Georgia gives creditors six years to sue on a written contract and four years on an open account. The line between them is drawn by signature: § 9-3-25 applies the four-year period to a contract “not under the hand of the party sought to be charged.” Georgia also has something most states lack, a statute that says exactly what a payment does, and it is narrower than the usual warning suggests.
The deadlines, and where each one is written
| What is being collected | Deadline to file suit | Statute |
|---|---|---|
| Simple contract in writing | 6 years after it becomes due and payable | O.C.G.A. § 9-3-24 |
| Open account | 4 years after the right of action accrues | O.C.G.A. § 9-3-25 |
| Contract not under the hand of the party sought to be charged | 4 years | O.C.G.A. § 9-3-25 |
| Implied promise or undertaking | 4 years | O.C.G.A. § 9-3-25 |
Section 9-3-24 carries its own accrual language, running the six years from when the contract becomes “due and payable” rather than from some later event. It also carves out two categories by name: it does not apply to contracts for the sale of goods under Article 2 of Title 11, or to negotiable instruments under Article 3 of Title 11. A promissory note in Georgia is therefore governed by the commercial code rather than by § 9-3-24.
Six years or four? The signature test
Georgia does not name credit cards, revolving credit, or consumer debt anywhere in these provisions, so the category question is decided by the courts. But the code gives a clearer test than most states do. Section 9-3-25 reaches an action “upon open account, or for the breach of any contract not under the hand of the party sought to be charged, or upon any implied promise or undertaking.”
What this means in practice: the phrase “under the hand of” is the pivot, and it means signed by the person being sued. Where a creditor can produce a cardholder agreement bearing the debtor’s signature, it is arguing for the six-year written-contract period. Where it cannot, the account looks like an open account and the four-year period applies. That is a two-year difference resting on whether decades-old paperwork still exists, which is worth knowing before assuming either number.
What the deadline does, and what it does not do
Georgia bars the lawsuit rather than the balance. Section 9-3-113 makes this explicit from the opposite direction: a new promise “shall revive or extend the original liability; it shall not create a new one.” A liability that could be revived was never extinguished. Credit reporting runs on a separate federal clock, generally seven years for most negative account information under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
What restarts the clock in Georgia
Georgia is one of the few states whose code answers this directly, and the answer has a condition most summaries drop. Start with § 9-3-110:
A new promise, in order to renew a right of action already barred or to constitute a point from which the limitation shall commence running on a right of action not yet barred, shall be in writing, either in the party’s own handwriting or subscribed by him or someone authorized by him.
Note that this covers both situations: reviving a debt that is already dead, and resetting the starting point on one that is still alive. Either way a writing is required, in the debtor’s handwriting or signed by them.
Then § 9-3-112 addresses payments:
A payment entered upon a written evidence of debt by the debtor or upon any other written acknowledgment of the existing liability shall be equivalent to a new promise to pay.
Read that carefully, because the common advice flattens it. The statute does not say that any payment restarts the clock. It says a payment entered upon a written evidence of debt by the debtor, or made upon a written acknowledgment of the liability, is equivalent to a new promise. The written element carries through from § 9-3-110. Georgia sits between states like Ohio, where a bare payment restarts the period with no writing at all, and states like New York, where nothing revives an expired consumer debt.
Two further provisions are worth knowing. Section 9-3-114 provides that on joint or joint and several contracts, “a new promise by one of the contractors shall operate only against the promisor,” so a co-signer’s written promise does not bind you. And § 9-3-111 requires that any promise to pay a debt discharged in bankruptcy be “made in writing and signed by the party making the same.”
Georgia debt collection statute of limitations: what we checked
We searched the Official Code of Georgia Annotated for “time-barred.” The search returns a large number of documents, but the statutory provisions among them concern childhood sexual abuse claims, usury, malpractice, judgment filing, and zoning rather than consumer debt collection. We did not find a Georgia statute prohibiting suit on time-barred consumer debt, prohibiting revival, or requiring a collector to disclose that a debt is too old to sue on, and Georgia plainly does permit revival, since §§ 9-3-110 and 9-3-112 set out how it works.
