Unpaid Wage Claim Deadline Checker
Check how long you have to file an unpaid wage claim. Enter the date wages were due and your state for federal and state deadlines and days left.
Unpaid Wage Claim Deadline Checker
Estimates only, and this is not legal advice. This tool applies a general limitations period to a date. It cannot know the facts of your situation, and statutes of limitations are litigated constantly. Nothing here creates an attorney-client relationship.
Date the wages should have been paid
The payday you were shorted, rather than the day you worked or the day you noticed. For a final paycheck, use the date your state required the employer to pay you.
State where you did the work
Where the work was physically performed, which is not always where your employer is headquartered.
What kind of pay is missing
Changes the notes shown with your result, not the deadline itself. See the method note below the results.
Willfulness
Tick this if your employer knew it was underpaying you or ignored complaints. Under federal law that adds a year. A payroll mistake or a genuine misreading of the rules is negligence, not willfulness, under McLaughlin v. Richland Shoe Co. (1988).
Enter the date your wages were due to see your deadline.
Federal and state, side by side
Confirm the federal side with the U.S. DOL Wage and Hour Division or an employment attorney before you rely on it.
Confirm this date with your state labor agency or an employment attorney before you rely on it.
How far back you can still reach
Where to file
The claim usually dies on the records, not the deadline
Employers have to keep accurate time records, and when they do not, a worker's own contemporaneous log carries real weight. The problem is that almost nobody starts logging until after a dispute, by which point the shifts in question are a memory. Download Timeclock44 to log clock-in, clock-out, breaks, and rate for every shift, stored on your device with no account. Export to PDF or CSV, which is what a labor agency or an attorney will ask you for.
Three things that can change the answer
Tolling
The clock can pause. Filing with a state labor commissioner tolls the period in some states, California expressly among them. Fraudulent concealment by the employer, the worker's minority or incapacity, and equitable tolling can all extend the window. None of that is modelled here.
An administrative filing is not a lawsuit
The deadline to file a complaint with a labor agency is frequently shorter than the deadline to file a lawsuit, and in Texas it is jurisdictional. Missing the agency window does not always kill a court claim, and meeting it does not always preserve one.
Contract claims are different
If you had a written employment contract, your state's written-contract limitations period may be far longer than the wage-statute period shown, ten years in Illinois for example. That is a different claim with different remedies.
How this tool simplifies the question
States differ across written-contract claims, statutory wage-payment-act claims, minimum wage and overtime claims, and final-pay claims. A four-column matrix would be false precision, because several states' answers turn on facts this page cannot know, such as whether there was a signed contract or whether you were terminated or quit.
So each jurisdiction maps to exactly one number: the limitations period for a statutory unpaid-wage claim under that state's wage payment or wage-and-hour act. Where no such act exists, the general contract or open-account period is used and flagged in the note. The claim-type selector changes which notes appear, not the arithmetic. The willfulness checkbox moves only the federal leg from two years to three, because state willfulness standards are not uniform and several are actively litigated. Applying them silently would show a longer window than you could safely rely on. Where a state's agency filing window is shorter than its court period, both are shown and the agency window is treated as the more urgent number.
On leap days: 29 February plus three years lands on 28 February in a non-leap year, not 1 March. Clamping backwards is the conservative choice, because it never tells you that you have a day more than you do. All date arithmetic runs on UTC midnight timestamps so that daylight-saving transitions cannot shift a day count.
Where these dates come from
Federal: 29 U.S.C. § 255(a) sets two years, or three for a willful violation. 29 U.S.C. § 218(a) preserves state laws that set higher standards. The later of the two deadlines is the one shown here. The U.S. Department of Labor applies the same period to the recovery window, not just the filing window.
Select a state to see its statute citation and labor agency.
State periods reviewed August 2026. Limitations periods change, and several states have amended theirs in the last five years, including Kentucky in 2024, Tennessee in 2024, Virginia in 2020, New Jersey in 2019, and Delaware.
Estimates and reference data only, not legal advice. Deadlines depend on facts this page cannot see, including tolling, the type of claim, whether a contract existed, and whether you are filing with an agency or in court. Verify every date with your state labor agency or an employment attorney before you act on it.
