When does an invoice become time-barred? Deadlines, examples and what you can still do

As of September 2026. This guide covers the civil-law limitation of payment claims from invoices, not the separate tax assessment period.

How long is the limitation period for invoices?

The standard limitation period is three years. This follows from § 195 BGB and covers almost every payment claim arising from an invoice: work performed, services, deliveries of goods and professional fees.

Limitation does not extinguish the claim. It continues to exist, but once the period has run the debtor may permanently refuse to pay (§ 214 (1) BGB). In practice the invoice is then unenforceable.

Longer periods are the exception. The most important one: a claim established with legal force, for example by a judgment or an enforcement order, only becomes time-barred after 30 years (§ 197 (1) no. 3 BGB).

When does the limitation period start?

The period does not start on the day of performance, nor on the invoice date, but at the end of the year in which the claim arose and the creditor knew of the circumstances giving rise to it (§ 199 (1) BGB).

This year-end rule is the decisive point: all claims arising in one calendar year become time-barred together on 31 December, three years later.

Limitation periods for invoice claims, as of September 2026.

Example: you perform a service in March 2023 and issue the invoice in May 2023. The customer does not pay. The period starts on 31.12.2023 and ends at the close of 31.12.2026. You have to act before then; afterwards the customer can invoke limitation.

For the self-employed, the turn of the year is therefore the real deadline, not the invoice date.

Does an invoice you never issued also become time-barred?

Yes. The payment claim arises from the performance and the underlying contract, not from writing the invoice. Invoicing late, or not at all, does not extend the limitation period.

This is one of the costliest misconceptions among freelancers: a service performed in 2023 that is only invoiced in 2027 is normally already time-barred, because the clock started on 31.12.2023.

There are, however, statutory exceptions in which the claim expressly falls due only once the invoice has been issued. In those cases the limitation period starts only then:

• Construction contracts: due only after acceptance and a verifiable final invoice (§ 650g (4) BGB)
• Architects and engineers: § 15 HOAI refers to § 650g (4) BGB
• Private medical bills: due only once an invoice complying with the fee schedule has been issued (§ 12 (1) GOÄ)
• Electricity under basic supply: due only with the bill (§ 17 (1) sentence 1 StromGVV)

Outside these special cases the general rule applies: under a service contract the fee falls due after performance (§ 614 BGB), under a contract for work on acceptance (§ 641 (1) BGB). Invoicing later does not move the start date there.

Invoicing promptly costs you nothing. With the invoice generator from Mein MwSt-Rechner you create a § 14-compliant invoice as a PDF in minutes, free and without signing up.

What suspends or restarts the limitation period?

A simple reminder does not stop the clock. A third reminder, a registered letter or a debt-collection letter change nothing either. The BGB provides only two mechanisms:

Suspension (Hemmung) means the time of suspension is not counted towards the period. The clock pauses and then resumes. The main cases:

• Negotiations between creditor and debtor about the claim (§ 203 BGB)
• Service of a court dunning order (Mahnbescheid, § 204 (1) no. 3 BGB)
• Filing a claim in court (§ 204 (1) no. 1 BGB)

Restart (Neubeginn) means the full three-year period starts again from scratch. This happens above all where the debtor acknowledges the claim, in particular through a part payment, an interest payment or the provision of security (§ 212 (1) no. 1 BGB).

Effect of each measure on the limitation period, as of September 2026.

A part payment is therefore doubly good news for a creditor: it brings money in and sets the three-year period running again.

Which periods apply to tradesmen, doctors, phone and energy bills?

All of them are subject to the same standard three-year period under § 195 BGB, starting at year-end under § 199 (1) BGB. Today's BGB no longer contains separate, shorter periods for individual industries.

Limitation periods by type of invoice, as of September 2026.

The difference is therefore never the length of the period, but when it starts and whether a legal title over the claim already exists. For private medical bills (§ 12 (1) GOÄ) and electricity under basic supply (§ 17 (1) sentence 1 StromGVV) the clock only starts with the bill. The Federal Court of Justice has expressly held for electricity billing that a late bill does not bring the start of the period forward.

What happens once the period has run?

After the period expires the claim still exists, it simply becomes unenforceable. Crucially, limitation does not take effect automatically. The debtor has to invoke it actively, in legal terms raising the defence of limitation (§ 214 (1) BGB).

Two practical consequences follow:

• You may still write to the customer and ask for payment. If they pay voluntarily, that is legally sound.
• If they do pay, they cannot reclaim the money, even if they were unaware the claim was time-barred (§ 214 (2) BGB).

If the debtor does raise the defence in court, you lose the case and bear the costs. Going to court after the period has run is therefore effectively hopeless.

How do I avoid limitation as a freelancer?

Three habits are enough:

1. Invoice promptly. Issue the invoice straight after the work, not months later. Templates are available under invoice templates.
2. Review open items at year-end. Go through your unpaid invoices every November and pull out everything from the year that is about to expire.
3. Apply for a dunning order in good time. A court dunning order suspends the period, costs far less than litigation and is applied for online.

One caveat on the third point: the dunning order has to be served on the debtor. Applying on 30 December cuts it very fine. Allow several weeks.

Limitation and the retention obligation are two different things

These two periods are frequently confused but have nothing to do with each other:

• Limitation concerns your civil-law payment claim against the customer: three years under § 195 BGB.
• The retention obligation concerns your duty towards the tax office to keep invoices: eight years for accounting records under § 147 (3) AO and § 14b (1) UStG, reduced from ten years by the Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act. This period also starts at the end of the calendar year. Note that only accounting records were shortened. Books, inventories and annual financial statements stay at ten years, commercial and business letters at six (§ 147 (3) sentence 1 AO).

An invoice can therefore have been time-barred long ago while you are still required to keep it for tax purposes. The same period applies to electronic invoices, which have to be kept in their original format. The e-invoice viewer shows how to read and check one.

Sources

• § 195 BGB – standard limitation period
• § 197 BGB – thirty-year limitation period
• § 199 BGB – commencement of the standard limitation period
• § 203 BGB – suspension during negotiations
• § 204 BGB – suspension by legal proceedings
• § 212 BGB – restart of the limitation period
• § 214 BGB – effect of limitation
• § 147 AO – rules on the retention of records
• § 14b UStG – retention of invoices
• § 641 BGB – when payment falls due under a contract for work
• § 650g BGB – verifiable final invoice under a construction contract
• § 12 GOÄ – when a private medical fee falls due
• § 17 StromGVV – payment and default in basic electricity supply