Generally yes, once your internal appeal is exhausted. The lawsuit is narrower than a general civil case, and your plan may set its own deadline for starting one.
Once you have exhausted your plan's internal appeal process (or qualify for deemed exhaustion because the plan failed to follow the claims procedures the regulation requires), you can generally file a federal lawsuit under ERISA to challenge the denial. Being allowed to sue is not the same as having unlimited time to do it, which is the next thing to check.
That lawsuit is not a fresh trial of whether you are disabled. As covered in the administrative record explained, the court's review is often limited to the record that existed when the plan decided your appeal, and this site could not source how an ERISA benefits case is tried, so do not assume it will look like a civil trial you have seen described elsewhere. Whether the court decides the case fresh or only checks whether the plan's decision was reasonable depends on whether your plan document contains a discretionary clause, covered in standard of review.
Given those limits, most of what determines whether a lawsuit succeeds was decided during the internal appeal, by what evidence went into the file and how thoroughly the denial's stated reasons were addressed. This is why every guide on this site treats the appeal, not the lawsuit, as the step that actually decides the outcome.
The 180 days is the window to file your internal appeal. It says nothing about how long you have to start a lawsuit once the appeal is finally denied. That second deadline, where one applies to your claim, comes from the plan or policy document itself, where it is called a contractual limitations period. Its length is set by your own plan document, not by the federal regulation, so nothing in the general rules will tell you what it is.
You are not left to dig it out of the plan document yourself, though. For a disability claim the regulation requires the final denial notice to do more than mention your right to sue: "the statement of the claimant's right to bring an action under section 502(a) of the Act shall also describe any applicable contractual limitations period that applies to the claimant's right to bring such an action, including the calendar date on which the contractual limitations period expires for the claim."
So go and find that calendar date in the notice you were sent. If it is not there, ask the plan administrator for it in writing and keep the request. Do not estimate it, do not assume a general court deadline applies instead, and do not assume that finishing the appeal resets it. A missed limitations period generally ends the case without a court ever reaching the merits, which is the same shape of loss as a missed appeal deadline and just as final.
What a court can award if you win, and whether attorney's fees can be part of that award, are legal questions that depend on the specific claim you bring and the facts of your case. This site does not attempt to state what remedies apply in general, since getting this wrong could understate or overstate what is actually available to you. Ask an attorney who handles ERISA LTD litigation to explain what relief is realistically available before you decide whether to file suit.
What the court itself charges to open the case is fixed and public, so it is worth stating plainly rather than leaving as an unknown:
Cost to open a federal civil case
$405
$350 filing fee plus $55 administrative fee, per case
28 U.S.C. 1914(a) for the $350 filing fee, and the Judicial Conference's District Court Miscellaneous Fee Schedule, issued under 1914(b) and effective 1 December 2023, for the $55 administrative fee. Both read 2026-09-16.
That total is two charges, not one. The statute sets the first: the clerk of each district court must require "a filing fee of $350." The same section lets the clerk "collect from the parties such additional fees only as are prescribed by the Judicial Conference of the United States," and the schedule the Judicial Conference issues under it adds the second: "Administrative fee for filing a civil action, suit, or proceeding in a district court, $55."
The same line of the fee schedule carries an exemption aimed at people in roughly your position: the $55 "does not apply to applications for a writ of habeas corpus or to persons granted in forma pauperis status under 28 U.S.C. § 1915." Section 1915 is the in forma pauperis provision itself. Its first paragraph is the one you would be applying under, and it is worth reading before you rely on it rather than after:
Subject to subsection (b), any court of the United States may authorize the commencement, prosecution or defense of any suit, action or proceeding, civil or criminal, or appeal therein, without prepayment of fees or security therefor, by a person who submits an affidavit that includes a statement of all assets such prisoner possesses that the person is unable to pay such fees or give security therefor. Such affidavit shall state the nature of the action, defense or appeal and affiant's belief that the person is entitled to redress.
28 U.S.C. 1915(a)(1), United States Code 2023 edition
Several things in that paragraph matter before you plan around it, and this is not a list of everything in it. The court "may authorize" it, so the affidavit is a request and not a switch you flip. What it authorises is going ahead "without prepayment of fees or security therefor", which is about paying up front rather than about the fee being cancelled, though the fee schedule quoted above separately says the $55 does not apply to someone granted the status. And the affidavit is not a statement that money is short: it has to include "a statement of all assets", which is a sworn schedule of what you own rather than a declaration that money is short, and that disclosure is the substantive work in an in forma pauperis application.
