Time limits for making claims to the SAAQ in Quebec
SAAQ Claim Deadlines. Free. No email required. For drivers, passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians.
Quebec operates differently from the rest of Canada. There is only one public insurer, the SAAQ, and no lawsuits. Regardless of who caused the accident, your claim ends up in the same place.
THE SIX CLOCKS
Only one of the six falls within the first month, and it's a waiting period rather than a deadline. The others are longer, and each is counted from a different day. The diagram is not to scale.
Within the first month Longer, but the clock has already started
The big number is generous. Three years to claim. The ones that trap people are the short deadlines following a decision arriving by mail, as well as the structural deadlines on the one hundred and eighty-first day, the two-year mark, and the third year. Everything that follows explains what starts each clock, and what to note when it counts.
How long do I have to claim from the SAAQ?
Three years, and the countdown doesn't always start from the accident. The right to compensation is prescribed by three years from the date of the accident or from the moment the injury manifests. In case of death, the three years run from the date of death.
This second starting point matters more than it seems. Injuries that appear weeks or months later, and psychological harm in particular, do not expire three years after a date you had stopped thinking about. If you are reading this late, you are not necessarily out of time.
Three years is a long time, and that's why Quebec files deteriorate in a very particular way.
No one feels any urgency, so no one notes anything, and the file ends up being built two years later solely from memory.
Consult a doctor immediately nonetheless. The initial medical report is what links your injuries to the accident. Clearly name the symptoms you attribute to the accident and ensure the report reaches the SAAQ.
To file means to arrive, not to mail. A claim or request is deemed filed on the date of its reception at an SAAQ office, so the day you mail it is not the one that counts.
If a deadline ends on a non-working day, it is postponed to the next working day.
What if I missed the three-year deadline?
The door is not automatically closed. The SAAQ may allow a request to be filed after the deadline if you were unable to act sooner for a "serious and legitimate" reason. A late request must be accompanied by a written and signed declaration explaining the reasons that prevented you from acting.
The same recourse exists for the sixty-day review period, with the same written explanation. This is an argument you prefer not to have to make, so treat it as a rescue, not a plan. What sinks a late application is an unexplained delay, not a long delay.
Two more discreet protections accompany it. No document is refused due to a drafting defect or procedural irregularity, and filing a request interrupts the limitation period of the Civil Code until a final decision is rendered.
If a date has already passed, write today why the delay occurred, while you remember it clearly. Which months you were not able to manage your affairs. Who was helping you. When you realized you were injured and not just shaken.
This note is the written and signed declaration they will ask for. It is worth much more written this week than reconstructed next year.
Can I sue the responsible driver in Quebec?
No. Compensation for bodily injury is granted by the SAAQ regardless of fault, and no action can be taken against the person responsible for the accident. The claim to the SAAQ is the only possible recourse, both for drivers and for passengers.
A consequence follows.
There is no one else to blame and no settlement to negotiate, so the quality of your own file is the only variable you control.
A moving automobile must be involved. A pedestrian or cyclist hit by a car is covered. A collision between two cyclists, or between a cyclist and a pedestrian, does not fall under the SAAQ and rather falls under the health insurance plan. Electric bicycles and motorized mobility devices are outside the plan, unless another moving automobile was involved in the accident.
I don't live in Quebec. Can I still claim?
Yes, but responsibility comes back into the equation. A non-Quebec resident victim is entitled to compensation only insofar as they are not responsible for the accident. Quebec residents, however, are covered whether the accident occurred in Quebec or elsewhere.
A separate deadline applies, and it's short. If you disagree with the SAAQ on your responsibility, this question does not go to the review department or the Tribunal. It is submitted to the competent court, and the recourse must be exercised within one hundred and eighty days of the decision rendered by the SAAQ on responsibility.
This is the only deadline on this page that goes through a regular court rather than through review and the Tribunal administratif du Québec, and that's precisely why it's missed.
If a registration certificate was issued in Quebec for the automobile and the accident occurred in Quebec, the owner, driver, and passengers are deemed to reside in Quebec, which brings them back within the ordinary rules regardless of fault.
Can I challenge a SAAQ decision?
Yes, and you have sixty days from the date you receive it. You file a request for review, and it must state the main reasons for your challenge.
The SAAQ does not make a single decision. It makes a series of them, on your eligibility, on your income replacement benefit, on your diagnoses, on your treatments, and much later on your permanent sequelae. Each carries its own sixty-day deadline.
Write the date of receipt on each letter. The sixty days run from the moment the decision reaches you, not from the date printed on the page. If several decisions arrive close together, you can include the others on the same review form as long as they fall within the same sixty-day window.
