Iowa Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury Claims

I practice in both Nebraska and Iowa from an office a few minutes from the Missouri River, and the most expensive mistake I see cross-border clients make is assuming the two states work the same way. They do not. A crash in Council Bluffs, on the Iowa side of I-80 or I-29, in Sioux City or in Des Moines runs on Iowa’s clock. This page sets out each Iowa deadline that affects injured people, quotes the Iowa Code, and links to the Legislature’s own copies. For crashes on the Nebraska side, see the Nebraska statute of limitations guide.

How Long Do You Have to File a Personal Injury Lawsuit in Iowa?

Two years. Iowa Code section 614.1 lists the time limits for civil actions, and subsection 2 covers “those founded on injuries to the person or reputation, including injuries to relative rights, whether based on contract or tort, or for a statute penalty, within two years.” That is the deadline for injuries from car, truck, motorcycle and pedestrian crashes, falls on unsafe property, dog bites and other negligence. The periods run “after their causes accrue, and not afterwards.”

Two years sounds like a long time until you count what has to happen inside it: treatment that may run a year or more, records and bills gathered from every provider, a demand, a negotiation, and — if the insurer will not pay fairly — a lawsuit prepared and filed. In a serious injury case, the calendar is a real constraint from the first month.

Iowa Injury Claim Deadlines at a Glance

Iowa Versus Nebraska: Why the State Line Matters

Nebraska gives four years for most injury claims; Iowa gives two. For anyone living or driving in the Omaha–Council Bluffs area, that difference decides cases. Three practical rules follow.

• If the crash happened in Iowa, plan on two years. It does not matter that you live in Omaha, that your car is registered in Nebraska, or that your insurer is across the river.
• Where a case is filed matters too. Iowa courts treat statutes of limitation “as being procedural rather than substantive,” and in Cameron v. Hardisty the Iowa Supreme Court held that “Iowa’s two-year limitation statute bars plaintiff’s action filed in Iowa four years after an accident occurring in Nebraska.” A claim that would have been timely in a Nebraska court was lost because it was filed in Iowa.
• Do not rely on the longer state. When a defendant, a crash location or an insurance policy has an Iowa connection, the safe assumption is that the shorter deadline applies until a lawyer has confirmed otherwise.

When Does the Two Years Start?

For a crash, on the day of the crash. Iowa does recognize a discovery rule — the Supreme Court has said “an action ‘accrues’ when all of the elements are known, or in the exercise of reasonable care should have been known, to the plaintiff” — but it rarely helps an accident victim, because the injury is known the moment it happens.

LeBeau v. Dimig is the case every Iowa crash victim should know. The plaintiff’s injuries seemed minor after a collision; a seizure disorder was diagnosed later. She argued the clock should run from the later diagnosis. The court disagreed, holding the discovery rule “inapplicable” because she knew of her initial injuries within the two years. A condition that turns out to be worse than first thought does not restart the period.

The rule is also triggered by suspicion, not certainty. The period “begins at the time the person is on inquiry notice,” and “it is not necessary that the person know they are actionable” (Franzen v. Deere & Co.). Once you are aware a problem exists, you have “a duty to investigate ‘even though the person may not have knowledge of the nature of the problem that caused the injury’” (Buechel v. Five Star Quality Care). In 2026 the Legislature added a sentence to section 614.1 stating that nothing in it “shall be construed to alter the law governing when a cause of action accrues, including the discovery rule and related doctrines.”

One Crash, Two Deadlines: Injuries and Property Damage

Iowa splits a crash claim in two. The injury claim is governed by the two-year rule. The claim for your vehicle is one “brought for injuries to property,” which section 614.1(4) allows “within five years.” People sometimes hear the five-year figure — from an adjuster, a body shop or the internet — and assume it covers the whole claim. It covers the car. The injury claim is long gone by year three.

Wrongful Death in Iowa

A fatal injury claim is also subject to the two-year period, and Iowa is strict about who may file it. Under the survival statutes, “all causes of action shall survive and may be brought notwithstanding the death of the person entitled,” and the action may be brought “by or against the legal representatives or successors in interest of the deceased.” The Iowa Supreme Court has “consistently held that the right to recover wrongful death damages vests exclusively in the estate representative.” In Estate of Dyer v. Krug a daughter’s lawsuit was dismissed because she “was not the legal representative of the estate at the time suit was filed, nor did she become the legal representative before the expiration of the limitations period.”

