What is the Time Period in Which to Submit a Claim to the RAF?

Under the Road Accident Fund Act 56 of 1996 (as amended by the RAF Amendment Act 19 of 2005 and subsequent amendments), claims for compensation from the Road Accident Fund (RAF) must generally be lodged within two years from the date of the motor vehicle accident that gave rise to the injury or death. The clock starts on the accident date for drivers and passengers; from the date of death for dependants of a deceased victim; from the date a latent injury is diagnosed by a medical practitioner where the injury only manifests after the accident; and (in special cases) from the date of death of the estate’s deceased in claims by the deceased’s estate. Minors and persons under legal disability get a suspended or deferred limitation period in defined circumstances. Missing the statutory deadline can bar the claim entirely, although the section dealing with limitations leaves a narrow window for condonation in limited circumstances — which makes confirming the deadline with an attorney the practical first step in any MVA case.

The Statutory Framework: How the RAF Limitation Period Works

The RAF scheme is governed by the Road Accident Fund Act 56 of 1996 (as amended); the limitation rule is part of the Act itself, not the Regulations, and so is the same across every province and court in South Africa. The statutory time limit governs the right to claim, not the litigation process — it is a bar to the claim if missed, not merely a procedural delay. The default rule is a two-year limitation period running from the date of the event that gives rise to the claim.

The scheme was substantially amended by the RAF Amendment Act 19 of 2005 and the regulations that followed, which restructured the claims process (prescribed claim forms, regional offices, statutory caps, and tariff structures) — none of which altered the two-year ceiling for submitting the claim itself. Because the rule is statutory, it overrides any contractual arrangement between the parties and applies even where the other driver or vehicle is unknown.

The Default Rule: Two Years from the Date of the Accident

For drivers and passengers of a motor vehicle injured in a collision with another motor vehicle on a public road, the claim is barred unless lodged within two years of the accident date. The RAF claim is a statutory right, not a contractual one — it does not arise from any fault or negligence by the driver of the other vehicle; the scheme is no-fault against the Fund. The claim runs against the Fund itself, not against the other driver; the other driver’s identity and insurer are not the gating factor.

This is the rule most claimants rely on, but it is only the starting point: a handful of statutory categories shift the date on which the two-year clock begins. Treating the accident date as the universal trigger is the single most common source of missed deadlines in practice.

Different Starting Dates for Different Categories of Claimant

The Act does not apply one uniform date across all claimants. The two-year clock starts from different trigger events depending on who is claiming and what was lost:

Category of Claimant	Trigger Event for the Two-Year Clock
Driver or passenger injured in an MVA	Date of the accident
Dependant of a deceased victim	Date of death of the deceased (not the date of the accident)
Person with a late-manifesting injury	Date the injury is diagnosed by a medical practitioner, where the injury only becomes apparent after the accident
Estate of a deceased victim (where the deceased dies before bringing the claim)	Subject to the statutory rule applicable to estates, run from the date of death
Child born with injuries as a result of the accident	Tied to the diagnosis or judicial recognition of the injury, with the additional minor-protection rules described below

For dependants of a deceased victim, the right of action accrues only on death, which is why the Act anchors the clock to the date of death rather than the accident date. Where the deceased dies before bringing the claim, the executor may lodge the claim on behalf of the estate under the rules applicable to estates. For children born with injuries as a result of the accident, the limitation trigger is still tied to the diagnosis or judicial recognition of the injury, but minors also benefit from the special protection described next.

Special Protection for Minors and Persons Under Disability

A minor (a person under 18) generally cannot be expected to enforce a claim in their own right while still a child — the limitation rules provide specific protection so that the period does not begin to run against a minor while they are under 18 in defined circumstances. Persons under legal disability (e.g. persons of unsound mind, persons under curatorship) likewise benefit from suspended or extended time to claim in certain defined circumstances.

