In Ohio, the deadline to sue on consumer debt is six years, and the clock starts thirty days after your last charge or last payment, whichever came later. Ohio is unusual in saying so directly: Revised Code § 2305.07(C) names consumer transactions specifically, so the category question that has to be argued from case law in most states is answered in the statute here.
The deadlines, and where each one is written
| What is being collected | Deadline to file suit | Statute |
|---|---|---|
| Consumer transaction for personal, family, or household purposes, including an account stated | 6 years | R.C. § 2305.07(C) |
| Agreement, contract, or promise in writing | 6 years | R.C. § 2305.06 |
| Contract not in writing, express or implied | 4 years | R.C. § 2305.07(A) |
| Note payable at a definite time | 6 years from the due date | R.C. § 1303.16(A) |
| Sale of goods | 4 years | R.C. § 1302.98(A) |
| Any claim not otherwise provided for | 10 years | R.C. § 2305.14 |
Why credit card debt is settled here and contested elsewhere
Section 2305.07(C) covers “an action arising out of a consumer transaction incurred primarily for personal, family, or household purposes, based upon any contract, agreement, obligation, liability, or promise, express or implied, including an account stated, whether or not reduced to writing or signed by the party to be charged.” That language is deliberately broad. Whether the creditor can produce a signed agreement does not change the period, which removes the argument that decides these cases in states whose codes never mention consumer accounts.
The same division supplies an accrual rule with a precision that is rare in this area: “a cause of action accrues thirty calendar days after the date of the last charge or payment by, or on behalf of, the consumer, whichever is later.” Two details matter. The trigger is the later of the last charge or the last payment, and there is a thirty-day pause before the six years begins.
What the deadline does, and what it does not do
A limitations period governs how long someone has to file a lawsuit. Ohio bars the remedy rather than the debt. Section 2305.03(A) provides that “if interposed by proper plea by a party,” the lapse of time “shall be a bar to the action,” which attaches to the action and only when raised. The balance itself continues to exist, and 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 Ohio, and what does not
Here Ohio differs sharply from states like Texas and California, and readers who have seen advice written for those states will be misled. Section 2305.08, unchanged since 1953, provides:
If payment has been made upon any demand founded on a contract, or a written acknowledgment thereof, or a promise to pay it has been made and signed by the party to be charged, an action may be brought thereon within the time limited by sections 2305.06 and 2305.07 of the Revised Code, after such payment, acknowledgment, or promise.
What this means in practice: in Ohio a payment restarts the six years, and the statute attaches no writing or signature requirement to the payment. An acknowledgment must be written, and a promise to pay must be signed, but a bare payment on the account is enough on its own. For consumer debt the effect compounds, because § 2305.07(C) already measures accrual from the last payment. A single small payment on an old Ohio account can reset a six-year clock that was close to running out.
One genuine ambiguity is worth naming rather than smoothing over: whether the phrase “signed by the party to be charged” attaches to the acknowledgment as well as to the promise is not resolved by the text of the statute. Ohio’s code also contains no provision prohibiting the revival of an expired claim and no cap on how many times a period may restart.
The 2021 shortening, and the deadline it creates in June 2027
Ohio shortened these periods recently. Senate Bill 13, effective June 16, 2021, cut the written-contract period from eight years to six and the unwritten-contract period from six years to four, and it created § 2305.07(C) for consumer transactions.
The part that is easy to miss is not in the Revised Code at all. Sections 4 and 5 of the enrolled act are uncodified, so they do not appear alongside the statutes on the state’s code website, and they govern debts that already existed in 2021. They provide that for causes of action accruing before the effective date, the period is six years measured from June 16, 2021, or the expiration of the old period, whichever occurs first.
Applied to today’s calendar: the four-year window for older unwritten contracts closed on June 16, 2025. For written contracts and for consumer transactions, any claim that accrued before June 16, 2021 is time-barred no later than June 16, 2027, whatever the previous eight-year or six-year period would have allowed.
Ohio debt collection statute of limitations: what the code does not do
Ohio has no counterpart to the statutes some states use to restrict collection of old debt. A full-text search of the Revised Code returns no results for the phrase “time-barred,” and Chapter 1345, the Consumer Sales Practices Act, contains no provision prohibiting suit on time-barred debt, prohibiting revival, requiring a disclosure that a debt is too old to sue on, or extinguishing the obligation. Ohio is a state where the limitations defense exists and the consumer has to raise it.
