How long court cases take

United States federal courts

Table C-5 of Judicial Business 2025 gives the median time from filing to disposition for civil cases terminated in the 12 months to 30 September 2025, by how the case ended ¹.

A second US series with different results

The Federal Court Management Statistics national profile for the 12 months to 30 June 2026 shows a median of 6.9 months from filing to disposition for civil cases and 7.4 months for criminal felony cases ². It shows a median of 33.7 months from filing to trial in civil cases ². It counts 125,478 civil cases, 26.2%, as over three years old ².

The profile and Table C-5 cover different periods and are separate published series. Their civil medians differ, and this page shows both as published ^1,2.

England and Wales

In April to June 2026, small claims took a median 41.0 weeks from issue to trial in the County Court, 0.7 weeks longer than a year earlier. Fast, intermediate and multi-track claims took a median 55.9 weeks, 6.1 weeks faster than a year earlier ³.

In the Crown Court, the median time from offence to completion was 365 days in April to June 2026. The median from charge to completion was 189 days and from receipt to completion 170 days ⁴. At the end of June 2026 there were 80,829 open Crown Court cases. Of these, 23,706 had been open for a year or more, which the release says is 31% of all open cases, and the median age of an open case was 203 days ⁴.

In the magistrates' courts, the median time from charge to completion was 50 days and from offence to completion 195 days in the same quarter ⁴.

European Union

The 2026 EU Justice Scoreboard uses disposition time, the estimated minimum time a court would need to resolve a case if it keeps its current working conditions. It is the number of unresolved cases divided by the number of resolved cases at the end of a year, multiplied by 365 days ⁵.

For litigious civil and commercial cases at first instance in 2024, the Scoreboard says the length of proceedings decreased or stayed stable in 10 Member States and increased in the remaining 16 ⁵. First instance money laundering cases take between a month and a year on average in 12 Member States, between one and two years in 10, and more than three years in three ⁵.

Canada, Australia and regulators

In Canada, the Supreme Court's 2016 decision in R. v. Jordan set presumptive limits of 18 months for cases tried in provincial court and 30 months for cases tried in superior court ⁷. The Department of Justice reports a median case time of 217 days in adult criminal courts in 2023/2024. Using proxy indicators, it estimates that 9% of cases, 21,218, were potentially at risk of exceeding the Jordan timelines. An infosheet in the same report gives 21,244 ⁷.

The Federal Court of Australia sets a goal of completing 85 per cent of proceedings within 18 months of commencement. In 2023-24 it reported 83 per cent ⁶.

Regulatory cases can take longer. The UK Financial Conduct Authority said in June 2025 that its investigations averaged 42 months in 2023/24, and that five recent investigations had closed with a public outcome in less than 16 months ⁸.