View all Timeclock44 toolsHow the unpaid wage claim deadline is calculated
An unpaid wage claim usually has two legs, and each has its own clock. The federal leg comes from the Fair Labor Standards Act: 29 U.S.C. § 255(a) gives you two years from the date the cause of action accrued, or three years if the violation was willful. The state leg comes from your own state's wage statute, or from its general contract period where no wage statute sets one.
You get the benefit of whichever window is still open, not the shorter one. The FLSA does not preempt more generous state wage law, and 29 U.S.C. § 218(a) expressly preserves state laws that set higher standards. A worker in New York whose two-year federal window has closed may still have four years left under N.Y. Labor Law § 198(3). That is why the headline figure on this page is the later of the two dates.
The clock starts when each payment became due, which is the payday you were shorted rather than the day you performed the work or the day you noticed the shortfall. Because each paycheck is generally its own violation, an ongoing underpayment produces a rolling series of deadlines rather than one. The look-back figure matters for the same reason: the same period that sets your filing deadline sets how far back you can reach, measured from the day you file, so every month of delay drops another month of wages off the back end.
Two conventions are worth stating. Adding years to 29 February clamps to 28 February in a non-leap target year rather than rolling forward to 1 March, which is the conservative direction because it never overstates your remaining time. And all arithmetic here runs on UTC midnight timestamps, so a daylight-saving transition between today and your deadline cannot shift the day count by one.
Unpaid wage claim deadlines by state
The spread across jurisdictions is much wider than most people expect. Illinois sits at ten years and Wyoming at eight. New York, New Jersey, Hawaii, Maine and Oregon give six, and Alabama shows six as well, though that is its general contract period rather than a wage act. The median is three. Arizona is the floor at one year. And underneath all of them is the Texas Workforce Commission's 180-day administrative window, tied with Montana's 180-day filing rule for the shortest hard deadline in the country. The same violation, on the same day, can be fully live in one state and time-barred in the one across the river.
The long headline numbers are the most dangerous to read alone. Illinois's ten years is a contract rule under 735 ILCS 5/13-206, while an Illinois overtime claim under the Minimum Wage Law is three years and the Illinois Dept. of Labor complaint window is one. Oregon's six years does not cover overtime or premium pay, which run two. Hawaii's court period is six years but the agency will not take a claim more than one year old. Read the Notes column, not just the Years column.
Three rows below are marked unconfirmed: Nebraska, Vermont and Wyoming. In each, no primary state source fixes the period for a wage suit, so the figure shown is inferred or chosen for the safe direction of error. Treat those three as a starting point for a conversation with the state agency rather than as a settled answer.
| Statute | Notes | Where to file | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama (AL) | 6 | Ala. Code § 6-2-34(4),(9) | No state wage or minimum-wage act. The 6 years is the general contract period, and the practical route is an FLSA claim at 2 or 3 years. | Alabama Dept. of Labor (refers wage claims to U.S. DOL WHD) |
| Alaska (AK) | 2 | AS 23.10.130 | Minimum wage and overtime are 2 years; straight-time or contract wages are 3 years. The agency window mirrors the statute. | Alaska Dept. of Labor & Workforce Development, Wage and Hour Administration |
| Arizona (AZ) | 1 | A.R.S. § 23-355 with § 12-541(5); Redhair v. Kinerk, 218 Ariz. 293 (2008) | Shortest state period in the table. Minimum wage and paid sick time claims under § 23-364(H) run 2 years, or 3 if willful. Agency window: Industrial Commission administrative claims: 1 year, capped at $5,000. | Industrial Commission of Arizona, Labor Department |