This is one of the most often-overlooked parts of the rule — many laypeople assume a two-year clock begins ticking for a child’s injury on the day of the accident, when in fact the statutory protection may defer that clock until majority. Because the precise wording of the protection depends on which statutory provision applies (and the RAF Act has been amended several times since 1996), an early conversation with a personal-injury attorney is the only safe way to confirm which starting date applies to a specific case. Burger Huyser’s general litigation practice — led by Director Nadine Roesch-Prinsloo — handles MVA and RAF matters across the firm’s Gauteng branches and routinely works through these trigger-date questions before lodgement.

The Submission Layer: Where and How the Claim Gets Logged

A claim is lodged by submitting the prescribed RAF claim form (in practice the RAF 1 form for general damages, with the RAF 4 form for serious-injury assessment and the RAF 3 statutory accident report form as supporting documents) plus the required supporting documents. Lodgement is made with the Fund directly through its regional offices, and not through a court — this is what makes the question “how long do I have to submit” different from a litigation prescription question.

The RAF’s own lodgement steps are:

1. Gather the supporting documents required for the claim category (injury or death) and the head of damage claimed (general damages, loss of earnings, past medical expenses, loss of support, funeral expenses).
2. Complete the prescribed statutory claim form (RAF 1 for claims arising from accidents on or after 1 August 2008; the older Form 1 for earlier accidents) together with the RAF 3 accident report form.
3. Submit hard-copy documents with originals to the Fund (faxed copies are accepted only if originals follow; emailed documents are not accepted).
4. Confirm receipt with the Fund by calling 087 820 1111, SMS 44930, or emailing the RAF contact centre.

A claim is “submitted” once the Fund receives a compliant lodgement; an incomplete lodgement can be queried, supplemented, or rejected depending on what is missing, and what counts as a complete lodgement for limitation purposes is itself a point on which early legal advice is essential.

What Happens If You Miss the Deadline

A claim lodged outside the two-year window (without qualifying under one of the special categories) is barred, and the Fund will decline to register or pay it on that basis. The statutory scheme has a limited provision allowing the Fund or the Court, in defined circumstances, to condone late lodgement — but the threshold is not automatic, and relying on condonation without legal advice is a high-risk strategy.

The corollary is straightforward: if the deadline is in any way uncertain (delayed diagnosis, recent capacity change in the injured person, gap between death and dependant awareness), the practical move is to lodge the claim as soon as possible with the documentation available, rather than wait until the documents are perfect. Lodging a slightly incomplete claim inside the window is generally treated more favourably than a complete claim lodged outside the window, because the Fund can request supplementary documents once a claim is on record.

Practical Timelines for Typical MVA Cases

Most clean personal-injury RAF claims are lodged within a few months of the accident — once the claimant has stabilised enough for medical reports and loss-of-earnings calculations to be in place. For serious injuries, the timeline is often longer because the medical report must describe final or near-final sequelae, and medico-legal assessments can take several months to schedule. For fatal cases, the dependent claim typically runs in parallel with the deceased estate administration, which itself takes several months for the Letters of Executorship to issue.

Claim Type	Typical Lodgement Window After the Trigger Event
Minor soft-tissue injury with quick recovery	3–6 months
Serious orthopaedic / spinal injury	6–18 months (depends on medical stabilisation)
Late-manifesting neurological injury	Months after formal diagnosis; must still fall within 2 years of that diagnosis
Fatal claim by dependant	Filed in parallel with estate administration; target well within 2 years of date of death

The timelines above describe the practical shape of a typical file, not the legal ceiling. The hard line is the statutory two-year mark from the applicable trigger — the practical timelines only tell you when most claims happen to be lodged before that line is crossed.

Common Mistakes That Risk the Deadline

Most missed RAF deadlines come from one of a handful of recurring errors:

• Waiting for a settlement offer that never comes — RAF claims do not work like insurance claims; there is no early offer in the ordinary course, and waiting for one can push lodgement past the two-year mark.
• Assuming the insurer that settles the vehicle damage will “handle” the RAF claim — the vehicle claim is a separate contractual claim against the policyholder’s own insurer; it has no bearing on the statutory RAF claim.
• Treating minor injuries as final too early — finalising the claim before the medical condition has stabilised can under-compensate and close off rights without realising it.
• Missing the dependant two-year clock — dependants of a deceased victim sometimes anchor the deadline to the accident date rather than to the date of death; this can cost a year of the available limitation period.

