Michigan gives creditors six years to sue on a debt, and the state does not distinguish between written and oral agreements. The period comes from MCL 600.5807(9), with a six-year residual in MCL 600.5813 covering anything else. That makes Michigan simpler than most states on the deadline itself, and it moves the important questions elsewhere.
The deadlines, and where each one is written
| What is being collected | Deadline to file suit | Statute |
|---|---|---|
| Breach of contract not otherwise specified | 6 years | MCL 600.5807(9) |
| All other personal actions | 6 years | MCL 600.5813 |
| Note payable at a definite time | 6 years | MCL 440.3118(1) |
| Demand note with no demand made and nothing paid | Barred after 10 years | MCL 440.3118(2) |
| Covenant in a deed or mortgage of real estate | 10 years | MCL 600.5807(5) |
A citation warning worth taking seriously: Michigan renumbered this section in 2018, and the six-year contract period moved from subsection (8) to subsection (9). Subsection (8) is now a ten-year provision for public obligations. Any source citing MCL 600.5807(8) for consumer debt was written before May 2018 and now states a materially wrong rule.
Michigan’s code never mentions credit cards, revolving credit, or consumer debt in any limitations provision. Three different sections could plausibly govern a card balance, and all three carry six years, so the number is safe even though the reasoning behind it comes from case law rather than statute.
What the deadline does, and what it does not do
Michigan bars the remedy, not the debt. The statutes are phrased as limits on bringing an action, and MCL 600.5866 expressly contemplates a barred contract being “revived,” which would be incoherent if the obligation had ceased to exist. 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 Michigan
Michigan splits acknowledgments from payments, and treats them very differently.
An acknowledgment or new promise requires a signed writing. MCL 600.5866 provides that a barred contract is revived by an acknowledgment or promise, but that none is effective “unless the acknowledgment is made by or the promise is contained in some writing signed by the party to be charged by the action.” A phone conversation does not qualify.
A payment is not governed by the code at all. The relevant section, MCL 600.5865, bars a creditor from proving part payment through its own endorsement or memorandum written on the note, and then says explicitly that it “is not to be deemed to have any control over the effect of part payment which is proved by other evidence.” The legislature restricted one kind of evidence and deliberately declined to state what a payment does.
So Michigan’s statute assumes that part payment can bar the running of the period, referring to “part payment which would bar the running of the period of limitations,” without ever setting out the rule. That question, the most common way people accidentally revive an old debt, is answered by case law rather than by the code, and we are not going to assert an answer the statute withholds.
What this means in practice: Michigan gives unusually strong protection where more than one person is on the account. Under MCL 600.5825, a co-obligor does not lose the benefit of the limitations period “because of any acknowledgment or promise made or signed by any of the others,” and a separate subsection extends the same protection to “any payment made by any of the others.” Both an acknowledgment and a payment by a co-signer or former spouse are covered, which is broader than the equivalent protection in several other states.
The affidavit rule most Michigan guides leave out
MCL 600.2145 is not a limitations provision, but it can decide a collection case before the deadline is ever argued. In an action to recover on an open account or an account stated, a creditor’s affidavit of the amount due “shall be deemed prima facie evidence of such indebtedness, unless the defendant with his answer, by himself or agent, makes an affidavit and serves a copy thereof on the plaintiff or his attorney, denying the same.”
Read that timing carefully. The counter-affidavit has to accompany the answer. A Michigan defendant who files an answer disputing the debt, but does not file the affidavit alongside it, has left the creditor’s affidavit standing as prima facie proof of the amount owed.
Michigan debt collection statute of limitations: what state law does not add
Michigan has no state-law protection specific to time-barred debt. We read the Regulation of Collection Practices Act and the Occupational Code’s collection provisions in full, and ran full-text searches of the Compiled Laws for “time-barred,” “time barred,” “statute of limitations has expired,” and “out of statute.” All returned nothing.
There is no prohibition on suing after the period runs, no prohibition on revival, and no required notice telling a consumer that a debt is too old to sue on. Michigan’s validation notice statute, MCL 339.918, lists what a collector must send within five days of first contact, and a time-barred disclosure is not among the required contents. Protection on old debt in Michigan comes from federal law.
One provision does help where a debt originated elsewhere. MCL 600.5861 is a borrowing statute: a claim accruing outside Michigan is barred by the shorter of Michigan’s period or the other state’s, unless the claim accrued in favor of a Michigan resident.
How often Michigan consumers report collection problems
Michigan consumers filed 6,471 debt collection complaints with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the 12 months ending August 26, 2026, which is 2.0% of the 323,584 filed nationwide and ranks 16th among reporting states.
Of those, 1,286, or 20% of the Michigan 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
Michigan Court Rule 2.111(F)(3) requires the statute of limitations to be stated in a responsive pleading under a separate and distinct heading, and subrule (F)(2) provides that a defense not asserted in the responsive pleading or by motion “is waived.” Limitations is not among the few exceptions to that waiver rule.
Two Michigan-specific steps therefore matter more here than elsewhere: raise limitations under its own heading in the answer, and if the claim is on an account, file the MCL 600.2145 counter-affidavit together with that answer rather than afterward. Court deadlines are unforgiving, so this is a point at which speaking with a Michigan attorney or a legal aid organization is worth the call.
How Michigan compares
The same question gets a different answer a state line away. These are the closest comparisons to Michigan:
- Indiana: the same creditor-ledger limit
- Colorado: six years, and the code declines to say
- Arizona: six years as well, but there the statute names credit cards
The full comparison table covers every state we have published.
Sources and verification
Statutes quoted from the Michigan Compiled Laws published by the Legislature, whose site states the compilation is “Complete Through PA 91 of 2026”: MCL 600.5807 (as amended by 2018 PA 15), 600.5813, 600.5825, 600.5827, 600.5831, 600.5865, 600.5866, 600.5861, 600.2145, 440.3118, 445.251 through 445.252, and 339.915 through 339.918. Michigan Court Rule 2.111(F) is published by the Michigan Supreme Court, in a chapter its own PDF states was updated May 1, 2026. The Legislature notes that its website “is not intended to replace official versions” of the law. Text retrieved August 26, 2026. Complaint data: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, filtered to the Debt collection product and the Michigan 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 Michigan statutes say. It is general information, not legal advice. Which provision governs a particular credit card balance, and what effect a partial payment has, are questions the code does not answer and this page does not attempt to resolve.
Frequently asked questions
How long can a debt collector pursue an old debt in Michigan?
A collector may contact you indefinitely, but the deadline to sue is six years under MCL 600.5807(9) for breach of contract, with a matching six-year residual period in MCL 600.5813. Michigan does not apply a different period to oral agreements.
Does making a payment restart the statute of limitations in Michigan?
The code does not say. MCL 600.5866 requires an acknowledgment or new promise to be in a writing signed by the person being charged, but the part-payment section, MCL 600.5865, only limits how a creditor may prove a payment and states that it has no control “over the effect of part payment which is proved by other evidence.” The effect of a payment is a matter of case law.
Can a co-signer’s payment restart my Michigan debt?
No. Under MCL 600.5825, a co-obligor does not lose the benefit of the limitations period because of an acknowledgment or promise signed by another, and a separate subsection extends that protection to a payment made by another.
Can a time-barred debt still appear on my Michigan credit report?
Yes. Michigan bars the action rather than extinguishing the debt, and the state has no time-barred debt statute or required disclosure. Credit reporting runs on a separate federal clock, generally seven years for most negative account information.