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Tribunal claims get six months from 1 October — but not for September
The Employment Rights Act doubles most tribunal time limits to six months on 1 October 2026 — but only for acts that happen on or after that date.
6 months New tribunal time limit
On 1 October the time limit for bringing most employment tribunal claims doubles. Three months minus a day becomes six months minus a day. It is one of the measures in the Employment Rights Act 2025, which is being switched on in batches rather than all at once.
The six-month limit applies only where the act, or the failure to act, being complained about happens on or after 1 October 2026 — so a dismissal in September stays on the old three-month clock. What matters is the date of the thing you are complaining about. Not the date you file. Not the date you first thought about filing.
It is not backdated
So two people a single day apart get very different deadlines.
| Dismissed on | Time limit | Last day to claim |
|---|---|---|
| 30 September 2026 | Three months less one day | 29 December 2026 |
| 1 October 2026 | Six months less one day | 31 March 2027 |
Where a complaint is about a series of acts rather than one event — a run of unlawful deductions from wages, a pattern of harassment — the extension only applies if the last act in that series falls on or after 1 October.
One group waits longer. For breach of employment contract claims in Scotland, the change arrives on 9 November 2026.
What has not changed
You still have to tell Acas, the conciliation service, before you can bring most claims. Notifying Acas pauses the clock rather than eating into it — but only if you notify within your time limit in the first place. Early conciliation itself is voluntary; telling Acas is not.
The change is to when you must act. It is not a change to what you can claim, or to what you have to prove once you do.
The rest of the autumn
A second batch follows on 30 October 2026. It includes a strengthened duty on employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment, employer liability for harassment by third parties, stronger protection from detriment for workers taking industrial action, and changes to public sector outsourcing rules.
Earlier batches have already landed. On 6 April 2026 paternity and ordinary parental leave became day-one rights, statutory sick pay began from the first day of illness, sexual harassment became a qualifying disclosure for whistleblowing, and employers were told to keep holiday records for six years. Electronic voting in union ballots arrived on 25 August 2026.
That is the pattern worth holding on to. “The new employment law” is not one law with one start date. It is a long list of measures with dates spread across 2026 and 2027 — the two-year qualifying period for unfair dismissal, for instance, does not drop to six months until 1 January 2027. A right a friend in another job already has may not have reached you yet, and an employer still applying the old rule is not necessarily in the wrong.
If a deadline is already close
The old three-month limit is short and unforgiving, and it runs from the date of the act, not from the date you worked out what your options were. Anyone whose job ended over the summer is on the old clock. Waiting for 1 October does not move them onto the new one.
If you are leaving an NHS or council job, our pages on NHS redundancy pay and NJC leavers set out what is owed on the way out.
Where these figures come from
- Employment Rights Act 2025 — Acas
- The Employment Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 2 and Transitional and Saving Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 — legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 2025: October 2026 implementation dates confirmed — Blake Morgan
- Make a claim to an employment tribunal: when you can claim — GOV.UK
Every figure traces to a dated document — the line this section is named after. If one here is wrong, tell us and it gets fixed publicly. Work out your own figures.