The lesson is to open the estate early. A family that waits until month twenty-three to see a lawyer may find there is not enough time to have a representative appointed and a petition filed. Parents also have their own statutory claim for “the expense and actual loss of services, companionship, and society resulting from injury to or death of a minor child,” and from the death of an adult child. See my wrongful death page for how these claims are built.

Children and People With Mental Illness

Iowa extends the deadline for minors, and the extension changed in 2026. As amended by 2026 Iowa Acts chapter 1104, effective July 1, 2026, section 614.8 provides that the time limits “are extended in favor of minors, so that they shall have five years from and after attainment of majority” to commence an action. The period of minority “extends to the age of eighteen years.” Before the amendment the extension was one year, and the Code copy posted online may still show the older wording until the next edition is published.

Three cautions about relying on that extension:

• It does not apply to medical malpractice. The statute carves out section 614.1(9), which has its own rule: a claim for a child who was under eight when the malpractice occurred must be commenced “no later than the minor’s tenth birthday” or within the ordinary malpractice period, whichever is later.
• The amendment does not say how it treats people who turned eighteen before July 1, 2026. Anyone in that position should assume the older, shorter rule may apply and get advice immediately.
• The parents’ own claims are not the child’s. Medical bills a parent paid and the parents’ statutory claim belong to the parents, and the safe course is to treat them as subject to the ordinary two years.

For a person with mental illness, the time limits are extended “so that they shall have one year from and after the termination of the disability.” As in any state, extra time on paper is not a reason to wait: witnesses move, video is erased and records are purged long before a child reaches adulthood.

Claims Against Government in Iowa

Cities, counties and school districts

A person claiming damages from a municipality or its employee “shall commence an action therefor within two years after the alleged wrongful death, loss, or injury” (§ 670.5). Iowa once required a formal notice of claim within a short window; the Supreme Court has explained that the Legislature “simplified the statute by removing the notice requirement.” Note the wording: this period is counted from the injury itself. This is a place where Iowa is more forgiving than Nebraska, which demands a written claim within one year.

The State of Iowa

State claims do have an administrative step. A claim “shall be forever barred, unless within two years after the claim accrued, the claim is made in writing and filed with the director of the department of management” (§ 669.13). A lawsuit is not permitted “unless the attorney general has made final disposition of the claim,” although if six months pass without a decision the claimant “may, by notice in writing, withdraw the claim from consideration and begin suit.”

The federal government

An injury caused by a federal employee — a postal vehicle, a federal facility — is governed by the Federal Tort Claims Act: the claim is “forever barred unless it is presented in writing to the appropriate Federal agency within two years after such claim accrues,” with six months to sue after a written denial.

Drunk Driving Crashes: The Six-Month Dramshop Notice

When a drunk driver hurts someone in Iowa, there may be a second claim against the bar or restaurant that “sold and served any alcoholic beverage directly to the intoxicated person,” provided the person “was visibly intoxicated at the time of the sale or service.” That claim carries the shortest deadline on this page. Section 123.93 requires that “within six months of the occurrence of an injury, the injured person shall give written notice to the licensee or permittee or such licensee’s or permittee’s insurance carrier of the person’s intention to bring an action,” stating “the time, place and circumstances causing the injury.”

The six months can be extended only if the injured person is incapacitated or cannot, with reasonable diligence, identify the establishment. The Supreme Court enforces the requirement as written: where a statute makes notice a condition of suit, “any claims under that statute are barred when notice has not been timely given” (Grovijohn v. Virjon, Inc.). Finding out where a drunk driver had been drinking takes investigation, which is one more reason these cases cannot wait.

Medical Malpractice

Malpractice claims against physicians, nurses, hospitals and the other providers listed in the statute must be brought “within two years after the date on which the claimant knew, or through the use of reasonable diligence should have known, or received notice in writing of the existence of, the injury or death,” whichever comes first. There is an outer limit: “in no event shall any action be brought more than six years after” the act or omission, “unless a foreign object unintentionally left in the body caused the injury or death.”

Work Injuries in Iowa

Iowa workers’ compensation has a notice deadline and a filing deadline. The employer must have notice or actual knowledge of the injury “within ninety days from the date of the occurrence of the injury,” or “no compensation shall be allowed.” A contested case must be commenced “within two years from the date of the occurrence of the injury” or, if weekly benefits were paid, “within three years from the date of the last payment of weekly compensation benefits.” For both, the date of the injury “means the date that the employee knew or should have known that the injury was work-related” — which matters for injuries that develop over time.

Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Claims

A claim against your own insurer is a contract claim, and Iowa’s statute for written contracts is ten years. Do not rely on that. Auto policies commonly contain their own deadline, and in Robinson v. Allied Property & Casualty Insurance Co. the Iowa Supreme Court held a policy’s two-year deadline for underinsured motorist claims “enforceable as a matter of law because it matches the two-year statute of limitations” for injury actions, adding that “the injured party must file suit within two years even if the full extent of the injury is not reasonably discovered until later.” Two years later, in Osmic v. Nationwide Agribusiness Insurance Co., the court applied a policy deadline to a passenger who had never seen the policy, noting there is “no general duty to affirmatively disclose the limitations deadline.”

The practical rule: read the policy, and treat two years from the crash as the deadline for a claim against your own insurer as well as the other driver.

Defective Products and Latent Disease

A product claim must be filed within the two-year injury period and also within a repose period: it “shall not be commenced more than fifteen years after the product was first purchased, leased, bailed, or installed for use or consumption,” unless the maker expressly warranted it for longer. The fifteen-year limit does not apply where the seller “intentionally misrepresents facts about the product or fraudulently conceals information,” and it does not cut off claims for “a disease that is latent and caused by exposure to a harmful material,” a category that includes asbestos. In those cases the claim is deemed to accrue “when the disease and such disease’s cause have been made known to the person or at the point the person should have been aware” of them.

Why Waiting Is a Risk Even Inside the Two Years

• The six-month and ninety-day notices come first. A dramshop claim or a work injury can be lost long before the two years are up.
• Insurers do not have to remind you. Nothing in the statute pauses the two years while a claim is being negotiated, and the Iowa Supreme Court has said there is “no general duty to affirmatively disclose the limitations deadline.”
• Evidence in Iowa crashes is short-lived. Iowa State Patrol crash reports are posted free online for only a short time, and business video is overwritten quickly. Where to obtain reports is covered in where to report a car accident in Iowa.
• An estate takes time to open, and only its representative can file a wrongful death case.
• A lawsuit filed in the last week is a lawsuit prepared in a hurry. The cases that settle well are the ones the other side can see are ready for trial.

What to Do Now

• Write down the date and the exact location of the injury. Which side of the river decides which clock you are on.
• If alcohol was involved, find out where the driver was drinking and have written notice sent within six months.
• If it happened at work, tell your employer in writing well inside ninety days.
• If a government vehicle or property was involved, identify whether it was city, county, state or federal; the procedure differs for each.
• Talk to a lawyer licensed in Iowa early. I represent injured people in Council Bluffs, Sioux City, Des Moines and across western Iowa, and sorting out which deadlines apply is the first thing I do.

Iowa Code 2026 and the 2026 Iowa Acts read at legis.iowa.gov on October 1, 2026. Deadlines can be changed by the Legislature and can turn on facts specific to your case; this page is general information, not advice about your claim.

Your Attorney

Frank Younes

Every page on this site is written by Frank Younes, a Nebraska trial attorney with a published record of verdicts and settlements, selection to the National Trial Lawyers Top 100, and a practice that covers every county in Nebraska and Iowa. No case is handed to an associate — the lawyer you read here is the lawyer who works your case.

More about Frank → · Free consultation: (402) 378-9208

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the statute of limitations for a car accident in Iowa?

Two years for the injury claim under Iowa Code 614.1(2). The claim for damage to the vehicle has five years under section 614.1(4).

How is Iowa different from Nebraska?

Iowa allows two years for most injury claims; Nebraska allows four. Iowa courts apply Iowa’s two-year period to cases filed in Iowa even when the crash happened in Nebraska.

How long do you have to file a wrongful death claim in Iowa?

Two years, and the case must be brought by the legal representative of the estate. A suit filed by a family member who has not been appointed can be dismissed.

Does the clock start over if my injury turns out to be worse?

No. In LeBeau v. Dimig the Iowa Supreme Court held that when some injury is known at the time of the crash, a later and more serious diagnosis does not restart the two years.

How long does a child have to file in Iowa?

As amended effective July 1, 2026, section 614.8 extends the time limits for minors to five years after reaching majority, which is age eighteen. Medical malpractice claims are excluded and follow their own rule.

What is the deadline to sue a bar that served a drunk driver in Iowa?

Written notice of the intent to bring a dramshop action must be given to the bar or its insurer within six months of the injury under Iowa Code 123.93.

How long do I have to sue a city or the State of Iowa?

Two years after the injury for a city, county or school district. For the State, a written claim must be filed with the director of the department of management within two years.