Challenging does not interrupt your payments. A request for review or an appeal before the Tribunal does not suspend the payment of an indemnity.
If you hesitate to challenge for fear of losing your payments, this risk does not exist.
If your case were decided tomorrow, what would it say?
Truly injured people have lost compensation because of a date no one noted, a form that arrived late, or a call no one recorded. Early, it can be corrected. A year later, it becomes a legal argument. The SAAQ Support Guide brings every date on this page together in one place, with the accompanying form and space to write down what happened. 24,99 $, yours forever.
How long does the SAAQ have to respond to my review request?
Ninety days, from the receipt of your request and the required documents. This period may be extended if you choose to submit new documents, or if the review officer requests additional documents or another medical examination.
The review officer must recuse themselves when there is a reasonable apprehension of bias, particularly if they have previously been an interested party in a similar matter. Before rendering a decision, the SAAQ must give you the opportunity to present your observations and complete your file.
If you are still not satisfied with the outcome, you have sixty days from the receipt of the review decision to appeal to the Tribunal administratif du Québec.
What deadlines run against the SAAQ rather than against me?
Several, and they are worth knowing, because almost nothing in the process is written on your side.
- Ten working days. The review officer contacts you or your representative within ten working days of receiving your request to clarify what you are asking for.
- Six days. Your employer has six days to send the SAAQ a certificate of your salary when requested. A health professional or institution that treated you has six days to send their findings, treatments, and recommendations.
- Interest, in all cases. When a review or appeal before the Tribunal recognizes a right that was denied to you, or increases compensation, the SAAQ must order the payment of interest from the decision that denied you that right.
- The cost of your expertise. If your request for review or your appeal is granted and you have submitted a written expert report from a health professional, you are entitled to reimbursement for this report up to a specified amount.
- Amounts already paid remain yours. The SAAQ may pay compensation even before ruling on the right, when the request appears to be well-founded at first glance. If it subsequently refuses or grants the request only in part, what has already been paid to you is not recoverable, unless it was obtained through fraud.
- Examinations. When the SAAQ requires an examination, it bears the cost and must send a copy of the report to the health professional you designate. When an examination it required would end your income replacement benefits, payments continue until the date of the decision.
When do income replacement benefits begin, and what changes on the 180th day?
Income replacement benefits are calculated at ninety percent of net income, up to an indexed annual maximum. They are paid every fourteen days and are payable only from the seventh day following the date of the accident.
The one hundred and eighty-first day changes the question asked. If you held a regular full-time job at the time of the accident, your entitlement is measured against that job. If you held a part-time or temporary job, or if you were unemployed but able to work, this measure only lasts one hundred and eighty days. From the one hundred and eighty-first day, the SAAQ assigns you a job, and the question then becomes whether you are able to perform that job rather than the one you had.
The SAAQ must take into account your training, work experience, and physical and intellectual capabilities at the date of the accident. These are precisely the elements that your file does or does not document.
Recovery does not always end payments. If you become able to return to your job but lost it due to the accident, the SAAQ continues to pay benefits for a period determined by the duration of your incapacity.
| If your incapacity lasted | Payments continue for |
|---|---|
| From ninety to one hundred and eighty days | 30 days |
| Up to one year | 90 days |
| Up to two years | 180 days |
| More than two years | A full year |
Payments do not cease at a fixed age either. The benefit is reduced by twenty-five percent from your sixty-fifth birthday, by fifty percent at your sixty-sixth, and by seventy-five percent at your sixty-seventh. From your sixty-eighth birthday until your death, the amount is determined by a separate method provided by regulation.
What happens from the third year onwards?
Beginning in the third year after the accident, the SAAQ can determine an employment for you if you are able to work but can no longer hold your previous job. This decision is made on paper, based on what your file demonstrates you can and cannot do.
It does not cut off your benefits on the day the decision is rendered. The right to benefits ends one year after you become capable of holding the employment determined by the SAAQ, which gives you an additional year. If your injuries mean that this job would pay you less than the income used to calculate your indemnity, you are entitled, at the end of this year, to the difference rather than nothing.
Start now to record the specific tasks you can no longer perform, not in the thirty-fifth month. By the time this decision is made, the only version of your last three years that counts is the written version.
My injury recurred later. Am I still covered?
Two years, and this deadline is easily lost. If you suffer a relapse within two years of the end of your last period of incapacity, or within two years of the accident if no indemnity was paid to you, you are compensated from the relapse as if your incapacity had never been interrupted.