| Arkansas (AR) | 2 | Ark. Code § 11-4-218(g) | The Arkansas Minimum Wage Act covers minimum wage and overtime only, so contract wage suits differ. Administrative claims are capped at $2,000 and exclude workers earning $50,000 or more. | Arkansas Dept. of Labor and Licensing, Labor Standards Section |
| California (CA) | 3 | Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 338(a) | An oral promise above minimum wage is 2 years, a written contract 4 years, and UCL restitution 4 years. Filing with the Labor Commissioner tolls the clock. | California Labor Commissioner's Office (DLSE) |
| Colorado (CO) | 2 | C.R.S. § 8-4-122 | 3 years if willful, a state willfulness extension this tool does not apply automatically. CDLE investigations are capped at $7,500. | Colorado Dept. of Labor and Employment, Division of Labor Standards and Statistics |
| Connecticut (CT) | 2 | Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-596 (claims under § 31-72) | A flat 2 years with no willful extension. The period is tolled while a complaint is pending with the Labor Commissioner. | Connecticut Dept. of Labor, Wage and Workplace Standards Division |
| Delaware (DE) | 2 | 10 Del. C. § 8111 | Raised from 1 year by amendment, so sources still printing 1 year are stale. Agency window: An administrative claim must reach the Dept. of Labor 90 days before the limitations period expires, and is capped at $25,000. | Delaware Dept. of Labor, Division of Industrial Affairs, Office of Labor Law Enforcement |
| District of Columbia (DC) | 3 | D.C. Code § 32-1308(c)(1) | 3 years for Wage Payment and Collection Act and minimum wage claims. Tolled by an administrative complaint, or by the employer's failure to give required notice. | DC Dept. of Employment Services, Office of Wage-Hour |
| Florida (FL) | 4 | Fla. Stat. § 95.11(3)(p); Fla. Stat. § 448.110; Fla. Const. art. X, § 24 | The 4 years is the state minimum wage claim, 5 years if willful. Other wage suits run 2 years (§ 95.11(5)(d)), and there is no state overtime law, so overtime rides the FLSA. Pre-suit 15-day notice tolls the period. | No state wage-claim agency. The Florida Attorney General enforces § 448.110, so use U.S. DOL WHD |
| Georgia (GA) | 2 | O.C.G.A. § 9-3-22 | The Georgia Dept. of Labor adjudicates no private wage claims, so there is no administrative route and no administrative deadline. | Georgia Dept. of Labor (does not adjudicate wage claims; use U.S. DOL WHD) |
| Hawaii (HI) | 6 | HRS § 657-1 catch-all, applied to HRS ch. 388 | The court period is 6 years, six times longer than the agency window. Agency window: DLIR will not accept a claim more than 1 year after the wages were due (HRS § 388-11). | Hawaii Dept. of Labor & Industrial Relations, Wage Standards Division |
| Idaho (ID) | 2 | Idaho Code § 45-614 | Drops to 12 months if wages for that pay period were already partly paid and the worker claims more. The same 2 years covers an Idaho Dept. of Labor filing and a court suit. | Idaho Dept. of Labor, Wage and Hour Section |
| Illinois (IL) | 10 | 735 ILCS 5/13-206, applied to the IWPCA (820 ILCS 115) | The longest period in the table, and the most misleading if read alone. Illinois Minimum Wage Law claims for minimum wage and overtime run 3 years (820 ILCS 105/12(a)), and an oral contract runs 5 years. Agency window: The Illinois Dept. of Labor complaint window is 1 year. | Illinois Dept. of Labor, Fair Labor Standards Division |
| Indiana (IN) | 2 | Ind. Code § 34-11-2-1 (with §§ 22-2-5, 22-2-9) | Separated employees must route through the Indiana Dept. of Labor first, for claims of $30 to $6,000. Current employees sue directly. | Indiana Dept. of Labor, Wage and Hour Division |
| Iowa (IA) | 2 | Iowa Code § 614.1(8) (Ch. 91A) | The court period is 2 years. The agency route is shorter and capped. Agency window: An administrative claim must be filed within 1 year and is capped at $6,500. | Iowa Division of Labor, Dept. of Inspections, Appeals & Licensing |
| Kansas (KS) | 3 | K.S.A. § 60-512 (KWPA, K.S.A. § 44-313 et seq.) | A written employment contract gets 5 years (K.S.A. 60-511). No separate Kansas Dept. of Labor administrative deadline was located. | Kansas Dept. of Labor, Employment Standards and Wage Claims |
