Civil Litigation
Statutes of Limitations
Reviewed 2026-08
In short
- Every civil claim in Korea has an expiry date. The general rule is 10 years, but the shorter periods are the ones that catch people: 5 years for commercial claims, 3 years for wages and professional fees, 1 year for some everyday debts.
- Injury and damage claims run on a double clock: 3 years from when you learned of the harm and who caused it, and 10 years from the act itself — whichever ends first.
- The clock generally starts when you could first have enforced the claim — not when you got angry, and not when you last asked for payment.
- Only three things stop it: a court step, an attachment, or the debtor’s acknowledgment. A demand letter alone buys 6 months, and only if you file within them.
- Expiry is a defense, not an automatic deletion — the other side has to raise it. And a debtor who pays a little or signs anything can restart the whole period.
The question arrives late, usually. Someone has been meaning to deal with an unpaid loan for a couple of years; a former employer still owes wages from a job that ended a while ago; a deposit dispute has been quietly unresolved since the last apartment. The first thing a Korean lawyer will check is not whether the claim is good. It is whether the claim is still alive.
Somyeol sihyo (소멸시효) — extinctive prescription — is the rule that a right you do not exercise for long enough stops being enforceable. It sits mostly in the Civil Act (민법), with a shorter period for commercial dealings in the Commercial Act (상법).
Two things make this worth reading before you need it. The periods are shorter than most newcomers assume, and the ways to stop the clock are narrower. This guide covers how long you have, when the clock starts, what actually stops it, and what remains possible after the deadline has passed.
1. How long you have
There is no single number. The period depends on what kind of claim it is, and the shortest applicable one governs.
| Period | Typical claims | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| 10 years | The default for ordinary claims — private loans between individuals, deposit returns, most contract claims that are not commercial. | Civil Act art. 162(1) |
| 5 years | Claims arising from commercial transactions — where a business is on either side, this often displaces the 10-year rule. | Commercial Act art. 64 |
| 3 years | Anything payable in periods of a year or less (rent, interest, salaries), goods sold by producers and merchants, construction and design work, and the fees of doctors, lawyers, and other listed professionals. Wages and severance sit here under labor law. | Civil Act art. 163; Labor Standards Act art. 49 |
| 1 year | Hotel, restaurant, and entertainment-venue charges; rental of clothing and movable goods; wages of day labourers and performers; tuition and board owed to schools and teachers. | Civil Act art. 164 |
| 3 years / 10 years | Damages for a wrongful act — assault, a traffic accident, fraud, property damage. Three years from learning of both the harm and the person responsible, and in any event 10 years from the act. | Civil Act art. 766 |
| 10 years (reset) | A claim confirmed by a final judgment or a finalized payment order — even one that originally had a short period. | Civil Act art. 165 |
Notice what the table does to a familiar case. Unpaid wages feel like an ordinary debt, but they expire in 3 years, not 10 — the deadline in Unpaid Wages. A housing deposit, by contrast, is an ordinary contract claim on the 10-year clock. Two disputes that feel equally stale can be years apart in reality.
2. When the clock starts
The period runs from the moment the claim could first have been enforced — the day the loan fell due, the day the lease ended and the deposit became returnable, the payday the wages were not paid. Not from the argument that followed, and not from the last time you asked politely.
Wrongful-act claims are the exception worth memorizing. Their short clock starts when you knew both the damage and who was responsible, which can be much later than the event — but the long 10-year clock runs from the act itself regardless of what you knew, and it stops everything when it expires. Where an injury surfaces years afterwards, or the culprit is identified late, the interaction of those two clocks is exactly the kind of question to put to a lawyer rather than estimate yourself.
The date that matters is rarely the one people remember. It is the day the claim first became enforceable — the due date, the end of the lease, the missed payday.
3. What actually stops the clock
Prescription is interrupted by exactly three categories of event (art. 168), and the practical difference between them is large.
- A claim asserted properly — in practice, filing. A lawsuit or a payment order interrupts prescription. A demand letter counts only as an informal demand (choego) (최고): it holds the clock for 6 months, and the interruption evaporates unless you file within them (art. 174) — the rule explained in Certified Content Mail.
- Attachment or provisional attachment — seizing or freezing assets interrupts prescription as well as securing the money.
- The debtor’s acknowledgment — the cheapest interruption of all, and the subject of the next section.
Two refinements matter. First, interruption is not a pause: once the interrupting event ends, the full period starts again from zero (art. 178) — which is why a judgment is worth so much more than a promise. Second, a lawsuit that is dismissed, rejected, or withdrawn does not interrupt anything (art. 170); filing badly and withdrawing can leave you exactly where you started, minus the time.
