South Carolina Debt Collection Statute of Limitations
South Carolina’s contract clock has been three years only since 1988, when Act No. 432 cut it from six. S.C. Code 15-3-530(1) supplies that period for “an action upon a contract, obligation, or liability, express or implied”; what sits outside it is decided by the instrument – a goods contract and a negotiable note at six years, a mortgage-secured writing at twenty, a judgment at ten – and a seal on a money note buys nothing, because 15-3-520(b) sends it straight back to three. Each clock below is read in the section’s own words, as general legal information.
Which South Carolina Clock Governs
Work it out from the paper, not the debt type. Is it a sale of goods? Six years. A negotiable note payable at a definite time? Six years. A writing secured by a real-property mortgage? Twenty. A judgment? Ten. Anything else contractual – cards, medical accounts, open accounts, personal loans, and a sealed note for money only – three. Then check whether a signed writing or a part payment has taken the case “out of the operation of this chapter” under 15-3-120 – 15-3-130 keeps the suit on the original cause of action and makes that payment or writing evidence to prevent the bar. General legal information, not legal advice.
Watch: Which Clock, and When It Started
Watch Overview
Cut From Six to Three in 1988: 15-3-530(1), and the Section With the Same Caption
Three years is not the figure South Carolina started with. Beneath S.C. Code 15-3-530 the Code prints an Editor’s Note reading “The limitations period was reduced from 6 to 3 years in 1988.”, with 1988 Act No. 432, Section 1 in the HISTORY line. The section is captioned “Three years”, opens “Within three years:” and continues “(1) an action upon a contract, obligation, or liability, express or implied, excepting those provided for in Section 15-3-520”. Cite it by number, never by caption: Article 5 – “Actions Other Than for Recovery of Real Property” – holds a second section also captioned “Three years”, 15-3-540.
A card balance or a medical account falls under subdivision (1). Subdivision (2) covers “an action upon a liability created by statute other than a penalty or forfeiture”, and (4) reaches goods or chattels taken, detained or injured. Of nine subdivisions only (7) and (9) carry an express discovery clause – and (7) is confined to fraud “in cases which prior to the adoption of the Code of Civil Procedure in 1870 were solely cognizable by the court of chancery”. (1), (2) and (4) carry none, so a discovery rule for ordinary contract debt is not on the face of the statute.
The chapter’s own lead-in frames all of it. 15-3-20(A) provides that “Civil actions may only be commenced within the periods prescribed in this title after the cause of action has accrued, except when, in special cases, a different limitation is prescribed by statute.”
| Statutory Clock | Period | What the Section Says It Covers | Watch For |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15-3-530(1) | 3 years The Default | A contract, obligation, or liability, express or implied | Reduced from six years to three by 1988 Act No. 432; carries no discovery clause of its own. |
| 15-3-530(2) | 3 years | A liability created by statute other than a penalty or forfeiture | A statutory debt claim gets the same three years. |
| 36-2-725(1) | 6 years | Breach of any contract for sale (goods) | Enacted 1966, never amended. |
| 36-3-118(a) | 6 years | A note payable at a definite time | From the stated or accelerated due date, and only if the note is negotiable. |
| 15-3-520(a) | 20 years | A bond or other contract in writing secured by a mortgage of real property | The twenty-year limb that survives intact for a money claim. |
| 15-3-520(b) | 20 years, carved back | A sealed instrument – other than a sealed note or personal bond for money only | A seal on a money note buys nothing: the period stays the one in 15-3-530. |
| 15-39-20 / 15-39-30 | 10 years | Enforcing a judgment; executions from the date of original entry | Chapter 39 confers no power to renew, revive or extend beyond ten years. |
| 15-35-810 | 10 years | The judgment lien on the debtor’s real estate | Begins on indexing in that county; runs from the date of the judgment. |
Filing is not automatically commencing: 15-3-20(B) provides that “A civil action is commenced when the summons and complaint are filed with the clerk of court if actual service is accomplished within one hundred twenty days after filing”. What follows from missing those 120 days is a question for a South Carolina attorney, not something the section states.
Six Years Only by the Instrument: 36-2-725 for Goods, 36-3-118 for a Negotiable Note
A claim for the price of goods leaves Title 15 altogether. S.C. Code 36-2-725(1) requires an action for breach of any contract for sale to be commenced within six years after the cause of action has accrued, and 36-2-102 supplies the scope – “Unless the context otherwise requires, this Chapter applies to transactions in goods”. Six years has been the figure since enactment: the HISTORY runs to 1962 Code 10.2-725 and 1966 (54) 2716, an original enactment never amended.
