Data
How common is a limitation of liability clause?
Can you assume a business contract caps what each side can owe? And how often are some claims left outside the cap?
275 of 510 (53.9%) contain liability-cap language; 235 (46.1%) have none. Separately, 111 (21.8%) leave liability uncapped for certain breaches.
No cap language does not mean every claim is open-ended — general law and other clauses still apply. The “uncapped” category is narrower: wording that takes specific claims outside a cap.
Cap on liability
| Contract type | Contracts with it | Share |
|---|---|---|
| All 510 contracts | 275 of 510 | 53.9% |
| Co-branding agreement | 19 of 22 | 86.4% |
| Hosting agreement | 15 of 20 | 75.0% |
| Distribution agreement | 21 of 32 | 65.6% |
| Maintenance agreement | 22 of 34 | 64.7% |
| Development agreement | 18 of 29 | 62.1% |
| Sponsorship agreement | 19 of 31 | 61.3% |
| Collaboration agreement | 14 of 26 | 53.8% |
| Strategic alliance agreement | 16 of 32 | 50.0% |
| License agreement | 16 of 33 | 48.5% |
| Service agreement | 11 of 28 | 39.3% |
| Endorsement agreement | 4 of 24 | 16.7% |
| Joint venture agreement | 1 of 23 | 4.3% |
Uncapped liability
| Contract type | Contracts with it | Share |
|---|---|---|
| All 510 contracts | 111 of 510 | 21.8% |
| Co-branding agreement | 12 of 22 | 54.5% |
| Hosting agreement | 9 of 20 | 45.0% |
| Development agreement | 10 of 29 | 34.5% |
| License agreement | 9 of 33 | 27.3% |
| Sponsorship agreement | 8 of 31 | 25.8% |
| Distribution agreement | 7 of 32 | 21.9% |
| Collaboration agreement | 5 of 26 | 19.2% |
| Strategic alliance agreement | 6 of 32 | 18.8% |
| Service agreement | 4 of 28 | 14.3% |
| Maintenance agreement | 3 of 34 | 8.8% |
| Endorsement agreement | 0 of 24 | 0.0% |
| Joint venture agreement | 0 of 23 | 0.0% |
What it means before you sign
Nearly half the contracts here had no cap language at all, so a missing cap in yours is common — and still worth asking about. Where there is a cap, the list of carve-outs often matters more than the number.
How we counted
Same as our CUAD report: presence of labelled text, 510 contracts, types with at least 20 contracts shown.
Limits
- Larger-company deals, not consumer or freelance contracts.
- The labels don't say whose liability is capped, or at what amount.
- Small groups per type.
Source: CUAD v1, The Atticus Project (Hendrycks et al., 2021), CC BY 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Counts derived from the published labels; no changes to the underlying data.
Informational — not legal advice.