We are stating that as what our search found rather than as a certainty about the whole code. Where a state does have such a statute, as Texas, California, New York, and North Carolina do, it is prominent and easy to cite. Georgia’s protections against collection of old debt appear to come from federal law instead.
How often Georgia consumers report collection problems
Georgia consumers filed 26,429 debt collection complaints with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the 12 months ending August 26, 2026, which is 8.2% of the 323,584 filed nationwide and ranks 4th among reporting states, a notably high placement for its population.
Of those, 5,913, or 22% of the Georgia total, were categorized as a collector taking or threatening to take negative or legal action, against 25% nationally.
These are raw complaint counts, not rates. They are not adjusted for population, and a complaint is an allegation the CFPB has published, not a finding that a company broke the law. The figures refresh weekly from the CFPB’s public database.
If you are sued on a debt you believe is too old
As in every state we have examined, the limitations defense is not self-executing. Under Georgia’s Civil Practice Act the statute of limitations is an affirmative defense, raised by the person being sued in their answer. A court will not apply the deadline on its own, so someone who is served and does not respond can have a default judgment entered on a debt that was years past the deadline.
Because the six-year and four-year periods turn on whether a signed writing exists, it is worth asking a Georgia plaintiff to produce the agreement it is relying on. And before making any payment on an old Georgia account, understand § 9-3-112: a payment recorded on a written evidence of the debt can function as a new promise and restart the period. Court deadlines are unforgiving, so this is a point at which speaking with a Georgia attorney or a legal aid organization is worth the call.
How Georgia compares
The same question gets a different answer a state line away. These are the closest comparisons to Georgia:
- Alabama: the same open-account carve-out at a shorter period
- Virginia: the signed-versus-unsigned split again
- Florida: five years written, four otherwise
The full comparison table covers every state we have published.
Sources and verification
Statutes quoted from the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, published for the Georgia Code Revision Commission on behalf of the Georgia General Assembly, which states the text is “Current through the 2026 Special Session of the General Assembly”: § 9-3-24 (Actions on simple written contracts; exceptions), § 9-3-25 (Open accounts; breach of certain contracts; implied promise; exception), § 9-3-110 (New promise to be in writing), § 9-3-111 (Written promise following discharge in bankruptcy), § 9-3-112 (Payment or written acknowledgment equivalent to new promise), § 9-3-113 (Effect of new promise), and § 9-3-114 (Whom new promise by joint contractor binds). Text retrieved August 26, 2026 from the Commission’s public access portal at advance.lexis.com, which requires interactive access rather than direct linking. Two items on this page are deliberately unquoted because we did not read them in the code: the limitations period for negotiable instruments under Article 3 of Title 11, which § 9-3-24 excludes by name, and the subsection of Georgia’s Civil Practice Act listing affirmative defenses. Complaint data: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, filtered to the Debt collection product and the Georgia state field over a rolling 12-month window, re-queried weekly by this site. Our data sources and update policy lists every figure on this site that refreshes automatically and how often.
This page explains what the Georgia statutes say. It is general information, not legal advice, and it does not resolve whether a particular credit card balance is a written contract or an open account.
Frequently asked questions
How long can a debt collector pursue an old debt in Georgia?
A collector may contact you indefinitely, but the deadline to sue is six years on a simple contract in writing under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-24, running from when the contract became due and payable, and four years on an open account under § 9-3-25.
Is Georgia credit card debt four years or six years?
The code does not name credit cards, so the category is decided by the courts. The test in § 9-3-25 is whether the contract is “under the hand of the party sought to be charged,” meaning signed by the person being sued. A signed cardholder agreement points to the six-year written-contract period; an account without one looks like a four-year open account.
Does making a payment restart the statute of limitations in Georgia?
Only in the form the statute describes. Section 9-3-112 provides that a payment “entered upon a written evidence of debt by the debtor or upon any other written acknowledgment of the existing liability” is equivalent to a new promise to pay, and § 9-3-110 requires a new promise to be in writing, in the debtor’s own handwriting or subscribed by them. The written element is part of the rule, so a bare payment is not automatically the same thing.
Can a co-signer’s promise restart my Georgia debt?
No. Section 9-3-114 provides that on joint or joint and several contracts, a new promise by one of the contractors “shall operate only against the promisor.”