The accrual rule is subsection (2) in full: “A cause of action accrues for breach of warranty when the breach is or should have been discovered.” That is a discovery rule; 36-2-725 contains no tender-of-delivery rule and no future-performance exception. Note the narrow subject – (2) speaks to breach of warranty and supplies no accrual rule for plain non-payment on a goods invoice. And the section carries no clause letting the parties shorten the period by agreement, and none barring them from lengthening it; four subsections is the whole of it.
The second six-year instrument is the negotiable note. 36-3-118(a) gives six years on a note payable at a definite time, counted from the due date the note states or, where the note is accelerated, from the accelerated due date, except as subsection (e) provides. That turns entirely on negotiability – Chapter 3 “applies to negotiable instruments” (36-3-102(a)), and an ordinary handwritten IOU is not one. For a demand note, 36-3-118(b) – which opens “Except as provided in Subsection (d) or (e)” – allows six years after demand, and where no demand is ever made to the maker it bars the action once neither principal nor interest has been paid for a continuous ten years.
Where a last known address has gone cold, we research public and licensed-database records for a named South Carolina debtor so counsel can act on a current one.
Twenty Years – and the Sealed Note That Is Not: 15-3-520
15-3-520 is captioned “Within twenty years” and reads whole: “Within twenty years: (a) an action upon a bond or other contract in writing secured by a mortgage of real property; (b) an action upon a sealed instrument, other than a sealed note and personal bond for the payment of money only whereon the period of limitation is the same as prescribed in Section 15-3-530, except that a sealed contract for sale or an offer to buy or sell goods whereon the period of limitation is the same as prescribed in Section 36-2-725.” Its HISTORY carries 1988 Act No. 494, Section 8(1).
Limb (a) is clean. Limb (b) is where a creditor can go wrong: it grants twenty years on a sealed instrument, then takes it back for the instrument a debt creditor is most likely to hold – a sealed note and personal bond for the payment of money only, whose period is “the same as prescribed in Section 15-3-530”, three years. Whether a particular instrument falls in limb (a) or (b) is a question for a South Carolina attorney.
Can a South Carolina Judgment Be Renewed? 15-39-20, 15-39-30, and What Chapter 39 Provides
Winning the suit starts a second clock. S.C. Code 15-39-20, captioned “Executions of course within ten years”, provides that “The party in whose favor judgment has been given and, in case of his death, his personal representatives duly appointed may at any time within ten years after the entry of judgment proceed to enforce such judgment as prescribed by this Title.”
15-39-30 describes the execution: “Executions may issue upon final judgments or decrees at any time within ten years from the date of the original entry thereof and shall have active energy during such period, without any renewal or renewals thereof, and this whether any return may or may not have been made during such period on such executions.” The phrase “without any renewal or renewals thereof” attaches to “shall have active energy during such period”: the execution keeps its force for the full ten years without being renewed term by term. That is a creditor convenience on its face, and this page does not read it as a prohibition.
Chapter 39 was read caption by caption for any renewal, revival, extension or lapse provision; every hit was adjudicated in place and none confers such a power – 15-39-30’s own clause, a sheriff’s-return analogy in 15-39-130, and the lien-extinguishing sections 15-39-880 and 15-39-890. Chapter 35 returned none at all. So the verified proposition is narrow: Chapter 39 confers no power to renew, revive or extend a judgment or execution beyond ten years. That is not a claim the Code is silent on execution mechanics – 15-39-90, a venue rule, expressly contemplates “the application for leave to issue execution”.
The lien clock runs alongside, anchored differently. Under 15-35-810 a final judgment is a lien on the debtor’s real estate “situate in any county in this State in which the judgment or transcript thereof is entered upon the book of abstracts of judgments and duly indexed”, the lien beginning on that entry and continuing “for a period of ten years from the date of such final judgment or decree.” Two consequences follow from the words: the lien is county by county, so land in a county where nothing was indexed carries none; and expiry is pegged to the judgment rather than the indexing, so a creditor slow to index does not buy a fresh decade.
Enforcing a South Carolina judgment depends on knowing where the debtor lives, banks, works and holds property while the window is open, which is why the search for the person and for what assets may be reachable belongs in year one.
