, including a chain of title |
| CPLR 3215(j) | Affidavit on a clerk’s default judgment | Reason to believe, after reasonable inquiry, that the period has not expired |
| CPLR 211(b) | A money judgment | Presumed paid after twenty years, except against someone who acknowledges or pays |
| GOL § 17-101 | Acknowledgment or new promise, generally | A signed writing is the only competent evidence, other than in an action for the recovery of real property; payments are outside it |
| GOL § 17-105 | Waivers affecting a mortgage foreclosure clock | Confined to foreclosure; subdivision 4 makes the section exclusive |
Which row governs an account is a legal determination; this table maps the provisions.
What a New York File Looks Like on Our Side
Identity and address, sourced and bounded.
Nothing is searched until the requester states a lawful basis. What a New York file asks for is set by the sections above rather than by us: because CPLR 306-d(b) measures the envelope against “the address at which process was served,” a New York request starts by asking what address was served and when, not by asking for a best guess; and because CPLR Rule 3016(j) makes the complaint name the original creditor and, where the plaintiff is not the original creditor, each previous owner of the account, the person we resolve is the obligor as the instrument and the chain of assignment name them, not whoever a database returns for that name. A file works toward identity – which of several people carrying the same name is that obligor, resolved from records rather than assumed from a match – and a current address from lawful public records, where the records carry it, every finding carried back to the record it came from. Under a three-year clock the calendar is itself a work item, the subject of our note on finding a debtor before the period runs out.
This is a public-records research firm. We do not practice law, so nothing here calculates a period or says whether a limitations defense is available. We are not a collection agency, and we do not contact the person we locate – which matters more than usual under CPLR 214-i, because contact and payment are among the acts that section names. We are not a consumer reporting agency: the work product is not a consumer report and may not be used to decide employment, housing, credit or insurance eligibility. We decline a request outright where the search would put someone at risk – a person who has left a household because of abuse, a person protected by a New York order of protection, a person enrolled in an address confidentiality program. Our wider skip tracing services run on the same discipline, and where a located debtor holds property worth examining, judgment debtor location covers the enforcement side, as support for counsel rather than collection.
How This Page Was Built
Every provision quoted above was read from the published statutory text and cited so it can be checked: CPLR 201, 202, 211(b), 213, 214-i, 306-d, Rule 3016(j) and 3215, and General Obligations Law § 17-101 and § 17-105. Where the material read does not settle a point – what “consumer credit transaction” covers at its margins, when a revolving account accrues – the page says so instead of filling the gap. One calendar effective date is printed, April 7, 2022, because two independent sources give it; the signing date of the act that carried it, November 8, 2021, comes from the same bill record. Records research since 2004.
New York Limitations Questions
What is the statute of limitations on debt in New York?
New York has two periods and one decision point. CPLR 213(2) gives six years for an action upon a contractual obligation, subject to exceptions written into the same sentence – one of which is CPLR 214-i, which gives three years for an action arising out of a consumer credit transaction where a purchaser, borrower or debtor is a defendant. So the question is not how long but which section the action falls under, and that is a legal determination for counsel.
Is credit card debt three years or six years in New York?
The statute answers with a category, not a product list. CPLR 214-i applies to an action arising out of a consumer credit transaction where a purchaser, borrower or debtor is a defendant, and neither of its two sentences defines that phrase. CPLR 213(2) covers a contractual obligation except where 214-i and the other named provisions apply. Whether an account arose out of a consumer credit transaction is a legal determination for counsel.
Does making a payment restart the statute of limitations in New York?
Not after the period has expired, for the actions CPLR 214-i covers. Its second sentence reads: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, when the applicable limitations period expires, any subsequent payment toward, written or oral affirmation of or other activity on the debt does not revive or extend the limitations period. Four acts, and two conditions attached to all of them – the act must be subsequent, and the applicable limitations period must already have expired.
What does CPLR 214-i actually say?
Two sentences. The first: An action arising out of a consumer credit transaction where a purchaser, borrower or debtor is a defendant must be commenced within three years, except as provided in section two hundred thirteen-a of this article or article 2 of the uniform commercial code or article 36-B of the general business law. The second: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, when the applicable limitations period expires, any subsequent payment toward, written or oral affirmation of or other activity on the debt does not revive or extend the limitations period.
When did New York’s three-year rule take effect, and what changed that day?
CPLR 214-i was added by section 4 of the Consumer Credit Fairness Act, chapter 593 of the Laws of 2021, and section 15 of that act set section four to take effect on the one hundred fiftieth day after the act became law. The act was signed on November 8, 2021, which puts the date at April 7, 2022 – the date the New York Department of Financial Services also gave in an industry letter issued that day.
What else did the Consumer Credit Fairness Act change for creditors suing in New York?
Fifteen sections, of which the three-year rule is one. CPLR 306-d makes the plaintiff hand the clerk a stamped, unsealed, addressed envelope carrying a twelve-point notice in English and Spanish, and bars a default judgment based on failure to answer if that notice returns undeliverable. CPLR Rule 3016(j) sets what a consumer credit complaint must attach and plead. CPLR 3215 sets out the default affidavits.
Does New York’s clock apply to a debt that arose in another state?
CPLR 202, the section commonly called New York’s borrowing statute, is where that question starts. It provides that an action based upon a cause of action accruing without the state cannot be commenced after the expiration of the time limited by the laws of either the state or the place without the state where the cause of action accrued, except that where the cause of action accrued in favor of a resident of the state the time limited by the laws of the state shall apply. Because the section says either, the period that expires first is the one that ends the action.
Why are there two sections numbered CPLR 214-i?
Because two different sections were enacted into article 2 of the CPLR under the same number, and the published text says so – the consumer credit section carries an asterisk and a footnote recording that there are two sections numbered 214-i. The other is captioned Action to recover damages for personal injury caused by contact with or exposure to toxic burn pits. Only that caption was read for this page, so nothing here states its period.
After Expiry, No Payment or Affirmation Revives a New York Consumer Clock – So Start With the Right Person
Under CPLR 214-i a month spent on the wrong person with the right name is a month no later payment or affirmation can give back, and CPLR 306-d tests the address at which process was served. Give us the obligor as the instrument names them and the lawful basis for the search, and we will work the public records for which individual that is and where they are now, each finding tied to its source – typically a first read within 24 hours. We do not promise what a search will return, and we do not calculate the period or contact the person. Contact us with the file.
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