Limitation, Hardship and Impossibility
Every period under Federal Decree-Law No. 25 of 2025, and how they move across the transition

Every limitation period in UAE civil law was re-enacted on 1 June 2026. Federal Decree-Law No. 25 of 2025 repealed Federal Law No. 5 of 1985 and renumbered the prescription provisions into Articles 429 to 444, with the specialist periods scattered through the Law at Articles 258, 290, 824 and 1190.

The periods themselves are largely unchanged. What changed is where they live, and — critically — how they are calculated across the transition. Article 6 and Article 7 do different jobs, and a claim that was already running on 1 June 2026 has to be tested against both. This note sets out the complete table, the machinery that moves it, and the two provisions that decide most limitation arguments: Article 433(2) and Article 437(1).

1. The complete limitation table

UAE law frames limitation as a bar on hearing the action rather than extinction of the right. Article 429 says so expressly: "A right is not extinguished by the lapse of time; however, an action claiming such right against a person who denies it shall not be heard …". Two consequences follow immediately: the bar operates only where the defendant denies the right, and it yields to an acceptable excuse.

Note what sits in the 2-year box. A supplier selling to a consumer rather than to a trader has two years, not fifteen. Hotels and restaurants have two years. Those are the shortest general commercial periods in the Law and they catch businesses whose credit-control cycles are built around a longer assumption.

Note also that a law firm's own fees sit in the 3-year box under Article 431(1), alongside engineers, experts and brokers.

2. Article 433(2): the provision that resets everything

Article 433 does two things, and the second is the single most useful lever in UAE limitation practice.

433(1) closes an obvious gap: the short periods in Article 432 run even where the creditor continues to perform other work for the debtor. A continuing relationship does not keep old invoices alive.

433(2) then opens a door:

A right otherwise barred in two, three or five years becomes a fifteen-year right the moment an acknowledgment or document is executed for it. In practice:

• A supplier with a 2-year period under Article 432(1) who obtains a signed statement of account, a reconciliation, or a payment undertaking has converted it to fifteen years.
• A professional firm with a 3-year period under Article 431(1) achieves the same with an engagement reconciliation or a signed fee acknowledgment.
• A landlord or owners' association with a 5-year period for recurring charges under Article 430(1) does the same with an acknowledged statement.

The commercial discipline this implies is simple and widely neglected: in any relationship governed by a short period, get the debt acknowledged in a document while the relationship is still good. It costs nothing at the time and it is worth more than any contractual limitation clause, because it operates on the statutory bar itself.

Conversely, a debtor's adviser should understand that signing a routine-looking reconciliation can extend exposure from two years to fifteen.

3. When time starts, how it is counted, and what stops it

Article 434 — when the clock starts

The period runs from:

• the day the right becomes due for performance;
• the fulfilment of the condition, where the right is subject to a suspensive condition; and
• the time the right to claim indemnity is established, in an action for breach of warranty of title.

Article 436 — how it is counted

In days. The first day is not counted. The period expires at the end of the last day, and where the last day falls on an official holiday it extends to the following day. That is the same counting convention the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department applies to the five-day payment notice, and it is worth applying consistently.

Article 437(1) — suspension for an acceptable excuse

The excuse must make it impossible to claim, not merely difficult or commercially awkward. It is the counterpart to the "without an acceptable excuse" qualifier that appears in Articles 429 to 432, and it is the provision on which genuinely stale claims are rescued — or lost.

Article 435 — aggregation across succession

Where a right is abandoned first by the predecessor and then by the successor, the two periods are added together. An assignee or heir does not get a fresh start.

4. The transition: Articles 4, 6 and 7 do different jobs

This is where most errors will be made over the next few years, because the three provisions are adjacent and are frequently conflated.

How to apply them, in order

1. Was the period already complete before 1 June 2026? If yes, it is spent and Article 6 does not revive it.
2. If not, is the new period shorter than the old? If no, the new period applies to the unfinished balance under Article 6.
3. If the new period is shorter, run Article 7 twice: (a) the new period from 1 June 2026; (b) the unexpired remainder of the old period. Take the earlier expiry.
4. For anything before 1 June 2026 — when the period started, whether it was suspended, whether it was interrupted — apply the old rules under Article 6, not the new ones.