A Part Payment Is “Equivalent to a Promise in Writing”: 15-3-120, and How 15-3-130 Says You Plead It
15-3-120 is captioned “Effect of new promises in writing or part payments”, and both duties are statutory. Its first sentence makes an acknowledgment or promise sufficient evidence of “a new or continuing contract” able to take a case out of the chapter’s operation only if it is in a writing that the party to be charged has signed. Its second sentence is the one to read twice: “But payment of any part of principal or interest is equivalent to a promise in writing.” The wording repays attention: a part payment “is equivalent to a promise in writing”, the word “new” belonging to the first sentence, and the rule is chapter-scoped – it takes a case “out of the operation of this chapter”, not out of every limitation period in the Code. The HISTORY runs back to 1870 (14) 450, Section 133, with no modern amending act.
15-3-130 answers the follow-up: “All actions upon causes of action which would be barred by the statute of limitations but for part payment or a written acknowledgment shall be brought on the original cause of action and the part payment or written acknowledgment shall be evidence to prevent the bar of the statute of limitations.”
15-3-140 runs the other way, in the creditor’s favour. A contract clause barring suit on a cause of action arising out of that contract within less than the statutory period does not bar it: “the action may be brought notwithstanding such clause, provision or agreement if brought within the time prescribed by the statute of limitations in reference to like causes of action.” Note the scope – causes of action arising out of that contract.
When the Clock Pauses, and When It Only Looks Like It: 15-3-30, 15-3-40, 15-3-610
15-3-30, “Exceptions where defendant is out of State”, has two limbs. If the defendant is out of the State when the cause accrues, the action may be commenced within the ordinary period “after the return of such person into this State”. The second limb excludes from the count the time a defendant, after accrual, spends having departed from and residing out of the State, or continuously absent from it for a year or more. Where the one-year threshold attaches inside the section’s own second sentence is a reading the text leaves open.
Disability tolling is 15-3-40. It reaches “an action mentioned in Article 5 of this chapter or an action under Chapter 78 of this title”, subject to its own express carve-out “except for a penalty or forfeiture or against a sheriff or other officer for an escape”, so it can touch a debt claim under 15-3-530, and the disabilities are listed exhaustively – “(1) within the age of eighteen years; or (2) insane”. Both caps are express: the period cannot be extended “(a) more than five years by any such disability, except infancy; nor (b) in any case longer than one year after the disability ceases.”
Accrual has one statutory anchor here. 15-3-610 provides that in an action to recover a balance due upon a “mutual, open and current account when there have been reciprocal demands between the parties”, “the cause of action shall be deemed to have accrued from the time of the last item proved in the account on either side.” Keep the scope words: this is not a general rule that any last activity restarts a clock.
Once South Carolina’s period has run, what changes is the collector’s exposure under federal law rather than the calendar: Regulation F defines a time-barred debt by reference to the applicable statute of limitations, so on a South Carolina account its bar on suing or threatening suit – which does not reach a proof of claim filed in a bankruptcy proceeding – hangs off 15-3-530’s three years, with the FDCPA’s ban on false, deceptive or misleading representations above it. The federal side is worked through in our guide to old and zombie debt collection; this page stays on the South Carolina sections.
A Judgment From Another State: South Carolina’s UEFJA, 15-35-900 to 15-35-960
South Carolina has enacted the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act as Article 11 of Title 15, Chapter 35. Under 15-35-920(A) an authenticated copy may be filed with the clerk of court of any county where the debtor resides or owns real or personal property, with an affidavit stating that the judgment is final, the amount unpaid, and whether it is further contested. Then the deadlines: a contested judgment may not be indexed until resolved, and “no execution may issue upon the foreign judgment nor may any other proceeding be taken for its enforcement until the expiration of thirty days from the date upon which notice of filing is served in accordance with Section 15-35-930.” The notice must tell the debtor he “has thirty days from the date of receipt of the notice to seek relief” (15-35-930(B)).
15-35-920(C) gives a filed judgment “the same effect” as a judgment of this State – but adds, in the same sentence, that if it is contested or the debtor moves for relief under 15-35-940, “enforcement of the foreign judgment is stayed automatically, without security”. And once the debtor moves for relief or files notice of defences under 15-35-940, subsection (B) puts the weight on the creditor: “The judgment creditor has the burden of proving that the foreign judgment is entitled to full faith and credit.” Two limits. 15-35-950 preserves a creditor’s right to bring a civil action here, but sits inside the foreign-judgments article and speaks only to what that article does not impair. And the article nowhere says whether the ten years runs from the original entry or from the filing here. For a claim that arose elsewhere, our companion guides cover North Carolina and Georgia.