One oddity in the text is worth naming rather than smoothing over, because you will notice it: the assets clause as enacted reads "all assets such prisoner possesses" even though the paragraph itself applies to any person. That wording arrived with the 1996 amendment, which the section's own editorial notes record as having substituted "submits an affidavit that includes a statement of all assets such prisoner possesses" for "makes affidavit". This site did not source how courts read that word for a non-prisoner, so do not read it as excusing you from the assets disclosure. Ask the clerk's office of the district you are filing in what its in forma pauperis application requires.
It is also not true that the rest of the section is somebody else's problem. Paragraph (a)(2), subsection (b), paragraph (f)(2), subsection (g) and the definition in subsection (h) are written about prisoners and do not describe a benefits case brought from outside custody. What is left does apply to you, and parts of it can cost you the case or cost you money. The provisions quoted below are the ones this page read and thought worth putting in front of you, not a list of everything in the section that can affect you, so read the section itself rather than this summary of it. This one is mandatory, and it applies whether or not you have paid anything:
Notwithstanding any filing fee, or any portion thereof, that may have been paid, the court shall dismiss the case at any time if the court determines that— (A) the allegation of poverty is untrue; or (B) the action or appeal— (i) is frivolous or malicious; (ii) fails to state a claim on which relief may be granted; or (iii) seeks monetary relief against a defendant who is immune from such relief.
28 U.S.C. 1915(e)(2), United States Code 2023 edition
Another closes the route on appeal, and it needs no motion from the other side:
An appeal may not be taken in forma pauperis if the trial court certifies in writing that it is not taken in good faith.
28 U.S.C. 1915(a)(3), United States Code 2023 edition
And one sits at the far end of the case rather than at the start of it. What subsection (a)(1) authorises is going ahead without prepayment. It does not decide who pays when the case is over, and paragraph (f)(1) says so in terms. The paragraph after it, (f)(2), is about how a prisoner pays such an order; (f)(1) itself is not:
Judgment may be rendered for costs at the conclusion of the suit or action as in other proceedings, but the United States shall not be liable for any of the costs thus incurred. If the United States has paid the cost of a stenographic transcript or printed record for the prevailing party, the same shall be taxed in favor of the United States.
28 U.S.C. 1915(f)(1), United States Code 2023 edition
So in forma pauperis status is not a promise that the case will cost you nothing. It can let a case start that you could not otherwise afford to start. It also puts a sworn account of your finances in front of the court, gives the court a standing power to dismiss the case at any point if it decides that account was untrue, or that the claim is frivolous or malicious, fails to state a claim, or seeks money from a defendant who is immune, lets the trial judge shut off an in forma pauperis appeal by certifying in writing that it is not taken in good faith, and leaves costs to be awarded at the end of the case as in any other proceeding. This site did not source how often a costs judgment is actually entered against an unsuccessful in forma pauperis plaintiff, or what a court may do about one you cannot pay, so do not read the paragraph above as either a likelihood or a reassurance: read it as a risk to ask about. That is a serious filing, not a fee waiver form, and it is worth going through with an attorney or the clerk's office rather than assuming $405 is simply the price of entry.
Court charges are also not the whole cost of a case. Attorney fees, records, expert and vocational reports and copying are separate again, and are set by whatever arrangement you make, not by the court: see do I need a lawyer for an ERISA LTD appeal. Fee schedules change, so check the current schedule before you rely on the figure above.
29 CFR 2560.503-1(j)(4)(ii) for the contractual limitations period disclosure. 28 U.S.C. 1914 for the $350 filing fee and for the Judicial Conference's authority to prescribe additional fees. The District Court Miscellaneous Fee Schedule, effective 1 December 2023, for the $55 administrative fee and the in forma pauperis exemption. 28 U.S.C. 1915, United States Code 2023 edition, for paragraphs (a)(1), (a)(3), (e)(2) and (f)(1) quoted above, for which subsections are written about prisoners, and for the 1996 amendment note on the assets clause. Every quotation from it is character-for-character from that page, fetched raw rather than read through a summary: HTTP 200, 16,546 bytes. Read 2026-09-16 and re-fetched the same day when (f)(1) was added, same status and same byte count. The other sources were read 2026-09-16.