Two related provisions do affect how these cases run. Section 1319.12 requires a collection agency suing on an assigned account to have taken the assignment properly, to file in the county where the debtor lives, and to appear through an attorney admitted in Ohio. And § 2305.19, the savings statute, allows a plaintiff whose case fails “otherwise than upon the merits” to refile within one year, even where the original period has since run.
Section 1345.10(C) is worth knowing if you are the one being sued. It limits Consumer Sales Practices Act claims to two years, but adds that such an action “can be used as a counterclaim whenever a supplier sues a consumer on an obligation arising from the consumer transaction,” without a time limit on its face.
How often Ohio consumers report collection problems
Ohio consumers filed 6,899 debt collection complaints with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the 12 months ending August 26, 2026, which is 2.1% of the 323,584 filed nationwide and ranks 14th among reporting states.
Of those, 1,247, or 18% of the Ohio total, were categorized as a collector taking or threatening to take negative or legal action, the category that covers threats to sue.
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
In Ohio the limitations defense is never self-executing. Section 2305.03(A) applies the bar only when it is “interposed by proper plea,” and Rule 8(C) of the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure lists the statute of limitations among the defenses a party “shall set forth affirmatively” in responding to a pleading. A court does not raise it for you, so someone who is served and does not answer can have a default judgment entered on a debt that was years past the deadline.
Because a payment restarts the clock in Ohio without any writing, the sequence of dates on the account matters more here than in most states. Answer by the deadline on the papers you were served with, raise limitations in that answer, and locate the date of the last charge and the last payment before agreeing to pay anything on an old account. Court deadlines are unforgiving, so this is a point at which speaking with an Ohio attorney or a legal aid organization is worth the call.
How Ohio compares
How Ohio lines up against states with a related rule:
- Arizona: the other code that speaks to consumer credit directly
- Oklahoma: payment restarts the clock outside the writing rule
- Oregon: a payment restarts it with no writing needed
The full comparison table covers every state we have published.
Sources and verification
Statutes quoted from the Ohio Revised Code as published by the Legislative Service Commission, which state law designates the official publisher under R.C. 149.21 and 149.22: § 2305.06, § 2305.07, § 2305.08, §§ 2305.03, 2305.14, 2305.19, 1302.98, 1303.16, 1319.12, 1345.10. The transition provisions are Sections 4 and 5 of enrolled Senate Bill 13, 134th General Assembly, published by the Ohio General Assembly; they are uncodified and do not appear on the code site. Rule 8(C) is from the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure published by the Supreme Court of Ohio. A further amendment to § 2305.06 takes effect September 23, 2026; it adds a cross-reference concerning oil and gas leases and does not change the six-year period. The Legislative Service Commission notes that its publication “does not account for court actions,” so nothing here reflects judicial construction of these sections. Text retrieved August 26, 2026. Complaint data: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, filtered to the Debt collection product and the Ohio 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 Ohio statutes say. It is general information, not legal advice, and it cannot establish when a particular debt accrued or how a court would read a disputed provision.
Frequently asked questions
How long can a debt collector pursue an old debt in Ohio?
A collector may contact you indefinitely, but the deadline to sue on consumer debt is six years under Revised Code § 2305.07(C). That division also sets when the clock starts: a cause of action accrues thirty calendar days after the date of the last charge or payment, whichever is later.
Does making a payment restart the statute of limitations in Ohio?
Yes. Section 2305.08 provides that where payment has been made on a demand founded on a contract, an action may be brought within the limitations period running from that payment, and the statute requires no writing or signature for the payment itself. An acknowledgment must be written and a promise to pay must be signed, but a payment alone is enough to restart the period.
Did Ohio shorten its statute of limitations on debt?
Yes. Senate Bill 13, effective June 16, 2021, reduced the written-contract period from eight years to six and the unwritten-contract period from six years to four, and added the six-year consumer transaction provision. Uncodified sections of that act apply the shorter periods to older claims on an “whichever occurs first” basis measured from June 16, 2021, so a consumer debt claim that accrued before that date is barred no later than June 16, 2027.
Can a time-barred debt still appear on my Ohio credit report?
Yes. Ohio bars the lawsuit but does not extinguish the debt, and its code contains no provision restricting collection of time-barred debt. Credit reporting runs on a separate federal clock, generally seven years for most negative account information.