Employment Tribunal Time Limits Are Doubling: What Employers Need to Know

From 1 October 2026, employees will have twice as long to bring most types of Employment Tribunal claim. This is a confirmed, locked-in change — not a proposal — and it affects every employer, regardless of size, sector, or whether you’ve ever had a claim brought against you before.

This guide explains what’s changing, in plain English, with no assumed knowledge.

A quick explainer of the terms you’ll see

• Employment Tribunal — the specialist court that hears disputes between employees/workers and employers, such as unfair dismissal or discrimination claims.
• Time limit (or limitation period) — the legal deadline within which someone must bring a claim. Miss it, and the claim can usually be thrown out regardless of its merits.
• Acas early conciliation — a free service that both sides are generally required to use before a claim goes to tribunal, giving the parties a chance to settle without going to a hearing. Using it can pause (“stop the clock” on) the time limit.
• Employment Rights Act 2025 — the new UK law behind this change, and several others we’ve covered in previous articles. It became law on 18 December 2025, though many of its provisions (like this one) come into force later, on separate dates.

What’s changing

Right now, most Employment Tribunal claims — including unfair dismissal, discrimination, whistleblowing, and breaches of working time rules — must be brought within three months less one day of the event being complained about (for example, the date someone was dismissed, or the date of the last incident in a dispute).

From 1 October 2026, that period doubles to six months less one day for the vast majority of claims. This isn’t limited to a handful of claim types — it covers the claims employers deal with most often, including:

• Unfair dismissal
• Discrimination
• Whistleblowing and detriment claims
• Breach of contract
• Breaches of the Working Time Regulations
• TUPE-related claims
• Unlawful deductions from wages
• Part-time and fixed-term worker claims

This brings most claims into line with the time limit that already applies to statutory redundancy pay and equal pay claims, which have long had a longer window.

In Scotland, breach of contract claims move to the new six-month limit slightly later, from 9 November 2026, rather than 1 October.

Which claims does this actually apply to?

This is the detail worth getting right: the new six-month limit only applies where the event being complained about happens on or after 1 October 2026.

• If the dismissal, incident, or last act in a dispute happened before 1 October 2026, the old three-month limit still applies, even if the claim itself is only submitted later.
• If it happens on or after 1 October 2026, the new six-month limit applies.
• For a claim involving a series of related acts (for example, ongoing harassment or a series of unlawful deductions), the relevant date is the last act in that series — so a dispute that started earlier can still fall under the new six-month rule if it continued past 1 October.

Both the old and new rules will effectively run side by side for a while, since claims relating to events shortly before the change will still be working through the old three-month window even after the new rule is live.

Acas early conciliation still applies as before and can pause the clock for up to 12 weeks — meaning the realistic outer limit for some claims could stretch closer to nine months from the original event.

Why this matters for your business

On the surface, this looks like a technical procedural change. In practice, it means your business stays exposed to a potential claim for twice as long after any dismissal, disciplinary outcome, or disputed decision. Concretely, this means:

• Records need to be kept for longer. A dismissal, disciplinary process, or grievance outcome could now generate a valid claim up to six (or effectively closer to nine) months later, rather than three.
• Memory and evidence fade over time. Witnesses move on, managers forget details, and paperwork gets misfiled. A longer time limit makes contemporaneous, well-documented decision-making more important than ever.
• “It’s been quiet, so we’re in the clear” is no longer a safe assumption at the three-month mark — you may need to wait significantly longer before treating a matter as closed.

What employers should do now

1. Extend your document retention periods. Make sure disciplinary files, investigation notes, appraisal records, and dismissal paperwork are kept for at least six months after an employment relationship ends — longer where Acas conciliation might extend the effective window further.
2. Document decisions as you make them, not after the fact. With more time for a dispute to resurface, contemporaneous notes (written close to the time of the decision) carry more weight than notes reconstructed months later.
3. Review your dismissal and disciplinary processes now. If a process isn’t robust, you’re now carrying that risk for twice as long.
4. Don’t assume the old three-month rule still applies by default. Check the date of the underlying event, not just the date a claim is received, when working out which time limit applies.
5. Build this into induction and management training. Managers handling disciplinary or performance issues should understand that “case closed” now takes longer to become genuinely true.

How Cheviot HR can help

Longer tribunal time limits mean the quality of your day-to-day HR documentation matters more than ever. We can review your current record-keeping practices, help you build retention periods that reflect this change, and support you through any live disciplinary, grievance or dismissal process to make sure it’s on solid ground from the outset.

Get in touch at heidi@cheviothr.co.uk or visit https://cheviothr.co.uk to talk through what this means for your business.