| Kentucky (KY) | 3 | KRS § 337.385(5), as amended by HB 320 (eff. 14 Jul 2024) | Recently shortened from 5 years, and not retroactive: claims that accrued before 14 July 2024 keep the old 5 years. Most 50-state surveys still print 5. | Kentucky Education and Labor Cabinet, Dept. of Workplace Standards |
| Louisiana (LA) | 3 | La. Civ. Code art. 3494 | No administrative route at all. The Louisiana Workforce Commission cannot enforce wage payment law, so a court suit is the only option. | Louisiana Workforce Commission (does not accept private wage claims) |
| Maine (ME) | 6 | 14 M.R.S. § 752 | Title 26 wage laws set no limitations period, so the general 6-year civil rule applies. No shorter administrative deadline is published. | Maine Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Standards, Wage and Hour Division |
| Maryland (MD) | 3 | Md. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-101 (MWPCL / MWHL) | The court limitations period is 3 years for both the Wage Payment and Collection Law and the Wage and Hour Law. Agency window: The Employment Standards Service claim form states a 2-year deadline from the date the wages became due. | Maryland Dept. of Labor, Division of Labor and Industry, Employment Standards Service |
| Massachusetts (MA) | 3 | Mass. G.L. c. 149, § 150 | You must file with the Attorney General's Fair Labor Division first. Suit follows only after 90 days or a private-right-of-action letter. Filing tolls the 3 years, so the effective time can exceed it. | Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General, Fair Labor Division |
| Michigan (MI) | 3 | MCL 408.939 (Improved Workforce Opportunity Wage Act) | Contract wage suits get 6 years (MCL 600.5807). Agency window: The LEO administrative complaint is due within 12 months (MCL 408.481). | Michigan Dept. of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO), Wage and Hour Division |
| Minnesota (MN) | 2 | Minn. Stat. § 541.07(5) | Extends to 3 years where nonpayment is willful, or where the employer fails to produce payroll records on request. That is a state willfulness extension this tool does not apply automatically. | Minnesota Dept. of Labor and Industry, Labor Standards Division |
| Mississippi (MS) | 3 | Miss. Code Ann. § 15-1-49 (general catch-all) | No state wage payment act and no state wage-claim agency. The 3 years is a catch-all period, not a wage statute. | No state wage-claim agency, so use U.S. DOL WHD |
| Missouri (MO) | 3 | RSMo § 290.527 | The current statute text says 3 years, though many law-firm pages still cite an older 2-year period. The Division of Labor Standards takes complaints but cannot sue on a worker's behalf. | Missouri Dept. of Labor and Industrial Relations, Division of Labor Standards |
| Montana (MT) | 2 | Mont. Code Ann. § 39-3-207 | The recovery look-back is 2 years, or 3 years for repeated violations. The 3-year extension is a state willfulness rule this tool does not apply automatically. Agency window: A wage claim must be filed with the Wage and Hour Unit within 180 days of the date of default. | Montana Dept. of Labor & Industry, Employment Relations Division, Wage and Hour Unit |
| Nebraska (NE) | 4 | Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-206, applied to the NWPCA (§§ 48-1228 to 48-1234) | The Nebraska Wage Payment and Collection Act contains no limitations provision at all, so the 4 years follows from the statutory-liability catch-all. A written contract runs 5 years (§ 25-205). Unconfirmed: No official Nebraska source or reported decision expressly applies § 25-206 to Wage Payment and Collection Act claims, and several worker guides quote the FLSA's 2 or 3 years instead. | Nebraska Dept. of Labor, Labor Standards Division |
| Nevada (NV) | 2 | NRS 608.260; Martel v. HG Staffing, LLC (Nev. 2022) | The Labor Commissioner rejects claims over 24 months old. The 2021 amendment to NRS 11.220, a 4-year catch-all, leaves post-2021 accruals genuinely unsettled. | Nevada Office of the Labor Commissioner |
