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Most people are told two years. For claims arising from sexual abuse, that is usually wrong.
Texas has a separate limitations statute for these claims, Section 16.0045 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. It gives either thirty years or five years, and which one applies turns on the specific conduct involved, not on how the case is labeled.
This is one of the few places in Texas injury law where the deadline is dramatically longer than people expect, and where a survivor who assumed it was too late may be wrong about that.
Section 16.0045(a) gives thirty years from the day the cause of action accrues where the injury arises from conduct that violates one of these Penal Code provisions:
Section 22.011(a)(2), sexual assault of a child.
Section 22.021(a)(1)(B), aggravated sexual assault of a child.
Section 21.02, continuous sexual abuse of a young child or disabled individual.
Section 20A.02(a)(7)(A), (B), (C), (D) or (H), or Section 20A.02(a)(8) involving such an activity, which are the child and disabled-person sexual trafficking provisions.
Section 43.05(a)(2) or (3), compelling prostitution of a child or a disabled individual.
Section 21.11, indecency with a child.
Section 16.0045(b) gives five years where the injury arises from conduct that violates:
Section 22.011(a)(1), sexual assault.
Section 22.021(a)(1)(A), aggravated sexual assault.
Section 20A.02, trafficking of persons, other than the child provisions listed above.
Section 43.05(a)(1), compelling prostitution.
Section 16.0045(c) provides that in an action for injury resulting in death arising from conduct described in either list, the cause of action accrues on the death of the injured person.
Section 16.0045(d) addresses the situation where the perpetrator is unidentified. Filing a petition against an unknown defendant tolls the limitations period, provided the plaintiff proceeds with due diligence to discover the defendant’s identity and amends the petition not later than the thirtieth day after the defendant is identified. The period begins running again on the date the petition is amended.
If the claim involves intimate images, including AI-generated images, the limitations period is not in Section 16.0045 at all. Section 98B.009, added effective 1 September 2025, gives ten years from the later of the date the depicted person reasonably discovers the material or the date that person turns 18.
If the claim is a trafficking claim under Chapter 98, that chapter contains no limitations period of its own. Section 16.0045 supplies it, and which of the two periods applies depends on the specific Penal Code subsection involved. That is why a trafficking case cannot be given a single number.
Section 16.0045 has been amended repeatedly, most recently in 2019, 2021 and 2023. Each amendment carries an applicability clause that appears in the bill rather than in the code, and those clauses determine which cases the change reaches. Whether any amendment revived a claim that had already expired depends on those clauses and on the dates involved.
That is exactly the kind of question worth one phone call rather than an assumption in either direction. If you have been assuming your case is too old, it is worth checking. If someone has told you it is fine, that is worth checking too.
Every statute and case linked above was read at its primary source. Texas statutes change every legislative session and case law is constantly changing.
This page is general information about Texas law. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Read the two lists together and the structure is clear. Conduct against a child carries thirty years. The same category of conduct against an adult carries five. Both are longer than the two-year period that applies to ordinary injury claims under Section 16.003. Federal Title IX and Section 1983 claims borrow that two-year period as well. The Fifth Circuit so held in King-White v. Humble Independent School District, 803 F.3d 754 (5th Cir. 2015), and declined to apply Section 16.0045 to those claims.
Two things the statute does not say, which are worth stating plainly because they are commonly misreported.
There is no category with no deadline at all. Section 16.0045 has exactly two periods, thirty years and five years. Nothing in it is unlimited.
The statute draws no distinction between the person who committed the abuse and a school, church, employer, apartment complex or other institution that is sued for its own negligence. It is written entirely in terms of the conduct that caused the injury. Whether the longer period reaches an institutional defendant is a question courts answer, not a question the text answers.
Schiffer Law Firm represents survivors in civil claims arising from sexual assault and sexual abuse, in Houston and across Texas. There is no charge to talk, and no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery.
Call 713-521-0059.
This page is general information about Texas law, not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Limitations questions are fact-specific and the consequence of getting one wrong is permanent.
No. Thirty years applies to the specific child offenses listed in Section 16.0045(a). Five years applies to the adult offenses in Section 16.0045(b), and an ordinary negligence claim against a business is two years.
The specific Penal Code provision the conduct violated, not the general subject of the case.
Usually not. The claim against a business is a negligence claim with a two-year period.
Section 16.0045(d) tolls the period on filing against a John or Jane Doe, with a duty to substitute the real name within 30 days of identifying them.
