Statute of Limitations on Unpaid Wages: How Long Do You Have?
The FLSA gives you 2 years to recover unpaid wages — 3 if the violation was willful. Many states allow 4–6 years. Every week you wait narrows your recovery.
The statute of limitations on unpaid wages sets how far back you can reach when recovering back pay. Under the federal FLSA, the window is two years — or three years if the employer's violation was willful. State laws often go further: California allows up to four years, New York up to six. The clock starts with each underpaid paycheck, not the day you discover the problem.
Federal FLSA deadlines
Under the FLSA, a claim must be filed within two years of the date the wages should have been paid — the regular payday for that period. Each underpaid paycheck is a separate violation with its own two-year clock, so the lookback is rolling. File today and you can reach back to roughly June 2024. Wait six more months and those earliest weeks fall outside the window.
A willful violation extends the period to three years. Courts have found willfulness where an employer ignored a prior WHD investigation, received written notice of a classification problem and did nothing, or applied an overtime exemption it had no factual basis to claim. Willfulness meaningfully expands the dollar value of your claim.
State laws: often more generous
Many states have their own wage payment statutes with longer lookback periods. California allows back-wage claims under the Labor Code for up to three years, and up to four years under the Unfair Competition Law. New York's Wage Theft Prevention Act allows six years for most wage claims. New Jersey allows six years; Illinois five years; Maryland three years. When both federal and state claims are viable, you pursue the state claim to capture the longer window.
When does the clock start?
The limitations period begins when the wages were due — on the payday when they should have appeared in your check, or by the state-mandated deadline for final pay when the job ended. This is particularly important for off-the-clock claims: time spent working before your shift started was owed on the payday for that week, not the day you realize it wasn't included.
Tolling: when the clock can be paused
The statute of limitations can sometimes be tolled (paused) when an employer actively concealed the violation — for example, falsified time records, maintained a policy that employees were not permitted to review their hours, or told workers that overtime was not owed when it was. Courts in many circuits will toll the clock until the employee discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the underpayment. If you suspect concealment, note it in your complaint — it can significantly affect the lookback period.
Act now to preserve your full recovery
Run your back-pay calculation going back three years (or further if your state allows). Then compare that to a two-year calculation. The difference is what you lose for every year of inaction. Filing a WHD complaint or consulting an employment attorney today costs nothing — waiting chips away at what you can recover.