By Priya Raman, Contributing Writer, Policy & RegulationPublished June 27, 2026
Florida runs its own deadlines, separate from the federal defaults this site's main calculator uses, and the state's negligence statute of limitations got a lot shorter in 2023: two years for injuries on or after March 24, 2023, down from four, under Fla. Stat. section 95.11(5)(a) as enacted by HB 837. The calculator above handles nine of the deadlines Florida litigants hit most often, from that shortened injury window through the answer, discovery, appeal, and proposal-for-settlement rules, each with the specific rule or statute cited. This is general reference information, not legal advice for your case.
Why the personal injury deadline changed
Before March 24, 2023, Florida gave most negligence plaintiffs four years to sue under the old Fla. Stat. section 95.11(3)(a). HB 837, signed into law that day as Chapter 2023-15, Laws of Florida, cut general negligence claims to two years and moved them into a new subsection, section 95.11(5)(a). The change is not retroactive. A claim that accrued before March 24, 2023 keeps the four-year period it always had; a claim accruing on or after that date gets two years, full stop. The dividing line is the date of the injury, not the date you happen to file, which is exactly the kind of detail that trips people up when they eyeball an old article instead of checking the accrual date against the statute.
Answering a complaint: 20 days, with a state carve-out
Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.140(a)(1) gives a defendant 20 calendar days from service of the summons and complaint to answer. That is five fewer days than the 21 the analogous federal rule gives a defendant under FRCP Rule 12(a)(1)(A)(i), so a case that gets removed to or filed in federal court on the same facts runs on a different clock than the same case in Florida circuit court. The State of Florida and its agencies get 40 days when sued in an official capacity, except that a tort claim brought against the state under the sovereign-immunity waiver in section 768.28, Fla. Stat., gives the Department of Financial Services or the defendant agency only 30 days. Filing certain motions under Rule 1.140, other than a motion for judgment on the pleadings, pauses this clock until the court rules.
Discovery: 30 days, or 45 if it rides in with the complaint
Interrogatories under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.340 and requests for production under Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.350 both carry a standard 30-day response window. There is a wrinkle worth knowing before it costs someone a deadline: when a defendant's first set of discovery is served together with the complaint, before that defendant has appeared in the case, the response period stretches to 45 days instead of 30. A court can shorten or lengthen either number by order, so the rule sets the default, not the ceiling.
Appeals: 30 days from rendition, and rendition can move
Fla. R. App. P. 9.110(b) gives a party 30 days from rendition of the order to file a notice of appeal, and this one is jurisdictional. Miss it and there is no extension, no matter how good the excuse. Rendition means the date a signed written order is actually filed with the clerk of the lower tribunal, not the date a judge announces a ruling from the bench. A timely, authorized post-trial motion, a motion for new trial or rehearing being the common ones, postpones rendition until the trial court rules on that motion, which resets the 30-day clock to run from the later ruling instead of the original judgment. Get the rendition date wrong and the whole calculation is wrong with it.
Proposals for settlement: two windows, not one
Florida's offer-of-judgment statute, section 768.79, Fla. Stat., paired with Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.442, sets up fee-shifting exposure that changes how both sides value a case, and it runs on two separate clocks. A proposal to a defendant cannot be served earlier than 90 days after service of process on that defendant; a proposal to a plaintiff cannot be served earlier than 90 days after the action commenced, under Rule 1.442(b). Once served, the recipient has 30 days to accept it in writing under section 768.79(4) and Rule 1.442(f)(1); miss that window and the proposal is deemed rejected. One more detail that catches people: Rule 1.442(f)(1) specifically states that the extra time Rule 2.514(b) normally allows for service by mail or email does not apply to this 30-day acceptance window, so do not add days that the rule already took away.
Florida's weekend and holiday rollover rule
Fla. R. Gen. Prac. & Jud. Admin. 2.514, the successor to the old Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.090, sets how Florida counts days. Under 2.514(a)(1)(C), if the last day of a period lands on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the deadline rolls forward to the next day that is not one of those. That much matches the federal approach. Florida keeps one distinction federal court dropped: under 2.514(a)(2), when a period is stated as fewer than 7 days, Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays inside that short period are not counted at all, not just the last day. A 20-day or 30-day deadline never runs into that short-period exclusion, since it only applies below 7 days, but it matters for the occasional Florida rule that does give a party fewer than a week to act.
Worked example
Say a defendant is served with a Florida complaint on Monday, June 8, 2026. The answer is due 20 calendar days later under Rule 1.140(a)(1). Counting forward from June 8 lands on Sunday, June 28, which is not a business day, so Rule 2.514(a)(1)(C) rolls the deadline to Monday, June 29, 2026. Run the same start date through the calculator above with "Answer to complaint, private defendant" selected and it returns the same date. Now compare a personal injury claim: an injury on June 8, 2026 falls after the HB 837 cutoff, so the two-year clock under section 95.11(5)(a) runs 730 days out, to Wednesday, June 8, 2028, again shifted forward only if that date happens to fall on a weekend or holiday, which in this case it does not.
Limitations of this calculator
This tool covers nine deadlines and one jurisdiction. Florida's rules carve out different periods for minors, government defendants, medical malpractice notice requirements, wrongful death, and a long list of claim-specific statutes this page does not attempt to model. County and circuit courts can also close for local holidays beyond the eleven federal ones this calculator recognizes for its rollover logic, and a scheduling order or local administrative order can override any default listed here. Treat every result as a starting point for a conversation with a Florida-licensed attorney, not the final word on your filing.
Need the federal version instead?
This page runs Florida's own rules. For the federal defaults under FRCP Rule 6, 12, 33, 34, and FRAP Rule 4, use the main calculator.