Statutes of Limitation in Federal Criminal Cases

A statute of limitations is the time window within which a prosecution must begin. In federal criminal law, the default period is five years, and the statute is 18 U.S.C. § 3282.

The Default Rule: Five Years

Section 3282(a) provides: “Except as otherwise expressly provided by law, no person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any offense, not capital, unless the indictment is found or the information is instituted within five years next after such offense shall have been committed.”

Offenses With Different Periods

Many statutes set their own limitation periods — for example, bank fraud and certain other fraud offenses carry a ten-year period under 18 U.S.C. § 3293, and capital offenses have no limitation. When another statute “expressly provided by law” sets a different period, that statute controls.

How Limitations Relate to Sentencing

Limitation periods govern when charges may be filed, not the length of a sentence. But the charging window can shape a federal case in ways that matter at sentencing: a longer window can bring in additional relevant conduct under U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3, which may raise the offense level even for conduct that is not separately charged.