4. Acknowledgment: the trap and the opportunity
A debtor who admits the debt restarts the clock — and admission does not require a formal document. Paying part of what is owed, paying only the interest, asking in writing for more time, signing a repayment schedule: each is ordinarily treated as acknowledging the debt, and the full limitation period begins again from that day.
Which side of that rule you are on changes everything. If you are owed money and the deadline is approaching, a partial payment or a written admission may be easier to obtain than a lawsuit is to file — and it buys the whole period again. If you are the one being chased over an old debt you believed long expired, a small goodwill payment can revive a claim that was days from dying.
Don't pay a little on an old debt to buy peace
5. If the deadline has passed
Expiry does not make the claim vanish from the court’s file. It gives the other side a defense they must actually raise. A creditor can still file on an expired claim, and if the debtor never appears, never answers, and never mentions prescription, a judgment can be entered — which is one more reason not to ignore court papers, as You’ve Been Served sets out.
Read that in both directions. As a defendant, prescription is one of the strongest defenses available — but only if you raise it in the proceedings, on time. As a creditor with a stale claim, the position is weak rather than hopeless: the debtor may not raise it, may have acknowledged the debt more recently than you remember, or the claim may sit on a longer clock than you assumed. What decides all of it is dates and documents, not impressions.
The suspension rules are narrow and worth knowing only for what they exclude. The Civil Act pauses expiry in a short list of situations — for people without legal capacity or a representative, between spouses until the marriage ends, over inherited estates until the heirs or administrator are settled, and where a natural disaster made interruption impossible (arts. 179–182). Being abroad is not on that list.
6. Common mistakes
- Assuming every debt gets 10 years.The claim you are most likely to have — unpaid wages, a professional’s bill, goods sold by a business — is often on the 3-year or 5-year clock instead.
- Treating repeated demands as protection. Ten letters do not stop the clock any better than one; only the filing that follows within 6 months does.
- Counting from the wrong day. The start is the day the claim became enforceable, which is often earlier than the day the relationship broke down.
- Negotiating up to the deadline. Talks do not extend anything. File first if the date is close — a case can settle just as well after filing.
- Winning and then waiting. A judgment resets the clock to 10 years, not forever. If enforcement is not possible now, diarize the date rather than assume the title keeps indefinitely.
Deadlines
- 1 / 3 / 5 / 10 yearsThe limitation period, depending on the claim (Civil Act arts. 162–164; Commercial Act art. 64). The shortest applicable period governs — check yours before anything else.
- 3 years and 10 yearsWrongful-act damages: 3 years from learning of the harm and the person responsible, and 10 years from the act itself (Civil Act art. 766).
- 6 monthsAfter a formal demand such as certified content mail — file a lawsuit, payment order, or attachment within this window or the interruption is lost (art. 174).
- 10 years, restartedA claim confirmed by judgment or a finalized payment order runs afresh for 10 years (art. 165); any interruption likewise restarts the full period from zero (art. 178).
Two dates decide your options: the day your claim became enforceable, and today. Everything in this guide is the distance between them.
Frequently asked questions
I left Korea for two years. Did that pause the clock on my claim?
No. Prescription is suspended only in the narrow situations the Civil Act lists — incapacity without a representative, claims between spouses, unsettled estates, natural disasters — and living abroad is not among them. Distance also does not prevent you from acting: a Korean lawyer can file for you while you are overseas, which is often the practical answer when a deadline is approaching and you cannot travel.
The person who owes me money has left Korea. Is my claim finished?
Their departure does not stop your clock either, so the deadline keeps running whether or not you can find them. A case can proceed even when a defendant cannot be served personally, including by public notice, though enforcement against someone with no Korean assets is a separate and harder question. If the money matters, get the claim filed before the period runs — locating assets can happen afterwards.
How does this relate to the deadline for reporting a crime?
They are different systems on different clocks. What this guide covers is the civil claim for money or damages; prosecution deadlines for criminal offenses run under criminal procedure and vary by offense. One matter can involve both — a fraud, for instance — and the two deadlines rarely line up, so treat them as separate questions and check each.
My old debt is from a contract governed by my home country’s law. Which period applies?
Then the answer is not automatically Korean law. Where a contract has a foreign element, which country’s law governs — and therefore which limitation period applies — is itself a legal question that depends on the agreement and the circumstances. Bring the contract to the assessment rather than assuming either system’s deadline.
The other side just offered me a small payment on a very old debt. Should I take it?
As the creditor, that offer is often worth more than the money: a partial payment is ordinarily treated as acknowledging the debt and restarts the whole period, giving you room to pursue the balance. Take it in a traceable form — a bank transfer, or a written schedule — rather than cash with nothing to show. As the debtor, the same rule is the trap described in section 4.
Written by Attorney Chulho Choi (SOL & LUNA / Law Firm Myeong, KBA-registered specialist in Civil and Criminal Law). Reviewed as of August 2026. Updated when laws change.
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