Medical debt laws by state, 2026: how long they can sue, and what protects you

Whether a hospital or a collector can still sue you over a medical bill, how much interest they can add, whether it can appear on your credit report, and whether any state law regulates the collector at all — every one of those answers depends on the state you live in. This report compares all 50 states on the questions that decide what happens next. Each state has its own page with the statutes cited.

This is a summary of statutes, not legal advice; limitation periods have exceptions and accrual rules that a summary cannot carry, and laws change. Every figure was reviewed against primary sources in AUG 2026. How we build these pages · Download the data (CSV)

How long they can sue: 2 years to 10

The statute of limitations on an unpaid medical bill runs from 2 years in Arkansas to 10 in Rhode Island. After it passes, a lawsuit to collect can be challenged as time-barred — though a collector may still ask you to pay, and in many states a partial payment can restart the clock. By period:

• 2 years — 1 state: AR
• 3 years — 15 states: AL, AK, AZ, DE, FL, KS, LA, MD, MS, NH, NY, NC, OK, SC, VA
• 4 years — 9 states: CA, GA, ID, NE, NV, NM, PA, TX, UT
• 5 years — 6 states: IL, IA, KY, MO, MT, WV
• 6 years — 17 states: CO, CT, HI, IN, ME, MA, MI, MN, NJ, ND, OH, OR, SD, TN, VT, WA, WI
• 8 years — 1 state: WY
• 10 years — 1 state: RI

30 states add medical-specific protections; 20 add none

Federal law requires every nonprofit hospital to have a financial-assistance policy (IRS §501(r)) and, since 2022, bars most surprise out-of-network bills (the No Surprises Act). On top of that, 30 states have passed at least one law aimed specifically at medical debt — 62 such measures in all, with citations on each state’s page: credit-reporting bans, interest caps, garnishment limits, charity-care mandates, and cooling-off periods before collection. The other 20 rely on general debt law alone: AL, AK, GA, IA, KS, KY, LA, MI, MS, MO, MT, NE, NH, OK, SC, SD, UT, WV, WI, WY.

10 states have no state debt-collection law at all

40 states have their own debt-collection statute — a “mini-FDCPA” — that often reaches original creditors and in-house collectors the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act does not. In 10 states there is none, and the federal act is the only collection-conduct law that applies:

• Alabama
• Delaware
• Georgia
• Mississippi
• Missouri
• Montana
• New Jersey
• Ohio
• South Dakota
• Utah

Methodology

The dataset behind this report is the same one that renders each state’s page. For every state it records the limitations periods for written contracts, oral contracts and open accounts, the period that applies to an ordinary unpaid medical bill and the basis for that choice, the primary citation, each medical-specific statute with its citation, whether a state debt-collection act exists, collector licensing, and the attorney general’s consumer office. All of it was reviewed against primary sources in AUG 2026 (dataset date 2026-08-26); the review date is bumped whenever a citation changes. Where a state’s law gives more than one plausible period for a medical bill, the page states which one is used and why. Available as CSV. Cite as: BillFighter, “Medical Debt Laws by State, 2026,” 2026-09-02, https://billfighter.com/reports/medical-debt-laws-by-state-2026.

Every state in this report has a page in the state guide with the statutes cited, what a collector can and cannot do there, and the letter that makes them prove the debt.