Tribunal Time Limits Double to Six Months from 1 October 2026 — Who It Helps and Who It Doesn't

Section 152 and Schedule 12 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 come into force on 1 October 2026. Together they rewrite the time limit in dozens of employment statutes, replacing "three months" with "six months" for most claims an Employment Tribunal can hear.

In practice that means unfair dismissal, discrimination, unlawful deduction from wages, redundancy pay, detriment claims and most of the other everyday tribunal claims move from three months minus one day to six months minus one day, counted from the act complained of.

The commencement regulations are SI 2026/954. ACAS has published its own summary of the Act at acas.org.uk.

This is the part that will catch people out. The regulations contain a transitional rule: the new six-month limit does not apply where the "relevant date" falls before 1 October 2026.

The relevant date is, for most claims, the date of the act, conduct or failure you are complaining about. For a series of similar acts, it is the last act in the series.

So if you were dismissed in September 2026, you are still on the three-month clock, even though you will be filing in October, November or December when the new law is in force. Do not read a headline about "six months" and assume it applies to you. Check the date of the dismissal or the discriminatory act, not today's date.

For a continuing course of discriminatory conduct that started before October but continued after it, the last act sets the relevant date, which may bring you inside the six-month limit. If that is your position, get advice quickly rather than relying on it.

Not everything moves. Employment law firms and trade union lawyers reporting on the change say that breach of contract claims brought in the tribunal — typically unpaid notice pay and wrongful dismissal — remain on the three-months-minus-one-day limit, because the 1994 order that gives tribunals jurisdiction over contract claims sits outside Schedule 12. If you have both an unfair dismissal claim and a notice pay claim from the same dismissal after 1 October, the safe course is to treat the whole thing as a three-month deadline.

The "not reasonably practicable" and "just and equitable" tests for late claims are unchanged. Six months is more generous, but it is still a hard limit, and tribunals will not be more forgiving of a claim that is late under the new rule than they were under the old one.

ACAS Early Conciliation remains mandatory. One earlier change is worth knowing about: for notifications made on or after 1 December 2025, the conciliation period can last up to 12 weeks rather than six. The clock is still paused while conciliation runs, and you still get at least one month from the certificate date to file.

The second wave lands on 1 January 2027 under SI 2026/559. From that date:

• The qualifying period for ordinary unfair dismissal drops from two years to six months. Employees dismissed with between six months' and two years' service will be able to claim for the first time.
• The statutory cap on the compensatory award is removed. Awards will still be assessed on actual loss and the duty to mitigate, but the ceiling goes.

The transitional rule here works on the effective date of termination: the new rights apply where the effective date of termination is on or after 1 January 2027, even if notice was given in December. If you have under two years' service and are dismissed in late 2026, the date your employment actually ends matters a great deal.

A separate duty on employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment, extending to harassment by third parties, comes into force on 30 October 2026, with a compensation uplift of up to 25 per cent where it is breached.

Dismissed before 1 October 2026: nothing has changed for you. Notify ACAS within three months minus one day of the dismissal. Our free ET deadline checker works out the exact date, including the ACAS extension.

Dismissed on or after 1 October 2026: you have six months minus one day, unless your only claim is for breach of contract. The checker applies the correct limit based on the date you enter.

Under two years' service and being dismissed late in 2026: note your effective date of termination carefully. If it falls on or after 1 January 2027 you may have an unfair dismissal claim you would not otherwise have had.

Whichever limit applies, the practical advice has not changed: the earlier you notify ACAS, the more of your time limit you keep in hand, and the stronger your position in conciliation.