Locating a Debtor Inside a Three-Year Window
Under 15-3-20(B) service within 120 days of filing is part of what makes the action commenced, and a claim cannot be served on a debtor nobody can find. That address is the work we have done for creditors, collection attorneys and judgment holders since 2004: we research a current address and place of work from public records and licensed databases and hand it back documented. Where the file is a judgment rather than a claim, the county matters as much as the street: under 15-35-810 the lien reaches the debtor’s real estate only in a county where the judgment or a transcript of it has been entered on the book of abstracts and duly indexed, so which South Carolina county the debtor lives in, works in and owns land in is what tells counsel where to index. For a legitimate, permissible-purpose matter with a real identifier and a United States subject, a first read typically comes back within 24 hours. That is what our broader skip tracing services are built to do.
The boundaries matter as much as the work. We are not a law firm and we do not give legal advice – nothing here tells you whether a particular account is timely. We are not a collection agency: we do not contact debtors, demand payment or collect anything; we support enforcement by locating people and assets. We are not a consumer reporting agency, and our locate work is not a consumer report, so it is not for credit, employment, insurance or tenant-screening decisions. If a locate would put someone at risk – a person who has left a household because of abuse, or protected by a court order – we decline.
Two neighbouring subjects start from that 15-35-810 county fact: a spouse’s interest in the land, and what the debtor may claim as exempt. Both run on their own statutes rather than on anything quoted above, and our guide to South Carolina marital property laws and our page on South Carolina bankruptcy exemptions cover them. Where the question is simply putting a name to a current address here, see finding someone in South Carolina.
South Carolina Debt Deadline Questions
Can a judgment be renewed in South Carolina?
S.C. Code 15-39-20 lets the creditor, or a deceased creditor’s personal representative, proceed to enforce the judgment at any time within ten years after entry. 15-39-30 gives the execution “active energy” for that period “without any renewal or renewals thereof” – a clause about the execution keeping its force, not a ban. Chapters 39 and 35 were read section by section: neither confers a power to renew, revive or extend a judgment beyond ten years.
What is the statute of limitations on debt in South Carolina?
Three years for most of it: 15-3-530(1) covers an action upon a contract, obligation, or liability, express or implied. Goods get six years under 36-2-725(1), a note payable at a definite time six years under 36-3-118(a), a written contract secured by a mortgage of real property twenty years under 15-3-520(a), and a judgment ten years under 15-39-20.
How long is the statute of limitations on credit card debt in South Carolina?
Three years. A card balance is a contract claim inside 15-3-530(1). Where the account is a mutual, open and current account when there have been reciprocal demands between the parties, 15-3-610 fixes accrual from the time of the last item proved in the account on either side – keep those scope words, because it is not a general rule that any last activity restarts the clock.
What does S.C. Code 15-3-530 actually say?
It is captioned “Three years”, opens “Within three years:” and runs nine subdivisions. Subdivision (1) covers an action upon a contract, obligation, or liability, express or implied, excepting those provided for in Section 15-3-520; (2) covers a liability created by statute other than a penalty or forfeiture. Only (7) and (9) carry an express discovery clause, and Article 5 holds a second section also captioned “Three years”, 15-3-540.
Why does a goods invoice get six years in South Carolina when a personal loan gets three?
Breach of a contract for sale runs on the Commercial Code: 36-2-725(1) requires the action to be commenced within six years after the cause of action has accrued, and 36-2-102 applies that chapter to transactions in goods. An ordinary loan is an action upon a contract under 15-3-530(1), which allows three years.
Is a part payment “equivalent to a promise in writing” in South Carolina?
By statute, yes. 15-3-120 requires an acknowledgment or promise to be in a writing the party to be charged has signed, then adds: “But payment of any part of principal or interest is equivalent to a promise in writing.” 15-3-130 says a claim saved that way is brought on the original cause of action, with the payment or writing as evidence to prevent the bar.
Which South Carolina debts get twenty years under Section 15-3-520?
Limb (a) covers an action upon a bond or other contract in writing secured by a mortgage of real property. Limb (b) covers a sealed instrument but expressly excludes a sealed note and personal bond for the payment of money only, whose period is the same as prescribed in Section 15-3-530 – three years – and routes a sealed goods contract to 36-2-725.
When is a South Carolina debt action “commenced” – at filing or at service?
Both, read together. 15-3-20(B) provides that a civil action is commenced when the summons and complaint are filed with the clerk of court if actual service is accomplished within one hundred twenty days after filing. Filing alone is therefore not the whole act. What follows from missing those 120 days is a question the section does not answer, and one for a South Carolina attorney.
Filed Is Not Served: 120 Days to Find the Debtor
15-3-20(B) ties commencement to service within 120 days of filing. Send us the name and the identifier you already hold – start a request and we will tell you what we can search.
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