From 1 October 2026, most employees will have six months, rather than three, to bring an employment tribunal claim. That’s a significant change and I think it’s worth business owners actually understanding it, rather than filing it away under “something for the HR people to worry about”. (Full disclosure: more time for people to bring claims against employers isn’t obviously good news for my clients, and it probably means more work for people like me, so take my enthusiasm here with the scepticism it deserves.)
Most claims now have double the window
The government has brought into force regulations under the Employment Rights Act 2025 which extend the standard three-month time limit for most employment tribunal claims to six months (technically six months less a day, in the way these things are always phrased, though the extra day rarely matters in practice). This applies in England, Scotland and Wales.
The main change comes from section 152 of, and Schedule 12 to, the Employment Rights Act 2025, brought into force by The Employment Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 5 and Transitional Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/954. I know that sentence reads like it was written to send you to sleep, and in fairness it probably was, but the practical effect is simple enough: most of the claims business owners actually worry about (unfair dismissal, discrimination, whistleblowing and so on) now have double the window in which to be brought.
The claimant still has to go through Acas early conciliation before issuing a claim, and that has to be started within the time limit, which then pauses the clock while it runs. So in practice six months is a floor rather than a ceiling.
Your risk stays live for longer
It’s tempting to read this as an employee-side story: good news for someone who missed the old three-month deadline because they were still recovering from being dismissed, or simply hadn’t got round to finding a solicitor. It is that. But from where you sit as the person running the business, the practical effect is that any dismissal, disciplinary outcome, redundancy process or workplace dispute now stays “live” for twice as long before you can reasonably assume nobody is coming after it.
That has a few knock-on effects worth thinking about now rather than in six months’ time. Records need to be kept, and kept properly, for longer; a dismissal in October 2026 could still generate a claim well into 2027. The gap between an event and a hearing gets longer too, given how backed up tribunals already are, so managers may be asked to recall specific details many months, sometimes years, after the event. And how you handle an exit, including whether a settlement agreement is worth the cost, matters more, because the informal assumption that a dispute has gone away takes longer to become a safe one.
If managing that kind of risk is new territory, I’ve written more generally about it on the advice for employers page.
The date that decides which limit applies
The extension doesn’t apply retrospectively, which is probably obvious but worth spelling out, because I suspect some people will get caught out by it. The regulations work from a “relevant date”: broadly, the date of the act, conduct or failure being complained about, or, where there’s a series of related acts (a series of unlawful deductions from wages, say), the date of the last one in that series.
If the relevant date falls before 1 October 2026, the old three-month limit still applies. If it falls on or after 1 October 2026, the new six-month limit applies. So a dismissal taking effect on 30 September 2026 is on the old three-month clock; one taking effect the next day is on the new six-month clock. It’s an arbitrary line, but most limitation periods are.
Some claims needed separate regulations
Schedule 12 doesn’t cover every type of tribunal claim, so a handful of other instruments extend the same six-month limit to the claims left out of it.
The largest group is dealt with by The Employment Tribunal (Extension of Time Limits) (Miscellaneous Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/758, which also comes into force on 1 October 2026. That covers claims by part-time workers and fixed-term employees, blacklisting, exclusivity terms in zero-hours contracts, information and consultation failures, and certain NHS whistleblowing matters. Breach of contract claims brought in the tribunal (rather than the county court) in England and Wales move from three to six months under a separate Order on the same date; in Scotland the equivalent change follows on 9 November 2026. Complaints under the rules on requests for time off for study or training, including being accompanied at the meeting about it, also move to six months.
None of this changes the underlying law on any of these claims. It only changes how long someone has to bring one.
What I would actually do about it
I don’t think this is cause for panic for most businesses. It’s a procedural change, not a new right, and it doesn’t make any dismissal or decision unlawful that wasn’t already unlawful. But it does shift the risk timeline, and that’s worth reflecting in how you handle exits and disputes from October onward.
In practice, that probably means keeping dismissal, disciplinary and redundancy paperwork for longer than you currently do; making sure managers write things down properly at the time, because “I’m sure I’ll remember why we did that” becomes a weaker plan the longer the gap gets; and being a little more careful about loose ends after someone leaves.
If you’re mid-process on anything right now (a dismissal, a grievance, a redundancy exercise) it’s worth knowing which side of 1 October 2026 the relevant date falls on, because it changes how long the issue could realistically stay open. Working that out can get fiddly depending on the type of claim, so don’t assume.
I’d also use this as an excuse to pull out your employment contracts and staff handbook and check they still line up with where the law has got to, since the time limit change is only one part of a much bigger set of Employment Rights Act 2025 reforms landing through 2026 and into 2027. Nobody reviews a staff handbook for fun, but a dated one is exactly the sort of thing that turns up in evidence months after everyone involved has forgotten what it said.
Acas has a short guide to employment tribunal time limits if you want the employee’s-eye view.
I advise business owners on employment issues alongside buying and selling companies, including exits and settlement agreements. If any of this touches something you’re dealing with right now, get in touch and I’ll tell you where I think you stand.
Written by Steven Mather, a business solicitor acting on company sales and purchases. This is general information about the law, not legal advice on your situation.
Written by Steven Mather, a business solicitor acting on company sales and purchases. This is general information about the law, not legal advice on your situation.
