Six-Month Deadline for Tribunal Claims: What Changes on 1 October 2026
Key Takeaways
- From 1 October 2026 most employment tribunal claims must be brought within six months of the event complained of, rather than three.
- The new limit applies only where the act, or the last act in a connected series, happens on or after 1 October 2026.
- Anything that occurred wholly before that date stays under the existing three-month rule, so both regimes will run side by side for months.
- Acas early conciliation can already pause the clock for up to 12 weeks, pushing the realistic outer window for some claims towards nine months.
- Employers should extend document retention periods and record decisions contemporaneously, because disputes will surface far later than they do now.
- The change flows from the Employment Rights Act 2025 and was completed by regulations approved by Parliament in June 2026.
Employers in England, Wales and Scotland face one of the most practical changes yet to come out of the Employment Rights Act 2025. From 1 October 2026, the standard deadline for lodging a claim in the employment tribunal doubles from three months to six months. The reform is set out in section 152 and Schedule 12 of the Act and delivered through the Employment Tribunal (Extension of Time Limits) (Miscellaneous Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2026, which Parliament approved in June 2026.
On paper this is a single number changing. In practice it alters how long a business stays exposed after a dismissal, a disciplinary decision or a disputed deduction from pay. Claims that would previously have expired quietly will now remain live, and evidence that a manager could once recall clearly will be six months colder by the time anyone is asked about it.
What is the new time limit for bringing a claim?
The deadline for presenting most employment tribunal complaints moves from three months less one day to six months less one day from the date of the act being complained about. This covers the bulk of everyday claims, including unfair dismissal, discrimination, unlawful deduction from wages, redundancy payments and whistleblowing detriment.
The regulations achieve this by amending seven separate pieces of secondary legislation, so the extension reaches across the statutory framework rather than sitting in one place. A related order deals with breach of contract claims brought in the employment tribunal in England and Wales, where the time limit runs from the date employment ends. Equivalent provision for Scotland sits with Scottish Ministers rather than the UK Government, so employers operating across the border should confirm the position that applies to each workforce.
What has not changed is the tribunal’s power to allow a late claim. The familiar tests remain: for unfair dismissal, whether it was reasonably practicable to claim in time; for discrimination, whether it is just and equitable to extend. A longer primary limit does not remove that discretion, but it does make late claims harder to justify.
Who does the new six-month limit apply to?
The extension applies only where the act, or failure to act, occurs on or after 1 October 2026. If the events happened entirely before that date, the old three-month deadline governs the claim, whenever it is issued.
Where a complaint concerns a series of connected acts, such as repeated unlawful deductions from wages or a course of discriminatory treatment, the test is the date of the last act in that series. If that final act falls on or after 1 October 2026, the six-month limit applies to the whole series. If the series ended before then, the shorter limit stands.
For breach of contract claims in England and Wales, the trigger is the date employment terminates. Terminations before 1 October 2026 keep the existing three-month deadline.
The consequence is a period of overlap. Through late 2026 and into 2027, HR teams and advisers will need to check the date of the underlying event before assuming which deadline applies, rather than working from the date the claim arrives.
How does this interact with Acas early conciliation?
The two changes compound. Since 1 December 2025, the Acas early conciliation period can last up to 12 weeks rather than six, and time spent in conciliation does not count towards the limitation clock.
Read together, the practical outer edge for some claims stretches close to nine months from the original event. A dismissal in early October 2026 could still produce a tribunal claim well into the following summer, with the parties spending part of that time in conciliation before anything is formally issued.
The Government has said it will review whether the 12-week conciliation window should stay or revert to a shorter period, with that review due in October 2026. Employers should plan on the current position while watching for the outcome.
Why has the deadline been extended?
The stated aim is access to justice. Three months less one day is a short window for someone who has just lost their job, may be unwell, may be waiting on an internal appeal, and may not have taken advice. A significant share of otherwise arguable claims failed on timing alone.
A longer window also gives Acas more room to conciliate properly. Where a conciliator is appointed a fortnight into a six-week period, there is little time left to broker anything. Extending both the conciliation period and the limitation period is intended to let more disputes settle without a hearing, at a point when the tribunal system is carrying substantial backlogs.
What does this mean for employers in practice?
The main effect is a longer tail of risk. Three consequences follow.
Exposure lasts longer
Every decision taken from October onwards carries a six-month claim window instead of three. Restructures, exits and pay disputes will therefore sit on the risk register for twice as long, and provisioning or insurance notification processes should reflect that.
More claims, and later ones
A longer deadline removes a filter that previously disposed of a number of claims without any examination of their merits. Expect volumes to rise, and expect claims to arrive when the events feel like ancient history internally. Combined with existing tribunal delays, a final hearing two years or more after the underlying incident is a realistic prospect.
Evidence becomes the weak point
Memory fades and staff move on. Contemporaneous records are what will carry a defence.
What should employers do before October 2026?
Four steps are worth taking now:
- Review retention periods. Personnel files, disciplinary and grievance papers, absence records, performance notes, redundancy scoring and consultation documents should all be retained for a period that comfortably exceeds the new limitation window plus conciliation and hearing time. Any policy that deletes records at six or twelve months should be reassessed. Retention must still be justified under UK data protection law, so document the reason for holding material for longer rather than simply extending everything indefinitely.
- Record decisions as they are made. Notes written on the day are worth far more than a manager’s recollection two years later. Managers should be trained to capture the reasoning behind a dismissal, a warning or a selection score in writing at the time, in language they would be content to see read aloud in a tribunal.
- Check leaver processes. Departing employees often take their laptops, their inboxes and their institutional memory with them. Exit checklists should capture the relevant documents and confirm where they are stored.
- Diarise the cut-off. From 1 October 2026, the date of the act determines the deadline. Building that question into the standard intake process for any potential claim avoids a costly assumption in either direction.
How Sterling Law can help
Our employment team advises employers on tribunal risk, defence strategy and the practical systems that reduce exposure, including document retention, manager training and settlement negotiation. If you would like a review of your policies before the October 2026 changes take effect, please get in touch.
