Reference Source

Small Claims Court Dollar Limits by State

Maximum dollar amount you can sue for in small claims court in each US state and DC, with the controlling statute cited. Includes jurisdictional limit, entity distinctions (individual vs business where applicable), and the court name used in that state.

Records35
Sources35
Verified
Review by
Licencepublic-domain-facts

The data

statedollar limitcourt namestatute citationbusiness limit
Arizona$5,000small claims divisionAriz. Rev. Stat. § 22-503(A)
Californiatwelve thousand five hundred dollars ($12,500)small claims courtCal. Code Civ. Proc. § 116.221
Coloradoseven thousand five hundred dollarssmall claims courtColo. Rev. Stat. § 13-6-403(1)(a)
Connecticutfive thousand dollarsSuperior CourtConn. Gen. Stat. § 51-15(d)
Delaware$25,000Justice of the Peace Court10 Del. C. § 9301(1)
District of Columbia$10,000Small Claims and Conciliation BranchD.C. Code § 11-1321
Hawaii$5,000small claims division of the district courtHaw. Rev. Stat. § 633-27(a)(1)
Idahofifteen thousand dollars ($15,000)Small Claims Department of the Magistrate’s DivisionIdaho Code § 1-2301
Iowasix thousand five hundred dollarsIowa Code § 631.1(1)(b)
Kansas$10,000Kan. Stat. Ann. § 61-2703(a)
Maine$10,00014 M.R.S. § 7482
Maryland$5,000District CourtMd. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 4-405
Massachusetts$7,000district court department and the Boston municipal court departmentMass. Gen. Laws ch. 218, § 21
Michigan$7,000.00small claims divisionMich. Comp. Laws § 600.8401(e)
Minnesota$20,000conciliation courtMinn. Stat. § 491A.01, subd. 3(a)
Missourifive thousand dollarssmall claims courtMo. Rev. Stat. § 482.305
Montana$7,000small claims courtMont. Code Ann. § 25-35-502(1)
Nebraskaseven thousand five hundred dollarsSmall Claims CourtNeb. Rev. Stat. § 25-2802(4)
Nevada$10,000justice courtNev. Rev. Stat. § 73.010(1)
New Hampshire$10,000N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 503:1, I
North Carolinaten thousand dollars ($10,000)District CourtN.C. Gen. Stat. § 7A-210(1)
North Dakotafifteen thousand dollarssmall claims courtN.D. Cent. Code § 27-08.1-01(1)
Ohiosix thousand dollarssmall claims divisionOhio Rev. Code § 1925.02(A)(1)
OklahomaTen Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00)12 Okla. Stat. § 1751(A)(1)
Oregon$10,000small claims departmentOr. Rev. Stat. § 46.405(3)
Pennsylvania$12,000magisterial district judges42 Pa.C.S. § 1515(a)(3)
Rhode Islandfive thousand dollars ($5,000)R.I. Gen. Laws § 10-16-1
South Carolinaseven thousand five hundred dollarsS.C. Code Ann. § 22-3-10(1)
Utah$20,000small claims courtUtah Code § 78A-8-102(1)(a)(i)(B)
Vermont$10,000.0012 V.S.A. § 5531(a)
Virginia$5,000small claims courtVa. Code § 16.1-122.2
WashingtonTen thousand dollarssmall claims department of the district courtWash. Rev. Code § 12.40.010(1)Five thousand dollars
West Virginia$20,000magistrate courtsW. Va. Code § 50-2-1
Wisconsin$10,000Wis. Stat. § 799.01(1)(d)
Wyomingsix thousand dollars ($6,000.00)circuit courtWyo. Stat. Ann. § 1-21-201

Where this came from

Every record above links the page it was taken from and quotes the sentence that states it. These are the 35 sources this dataset was assembled from.

Machine-readable

From your own code

Same records, same quotes, without scraping the page: refsource is on PyPI and npm. Each value comes back carrying the URL it was read from and the sentence on that page that states it — .source and .quote sit on the value itself rather than in a side channel, so the checking step is available instead of skipped.

pip install refsource
refsource lookup small-claims-court-limits-by-state state=Arizona

npx -y refsource lookup small-claims-court-limits-by-state state=Arizona

Set your AI assistant up to use this

Two files and no account. Put this in .mcp.json at the root of your project — Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code and Codex all read that file — and your assistant can look this dataset up instead of recalling it. The server is remote, keyless and read-only.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "referencesource": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://referencesource.org/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Add to Cursor · or, on the command line: claude mcp add --transport http referencesource https://referencesource.org/mcp --scope project

Then one line in the project's CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md, so the assistant knows when to reach for it:

When a question needs "Small Claims Court Dollar Limits by State", call the referencesource MCP server at https://referencesource.org/mcp (tool `search_records`, dataset_slug `small-claims-court-limits-by-state`) instead of answering from memory — every record it returns carries its source URL and a verbatim quote from that page.

What each tool does, and the servers built over single registers: Connect your AI assistant.

35 records. last verified against source . due for re-check by .

Licence. public-domain-facts