| New Hampshire (NH) | 3 | RSA 275:51, V (36-month wage claim); RSA 508:4 | The NH Dept. of Labor administrative deadline is 36 months, the same as the court period. The rule in RSA 275:41 applies only to RSA 275:37 equal-pay claims. | New Hampshire Dept. of Labor, Wage and Hour Division |
| New Jersey (NJ) | 6 | N.J.S.A. 34:11-56a25.1 (2019 Wage Theft Act) | The 6 years applies only to conduct on or after 6 August 2019 (Maia v. IEW, 2024). Earlier minimum wage and overtime claims run 2 years. NJDOL wage collection is capped at $30,000. | NJ Dept. of Labor & Workforce Development, Division of Wage and Hour Compliance |
| New Mexico (NM) | 3 | NMSA 1978 § 37-1-5; § 50-4-32 | A flat 3 years with no willfulness extension. It runs from when the violation last occurred, and is tolled during a Labor Relations Division investigation. | New Mexico Dept. of Workforce Solutions, Labor Relations Division |
| New York (NY) | 6 | N.Y. Labor Law § 198(3) | The NYSDOL Division of Labor Standards accepts LS-223 claims for the full 6 years, with no shorter administrative deadline. | New York State Dept. of Labor, Division of Labor Standards |
| North Carolina (NC) | 2 | N.C.G.S. § 95-25.22(f) (incorporating G.S. 1-53) | The court limitations period is 2 years. Agency window: NCDOL policy declines complaints for wages due more than 1 year ago, and takes no complaint under $50. That is agency policy rather than statute. | North Carolina Dept. of Labor, Wage and Hour Bureau |
| North Dakota (ND) | 2 | N.D.C.C. § 34-01-13; § 34-14-09 | The administrative claim is also 2 years, limited to amounts between $125 and $15,000. Filing with the commissioner tolls the court period. | North Dakota Dept. of Labor and Human Rights |
| Ohio (OH) | 3 | Ohio Const. art. II, § 34a; R.C. 4111.14(K)(1) | A genuine internal conflict: the state Constitution gives 3 years for minimum wage, while R.C. 2305.11(A) gives 2 years for overtime. A written contract runs 6 years and an oral contract 4 years. | Ohio Dept. of Commerce, Division of Industrial Compliance, Bureau of Wage & Hour Administration |
| Oklahoma (OK) | 3 | 12 O.S. § 95(A)(2); Protection of Labor Act, 40 O.S. § 165.9 | Title 40 sets no period of its own, so the 3 years comes from the statutory-liability catch-all. A written contract runs 5 years and a statutory penalty 1 year. The commonly repeated 2-year figure is FLSA bleed-through. | Oklahoma Dept. of Labor, Wage and Hour Unit |
| Oregon (OR) | 6 | ORS 12.080(1) to (2); claim under ORS 653.055 | Overtime and premium pay run only 2 years (ORS 12.110(3)), a genuine split that matters more than usual for an overtime audience. BOLI applies the same split. | Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI), Wage and Hour Division |
| Pennsylvania (PA) | 3 | 43 P.S. § 260.9a(g) (WPCL) | Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act claims for minimum wage and overtime are also 3 years (43 P.S. § 333.113). The same 3 years binds L&I proceedings and court suits. | Pennsylvania Dept. of Labor & Industry, Bureau of Labor Law Compliance |
| Rhode Island (RI) | 3 | R.I. Gen. Laws § 28-14-19.2 | DLT administrative claims are also 3 years from the date the wages were earned. Sources still citing a 1-year court limit are outdated. | Rhode Island Dept. of Labor and Training, Division of Workforce Regulation & Safety |
| South Carolina (SC) | 3 | S.C. Code Ann. § 41-10-80(C) (SC Payment of Wages Act) | There is no South Carolina minimum wage or overtime law. The Payment of Wages Act covers unpaid wages only, so overtime rides the FLSA. | South Carolina Dept. of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, Office of Wages and Child Labor |
| South Dakota (SD) | 2 | SDCL 15-2-15 | Covers wage claims under state or federal statute and contract-based wage claims alike. No shorter Dept. of Labor and Regulation deadline applies. | South Dakota Dept. of Labor and Regulation, Division of Labor and Management |
| Tennessee (TN) | 3 | T.C.A. § 28-3-105, as amended by 2024 Tenn. Pub. Ch. 747 (eff. 1 Jul 2024) | The 3 years applies to causes accruing on or after 1 July 2024. Earlier claims fall under the older, contested 1-year and 6-year landscape. There is no state overtime law. | Tennessee Dept. of Labor and Workforce Development, Division of Labor Standards |