That last step is the one Article 6 adds and it is easy to miss. The new Law supplies the length of the unfinished period; the old Law still supplies the history of it.

Every limitation diary maintained on 1 June 2026 needs a one-pass review on this basis. It is a mechanical exercise and it will not do itself.

5. When performance becomes impossible or oppressive

Two doctrines sit alongside limitation and are routinely argued together, because both are raised by a defendant explaining why an obligation was not performed. They are not the same and the remedies differ.

Article 428 — impossibility, and the obligation is extinguished

Three elements, all on the debtor: impossibility, a foreign cause, and that the cause was beyond his control. The consequence is extinction of the obligation, not adjustment of it. Note the threshold is impossible, not onerous, uneconomic or commercially pointless.

Compare the construction chapter, where Article 819 holds the contractor liable for damage from its act and workmanship "whether by his wrongdoing or negligence or otherwise", escaping only through "an accident that cannot be guarded against". That is a narrower escape than Article 428, and it is deliberate.

Article 224 — hardship, and the court adjusts

Article 224 is the successor to Article 249 of the 1985 Code, and four features decide cases on it:

• The circumstances must be general, not particular to this debtor. A debtor's own financial difficulty does not engage it.
• Unforeseeable at contracting — which is why a long-term contract with no price-adjustment mechanism is more exposed than one with escalation built in, and why courts have been reluctant to treat ordinary currency or commodity movement as sufficient.
• Onerous threatening heavy loss, not impossible. This is the gap between Article 224 and Article 428.
• It cannot be excluded. The final sentence voids any agreement to the contrary — so a clause purporting to allocate all hardship risk to one party does not survive.

The practical drafting conclusion is the opposite of the instinctive one: because Article 224 cannot be contracted out of, the way to control hardship risk is to define the adjustment mechanism yourself — indexation, review points, pass-through — rather than to attempt an exclusion that the Law will not give effect to.

6. Checklists

Creditors

• Identify which period applies before assuming fifteen years. Supplies to non-traders and hotel and restaurant charges are two; professional fees are three; recurring charges are five.
• Use Article 433(2) deliberately: obtain a signed acknowledgment, reconciliation or undertaking while the relationship is good, and the period becomes fifteen years.
• Date the start under Article 434 — when the right fell due, not when you invoiced or chased.
• Count under Article 436: days, first day excluded, extended past an official holiday.
• Where a claim was running on 1 June 2026, do the Article 6 and Article 7 analysis and take the earlier expiry.

Defendants

• The bar operates only on denial — so plead it, and plead it clearly.
• Check whether any acknowledgment or document was executed; Article 433(2) may have converted a short period to fifteen years.
• Test any "acceptable excuse" relied on under Article 437(1) against the standard of impossibility of claiming, not inconvenience.
• On a succession or assignment, aggregate the predecessor's and successor's periods under Article 435.

Anyone defending non-performance

• Decide which doctrine you are running. Article 428 extinguishes and requires impossibility from a foreign cause beyond control; Article 224 adjusts and requires unforeseeable general circumstances threatening heavy loss.
• Do not rely on a contractual exclusion of hardship — Article 224 voids any agreement to the contrary.
• In construction, note that Article 819 sets a narrower escape than Article 428.

Everyone, once

• Review every limitation diary open on 1 June 2026 against the new periods, applying old rules to pre-commencement commencement, suspension and interruption.
• Update precedents that cite the 1985 article numbers; Articles 473 and the old prescription provisions no longer exist.

Primary sources

Every provision quoted above is taken from the instruments below. Links go to the official consolidated text, not to secondary commentary.

• Federal Decree-Law No. 25 of 2025 issuing the Civil Transactions Law — Arts 429–444 prescription; 224 hardship; 428 impossibility; 258, 290, 824, 1190 specialist periods; Arts 4, 6, 7 transitional
• UAE Ministry of Justice — laws and legislation — consolidated Arabic text, which governs over any English rendering
• UAE Government Portal — justice, safety and the law — federal legislation and the Official Gazette

Questions we are asked

Related guides in the library

• Construction and Decennial Liability
• Writs of Debt (Payment Orders)
• UAE Debt Recovery — Complete Guide

Published 2026-10-03. General information only — not legal advice. Contact us for matter-specific advice.