Utah gives creditors six years to sue on a written instrument and four on everything else, and unlike most states it writes the start date into the limitations statute itself. Utah also bars anyone who bought a claim from filing it in small claims court at all, which on the face of the statute shuts purchased debt out of that venue entirely.
The deadlines, and where each one is written
| What is being collected | Deadline to file suit | Statute |
|---|---|---|
| Contract, obligation, or liability founded on an instrument in writing | 6 years | Utah Code § 78B-2-309(1)(b) |
| Contract not founded on an instrument in writing | 4 years | Utah Code § 78B-2-307(1)(a) |
| Open store account for goods, wares, or merchandise | 4 years | Utah Code § 78B-2-307(1)(b) |
| Relief not otherwise provided for by law | 4 years | Utah Code § 78B-2-307(4) |
| Note payable at a definite time | 6 years | Utah Code § 70A-3-118(1) |
| Judgment, renewable | 8 years | Utah Code § 78B-2-311 |
Section 78B-2-307 does something most state limitations statutes leave to the courts. Its four-year clock runs “after the last charge is made or the last payment is received,” which puts the accrual rule inside the period rather than in a separate accrual section or in case law.
The credit agreement clock, and who can restart it
Section 78B-2-309(2) sets a separate rule for credit agreements. The six years begins on the later of the day the debt arose, the day the debtor makes a written acknowledgment or a promise to pay, or the day “the debtor or a third party makes a payment on the debt.”
Read the third clause twice. For a credit agreement, a payment made by someone who is not you can move the start date. Utah’s general debt provision at § 78B-2-113(1)(c) names only “a payment… by the debtor,” so the two provisions genuinely differ on this point, and the difference is in the statutory text rather than in anyone’s interpretation of it.
The catch is which debts are credit agreements. Section 78B-2-309(2) borrows the definition at § 25-5-4, which covers agreements by a “financial institution” to lend or otherwise extend credit, with financial institution defined as a chartered bank, savings and loan, savings bank, industrial bank, or credit union, or an institution under the jurisdiction of the commissioner of Financial Institutions. Credit extended by anything outside that list is not a credit agreement by the statute’s own terms.
The words “credit card” and “consumer debt” appear nowhere in Utah’s limitations chapter. “Consumer debt” as a phrase does not appear anywhere in the Utah Code at all. So whether a particular card account is a six-year written instrument, a four-year unwritten obligation, or a four-year open account is not something the code resolves. We mark it unverified rather than pick the convenient number.
What restarts the clock, and what the statute does not say
Section 78B-2-113 is short enough to quote whole:
(1) An action for recovery of a debt may be brought within the applicable statute of limitations from the date: (a) the debt arose; (b) a written acknowledgment of the debt or a promise to pay is made by the debtor; or (c) a payment is made on the debt by the debtor.
(2) If a right of action is barred by the provisions of any statute, it shall be unavailable either as a cause of action or ground for defense.
Payment is a separate lettered trigger, not a species of acknowledgment, and it carries no writing requirement and no signature requirement. Neither § 78B-2-113 nor § 78B-2-309(2) mentions signing at all.
But notice how subsection (1) is phrased. It is a start-date rule, saying an action “may be brought within the applicable statute of limitations from the date” of one of three events. Nothing in the text addresses whether a payment made after the period has already run restarts an expired claim, and subsection (2) points the other way by declaring a barred right of action unavailable. Utah’s answer on post-expiration revival is not resolvable from the statute, so we mark it unverified. Sources that flatly state a payment revives time-barred debt in Utah are not getting that from § 78B-2-113.
Section 78B-2-312 adds a mutual account rule: where there have been reciprocal demands, the cause of action accrues “from the time of the last item proved in the account on either side.”
Utah debt collection statute of limitations: what the code does not contain
We searched the Utah Code for restrictions on collecting expired debt and found none. There is no prohibition on suing or threatening to sue on a time-barred debt, no bar on reviving one, and no requirement to disclose a debt’s age. The phrase “time-barred” does appear in Utah law, but only in the child sexual abuse, asbestos, and insurance provisions, never in a debt collection context.
The Utah Consumer Sales Practices Act reaches collectors, since § 13-11-3 defines a supplier to include a person who “enforces consumer transactions, whether or not the person deals directly with the consumer.” But we read the enumerated deceptive practices at § 13-11-4 in full and none concerns a debt’s age.
One correction worth making, because it appears in a lot of published material. Utah’s collection agency chapter has been gutted. Title 12 chapter 1 now contains a single section, § 12-1-11, which caps add-on collection fees at the lesser of the actual amount the creditor must pay the collector or 40 percent of the principal owed. Section 12-1-1 has been repealed. Any guide citing Utah collection agency registration and bonding requirements at §§ 12-1-1 and following is citing law that is no longer there, and Utah collector conduct is governed in practice by the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which § 12-1-11 itself borrows definitions from.
A second correction. Section 70C-7-205 is titled “Statute of limitations” and sets one year, which is why it gets quoted as Utah’s consumer credit deadline. It is the opposite: it limits how long a consumer has to bring an action against a creditor under the Utah Consumer Credit Code, and it expressly preserves the consumer’s ability to raise the violation defensively by recoupment or setoff in a later collection suit.
Assignees cannot use small claims court
Utah Code § 78A-8-103 provides: “A claim may not be filed or prosecuted in small claims court by any assignee of a claim.” On its face that keeps purchased debt out of Utah small claims entirely, which matters because the small claims ceiling is $20,000 through the end of 2029 and rises to $25,000 in 2030 under § 78A-8-102.