A relapse occurring after two years is treated as a second accident. The position is weaker, because everything is re-evaluated from your situation at that moment rather than from the situation before the accident.
Notify the SAAQ without delay. The instrument here uses a word rather than a number: "without delay". Any person claiming an indemnity must notify the SAAQ without delay of any change in their situation affecting their right to an indemnity or its amount.
The SAAQ may reduce, interrupt or cease payment when a person refuses to provide requested information, refuses without valid reason recommended treatments or the rehabilitation program, or delays their recovery through their actions.
Have SAAQ deadlines changed in 2026?
No dates on this page have changed in 2026. The deadlines above are those of the Automobile Insurance Act, and this page was verified in August 2026 based on the Act as codified on 1er avril 2026.
What changes every year is money, not time. The amounts provided by the Act are revalued every January 1, and the maximum insurable amount used to calculate your income replacement indemnity is indexed annually. That's why no figures appear on this page. An amount cited in an article written last year is likely to be wrong today, and the deadline printed right next to it is likely to still be correct.
That's all there is to say about it. Nothing in the Act as codified on 1er avril 2026, moves the sixty days or the three years. If you were told that a date on an old letter no longer applies, check the letter rather than the year.
Do I need a lawyer to claim from the SAAQ?
Not to open a claim. There is no one opposing you. Compensation is granted regardless of responsibility and no action can be taken against the responsible person, so there is no opposing party or settlement to negotiate downwards.
The process is designed to accept imperfect paperwork. No document is refused due to a drafting defect or a procedural irregularity. Before rendering its decision on review, the SAAQ must give you the opportunity to present your observations and complete your file, and the agent must withdraw when there is a reasonable fear of bias.
You can appoint a representative, and the system expects it. The review officer communicates with you or your representative within ten working days of receiving the request. If your review request or appeal is granted and you have submitted a written expert report from a health professional, you are entitled to reimbursement for this report up to a set amount, so the cost of the only document that truly matters is not necessarily yours to bear.
What no representative will be able to do afterwards is reconstruct the file you haven't kept. No matter what you decide about help, the dates and notes, they belong to you.
Dates don't tell the whole story. Knowing when a step needs to be taken doesn't tell you how a SAAQ claim actually works, what income replacement benefits truly cover, or what to do when a decision goes against you.
Recovering after a car accident in Quebec covers the entire process and is free to read. Injured at work rather than on the road? The deadlines are different and can be found at CNESST claim deadlines. Did your accident happen in another province? Start with the guides by province and territory.
Last verified: August 2026
Verified against: the Automobile Insurance Act as codified on 1er avril 2026, the Regulation respecting the processing of a claim for indemnity or a review application, and the SAAQ page on contesting a decision. The amounts provided for by the Act are revalued every January 1, so we do not cite any figures here. Confirm yours with the SAAQ.
Deadlines change. If you find outdated information on this page, write to Recovery@hurtsquare.ca and we will correct it publicly.
Keeping the records on which these deadlines depend
Quebec gives you three years and no adversary. What it doesn't give you is a second chance on a decision left aside for sixty-one days, nor a way to prove in the third year what you never recorded in the second month.
Two things determine the fate of a claim. What you have recorded and whether you did the right thing at the right time where you live. The National MVA Recovery Guide covers the first part, the daily log of symptoms, appointments, calls, and expenses on which a claim is ultimately judged. The second part, the deadlines on this page as well as the forms, organizations, and appeal routes that underpin them, is covered in the SAAQ Companion Guide: Road Accident in Quebec. People who only have one of the two often end up with a well-kept file intended for the wrong process, or with the right dates and nothing to put before them.
Recovery first. Pressure next.
EVERYTHING ON THIS PAGE, AND WHAT COMES NEXT
The SAAQ Companion Guide: Road Accident in Quebec
This page gives you the dates. The guide takes you through it, and gives you a place to note what happened at each one.
- The six clocks, with what starts each one
- What to note the day a SAAQ decision arrives, starting with the date you received it
- The review in order, from the application to the Administrative Tribunal of Quebec
- Fillable on your phone, at 11 PM, in bed
24,99 $ · instant download · yours for good
See the SAAQ Companion GuideMost people get it with the National MVA Recovery Guide, the daily log of symptoms, appointments, calls, and expenses on which these dates rely.
Not ready for that? The three-day checklist can be found at hurtsquare.ca/72. It's free and asks nothing of you.
This page contains general information intended for people in Quebec. It is not legal or medical advice. Rules vary from province to province and change over time. Verify any information specific to your situation with a lawyer, the SAAQ, or the Administrative Tribunal of Quebec.