None of these mistakes is obvious until the deadline is already in the past. The pattern in each case is the same — the claimant assumed the RAF worked like a normal insurance claim and only discovered the statutory layer once the two-year mark had been crossed.

What to Do This Week If a Claim Window Is Closing

If a limitation deadline is approaching or uncertain, the practical move is to assemble the four trigger facts and the supporting documents without waiting for the file to be perfect:

1. Confirm the accident date, the date of death (where relevant), the date of medical diagnosis, and the date the claimant turned 18 — these are the only four facts that establish which two-year clock applies.
2. Gather identity documents, the South African Police Service accident report (a J88 form is not sufficient on its own), hospital records, employer or financial records for loss of earnings, and witness details.
3. Instruct a personal-injury attorney before lodging — the form content, the way loss of earnings is computed, and the supporting documents all materially affect the eventual quantum.

Where the claimant is a minor or a person under legal disability, the same checklist applies but the trigger date is determined by the special protection rules rather than the accident date. Confirming the trigger date is the first conversation to have with a personal-injury attorney; lodging a slightly incomplete claim inside the window is almost always preferable to lodging a complete claim outside it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the RAF claim period really two years, or is it different for different claims?

The default rule is two years from the date of the accident, but the clock starts from a different event for dependants of a deceased victim (the date of death), for late-manifesting injuries (the date of medical diagnosis), and for estates. Minors and persons under legal disability have additional protection. Always confirm which trigger applies to a specific case before treating the timeline as fixed.

Does the two years run from the accident or from when I realised I was injured?

It depends on whether the injury was apparent at the time of the accident or only diagnosed afterwards. For an injury that was clearly there at the scene, the clock generally runs from the accident date; for an injury that only becomes apparent afterwards (e.g. a brain or spinal injury that develops gradually), the statutory protection allows the clock to run from the date of medical diagnosis in defined circumstances.

Can the Fund extend the period, or can a court?

The statutory scheme leaves a narrow window of discretion for condonation of late lodgement in defined circumstances. It is not automatic, and the threshold is high; the practical approach is always to lodge a complete claim inside the window rather than rely on condonation.

Can my child still claim when he or she turns 18, even if the accident happened years ago?

The statutory protection for minors is intended to prevent the limitation period from running against a minor while they are still a child. The precise wording of the relevant provision should be checked against the current statute, but the practical protection is real — a child injured in an MVA does not generally lose the right to claim simply because two years have passed since the accident, provided the claim is brought within the period that applies after the claimant’s legal capacity changes.

Does the SAPS accident report stop the clock the day it is opened?

No. The SAPS accident report is one of the supporting documents that go with the claim form; it does not, on its own, lodge the RAF claim or start or stop any time-limit clock. Lodgement happens when the prescribed claim form is submitted to the Fund with the required supporting documents.

What if the other driver fled and I don’t know who they are?

The RAF scheme pays compensation out of the Fund, not from the at-fault driver’s insurer — so the other driver’s identity is not the gating factor for lodging a claim. The claim is against the Fund, and lodgement can proceed even where the other driver is unidentified.

If you (or a family member) have been injured in a motor vehicle accident and the two-year window for lodging an RAF claim is approaching or unclear, the Burger Huyser general litigation team — led by Nadine Roesch-Prinsloo — can confirm which trigger date applies, gather the medical, financial, and police records, and lodge the RAF 1 (and RAF 4 where relevant) with the Fund before the deadline is up. Phone the head office on 011 888 0246 (after-hours 061 516 6878) or visit the team at 49 First Avenue, Linden, Randburg, 2194; the firm also fields MVA and RAF matters from its Centurion, Pretoria, Roodepoort, Sandton, Bedfordview, Midrand and Alberton branches. The firm carries a 4.8/5 average across 250+ Google reviews (Trustindex-verified “Top Rated Law Firm in South Africa”).