Small claims also runs on its own rules. Rule 81(c) of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure states that those rules “do not apply to small claims proceedings except as expressly incorporated in the Small Claims Rules,” and Rule 5 of the Rules of Small Claims Procedure provides that no answer is required and “all allegations are deemed denied.” So the affirmative-defense pleading requirement discussed below does not reach small claims, and a limitations defense is raised at the hearing instead.
Where Utah’s real risk sits: after the judgment
Section 78B-2-311 gives eight years to bring an action on a judgment, running from entry or from renewal. Section 78B-5-202(1)(b)(iii) then provides that entry of an order renewing a judgment “begins anew the time limitation for an action upon the judgment,” while maintaining the original judgment date and its collection priority. Section 78B-6-1802 sets out the renewal procedure, requiring the motion to be filed before the limitation on the judgment or any renewal expires, with an affidavit accounting for all postjudgment payments and credits.
Read together, a Utah judgment can be renewed in eight-year increments without a stated ceiling. Most writing about state limitations focuses on the window before a lawsuit is filed. In Utah the more durable exposure is on the other side of it.
What the deadline does, and what it does not do
Utah bars the remedy rather than extinguishing the debt, and no provision in the code declares the underlying obligation gone. But § 78B-2-113(2) bars a barred right of action “either as a cause of action or ground for defense,” which is broader than the usual formulation. A claim that has run out in Utah cannot be used offensively or defensively.
How often Utah consumers report collection problems
Utah consumers filed 949 debt collection complaints with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the 12 months ending August 26, 2026, which is 0.3% of the 323,584 filed nationwide and ranks 34th among reporting states.
Of those, 172, or 18% of the Utah 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
In district court, Rule 8(c) of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure requires a party to set forth affirmatively in a responsive pleading a list of defenses that names the statute of limitations expressly. The court will not raise it for you.
In small claims it works differently, and in your favor procedurally: no answer is filed, all allegations are deemed denied, and you raise the limitations defense at the hearing. Rule 7(d) of the small claims rules notes that the rules of evidence “shall not be applied strictly.” If the plaintiff bought your account rather than originating it, § 78A-8-103’s assignee bar is worth reading closely. Court deadlines are unforgiving, so this is a point at which speaking with a Utah attorney or a legal aid organization is worth the call.
How Utah compares
How Utah lines up against states with a related rule:
- Arkansas: a payment restarts the clock with no writing required
- Oklahoma: payment sits outside the writing rule there as well
- Nevada: six years written, four otherwise
The full comparison table covers every state we have published.
Sources and verification
Statutes quoted from the Utah Code, which the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel publishes and describes as “the current and official electronic record of the Utah Code.” Provisions cited: § 78B-2-307 (effective May 3, 2023), § 78B-2-309 (effective May 14, 2019), §§ 78B-2-102, 78B-2-103, 78B-2-104, 78B-2-111, 78B-2-113, 78B-2-311 (effective May 7, 2025), and 78B-2-312; § 78B-5-202 (effective March 13, 2026) and §§ 78B-6-1802 and 78B-6-1804; §§ 78A-8-102 and 78A-8-103; §§ 70A-3-118 and 70A-2-725; § 70C-7-205; § 25-5-4; §§ 12-1-1 (repealed) and 12-1-11; and §§ 13-11-3, 13-11-4, and 13-11-5. Court rules from the Utah Judiciary’s rules viewer at utcourts.gov: Rules of Civil Procedure 8(c) (effective May 1, 2021) and 81(c) (effective November 1, 2024), Rules of Small Claims Procedure 5 and 7, and Code of Judicial Administration Rule 4-801. Text retrieved August 26, 2026. Complaint data: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, filtered to the Debt collection product and the Utah 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.
A note on currency and method. The Utah Code site publishes no site-wide “current through” date. Currency is stated per section as an effective date plus a session history line, and we have given those dates above for every provision where the date matters. We confirmed there are no pending amendments to §§ 78B-2-307, 78B-2-309, 78B-2-113, or 78B-2-311. We also validated the code’s search before relying on it, and found that citation strings such as “78B-2-309” return no results even for sections that exist, so we did not treat any citation search as evidence of absence. The negative findings on this page rest on phrase searches of statutory language and on reading the relevant chapters.
This page explains what the Utah statutes say. It is general information, not legal advice, and it does not resolve whether a particular credit card account is a written instrument, an open account, or a credit agreement under § 25-5-4, because the code does not address credit cards in a limitations context.
Frequently asked questions
How long can a debt collector pursue an old debt in Utah?
The deadline to sue is six years on a contract founded on an instrument in writing under Utah Code § 78B-2-309, and four years on a contract not founded on a writing or on an open store account under § 78B-2-307. The four-year clock runs “after the last charge is made or the last payment is received.” A judgment runs eight years under § 78B-2-311 and can be renewed.
Does making a payment restart the statute of limitations in Utah?
A payment is a start-date trigger under Utah Code § 78B-2-113(1)(c), and it requires no writing and no signature. For a credit agreement, § 78B-2-309(2) provides that a payment by the debtor or a third party sets the start date. What the statute does not say is whether a payment made after the period has already expired restarts an expired claim, and § 78B-2-113(2) points the other way by making a barred right of action unavailable.
Can a debt buyer sue me in Utah small claims court?
Utah Code § 78A-8-103 provides that “a claim may not be filed or prosecuted in small claims court by any assignee of a claim.” A purchased account is an assigned claim, so on the face of the statute a debt buyer cannot use small claims court in Utah. The small claims ceiling is $20,000 through 2029 under § 78A-8-102.
Does Utah prohibit suing on a time-barred debt?
No. The Utah Code contains no prohibition on suing or threatening to sue on an expired debt, no bar on reviving one, and no requirement to disclose a debt’s age. Collector conduct in Utah is governed largely by the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, since the state’s collection agency chapter has been reduced to a single fee-cap section at § 12-1-11.