| Texas (TX) | 4 | Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.004(a)(3); cf. Tex. Lab. Code § 61.051(c) | The Texas Payday Law has no private right of action, so the Texas Workforce Commission is the only route under it. The 4 years shown is a common-law debt suit in court, a different claim entirely. Agency window: A Texas Workforce Commission wage claim must be filed within 180 days of the date the wages were due. That window is jurisdictional, so a late claim is dismissed outright. | Texas Workforce Commission, Labor Law Section |
| Utah (UT) | 3 | Utah Code § 78B-2-305(1); § 34-28-9(1)(e) | The 3 years rests on the statutory-liability catch-all as applied in Scholzen (D. Utah), not on Utah appellate authority. SB 213 (2026) would have codified a period but died, so re-check this one annually. Agency window: A Labor Commission wage claim must be filed within 1 year of the date the wages were earned. | Utah Labor Commission, Antidiscrimination & Labor Division, Wage Claim Unit |
| Vermont (VT) | 2 | 21 V.S.A. § 342a (administrative); cf. 12 V.S.A. § 511 (6-year civil default) | A conservative figure chosen deliberately. Vermont has no wage-specific court limitations period. 12 V.S.A. § 511 would give 6 years, but no Vermont case fixes it and several 50-state surveys say 2. Showing the shorter number cannot cause a worker to wait too long. Agency window: The Vermont Dept. of Labor complaint window is 2 years. Unconfirmed: No Vermont case fixes the court period. The primary source points to 6 years, surveys say 2, and 2 was chosen as the safe direction of error. | Vermont Dept. of Labor, Wage and Hour Program |
| Virginia (VA) | 3 | Va. Code § 40.1-29(M) (renumbered from (K)); § 40.1-29.2 | Added by the 2020 wage-theft law. The DOLI window is also 3 years, or 2 years if the wages were earned before 1 July 2020. The period is tolled during a DOLI investigation. | Virginia Dept. of Labor and Industry (DOLI), Labor & Employment Law Division |
| Washington (WA) | 3 | RCW 49.48.083; RCW 49.52.070; RCW 4.16.080(3) | The same 3 years applies to an L&I complaint and a court suit. The period is tolled during an L&I investigation, and RCW 49.52.070 supplies double damages. | Washington State Dept. of Labor & Industries (L&I) |
| West Virginia (WV) | 5 | W. Va. Code § 55-2-6, applied to the WPCA by Goodwin v. Willard, 406 S.E.2d 752 (W. Va. 1991) | 5 years via the oral-contract period, while a written contract runs 10 years. No shorter Division of Labor deadline was located in the statute or in 42 CSR 5. | West Virginia Division of Labor, Wage and Hour Section |
| Wisconsin (WI) | 2 | Wis. Stat. § 893.44(1) to (2); § 109.09(1) | A DWD claim is also due within 2 years of the wages coming due, but the two periods run from different trigger dates: a suit on a filed DWD claim runs 2 years from the filing. | Wisconsin Dept. of Workforce Development, Equal Rights Division, Labor Standards Bureau |
| Wyoming (WY) | 8 | W.S. § 1-3-105(a)(ii); claim under §§ 27-4-104, 27-4-502 | The longest period outside Illinois, and inferred rather than held. No wage-specific limitations period exists. The 8 years covers statutory liability and oral contract, and a written contract runs 10 years. Agency window: The Dept. of Workforce Services administrative window is 2 years. Unconfirmed: No Wyoming statute or case applies a limitations period to a wage suit. The 8 years is inferred from § 1-3-105(a)(ii), and the 2-year agency window comes from agency guidance rather than statutory text. | Wyoming Dept. of Workforce Services, Labor Standards Division |
What to do when your deadline is close
Start with a written demand to the employer. It is fast, it occasionally resolves the whole thing, and either way it creates a paper trail with a date on it. Keep a copy of what you sent and how you sent it.
Next, the state labor agency. Filing costs nothing and, in several states, tolls the limitations clock while the investigation runs. Check the agency window first, because in about a dozen states it is materially shorter than the court period, and in Texas it is jurisdictional at 180 days, with no private right of action under the Payday Law to fall back on.
The federal route runs in parallel. A complaint to the U.S. DOL Wage and Hour Division is free, nationwide, and needs no attorney (1-866-487-9243). It is the fallback in the five jurisdictions with no state wage-claim agency at all: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.
Then an employment attorney, particularly if the amount is large, several coworkers are affected, or the remaining window is measured in weeks. Cost is a smaller obstacle than people assume. Most wage cases are taken on contingency, and the FLSA shifts attorney fees to a losing employer. Speed matters for more than the filing deadline: filing also freezes the back end of the recovery window, so the oldest pay periods stop falling out of reach while you deliberate.
Once you know your window, the back pay calculator estimates the amount at stake. The final paycheck calculator works backwards to the date a last check was legally due, which is the input this page needs. The overtime calculator covers the most common underlying violation, and the minimum wage by state lookup pairs with a minimum wage shortfall claim.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about unpaid wage claim deadline checker
How long do I have to file a claim for unpaid wages?
Under federal law it is two years from the date the wages were due, or three years if the violation was willful (29 U.S.C. § 255(a)). Your state may give you longer: New York and New Jersey allow six years, Kentucky three since July 2024, California three. You get the benefit of whichever window is still open, because the FLSA does not override more generous state law. A handful of states run much shorter administrative windows, and a Texas Workforce Commission wage claim must be filed within 180 days.
What counts as a willful violation?
The Supreme Court set the standard in McLaughlin v. Richland Shoe Co. (1988): the employer must have known its conduct violated the FLSA, or shown reckless disregard for whether it did. Simple negligence, such as a payroll error or an honest misreading of the rules, is not enough. An employer that ignored written complaints, kept two sets of time records, or was previously investigated for the same practice is a far stronger candidate. Willfulness is decided by a court or a jury, not by ticking a box on a website.
When does the clock actually start?
For most wage claims, on the date each payment became due: the payday you were shorted, not the day you worked and not the day you discovered the problem. That matters because each underpaid paycheck is generally its own violation with its own deadline. Some states measure from the last violation or from separation of employment instead, which is one reason to confirm the date with your state agency. If you are not sure when a final check was legally due, the final paycheck calculator at /tools/final-paycheck-calculator/ works that out.
Can I still recover anything if the deadline passed?
Often yes, for the more recent pay periods. If the underpayment was ongoing, only the paydays that fall outside the limitations window are barred, and everything inside it is still live. Under a two-year federal window you could lose 2019 wages and still pursue 2024 wages from the same employer for the same practice. The continuing-violation analysis is fact-specific, so an expired result on this tool is a reason to call someone rather than a reason to stop.
Is the deadline to file with the labor department the same as the deadline to sue?
No, and assuming so is a common way to lose a claim. Agency filing windows are frequently shorter than court limitations periods, and the two run on different tracks. Texas caps its administrative wage claim at 180 days from the date the wages were due, while a breach-of-contract suit in Texas court runs four years. Filing with an agency also tolls the clock in some states and not in others.
How far back can I recover unpaid wages?
The same period that sets your filing deadline sets your recovery window, measured backwards from the day you file. File a federal claim today on a non-willful violation and you reach back two years, or three if willful. So delay costs money even while you are still inside the deadline: every month you wait, another month of wages drops off the back end. The back pay calculator at /tools/back-pay-calculator/ estimates the amount once you know the window.
Do I need a lawyer to file a wage claim?
No. Filing with the U.S. DOL Wage and Hour Division is free, nationwide, and requires no attorney (1-866-487-9243). Every state labor agency accepts wage claims directly from workers. A lawyer becomes worth it when the amount is large, the employer is contesting, several coworkers are affected, or you are near a deadline and need a lawsuit filed rather than a complaint.
What records do I need to prove an unpaid wage claim?
Employers are legally required to keep accurate time and pay records, and when they have not, courts will accept a worker's own reasonable reconstruction. Pay stubs, bank deposits, schedules, texts about shift changes, and a contemporaneous log of your own hours all help. A shift-by-shift record kept as you work, with start, end, breaks, and rate, is far better evidence than a memory reconstructed years later. Long limitations periods are exactly how you end up relying on the memory.