Employment Rights Act 2025 - Extension of Employment Tribunal time limits

From today, 1 October 2026, the Employment Rights Act 2025 will increase the time limit to bring most types of Employment Tribunal claims from three months to six months.

Practically speaking, this will mean that employees will now have six months, where the ‘relevant date’ is on or after 1 October 2026, to contact ACAS and commence early conciliation (which is the first step in pursuing an Employment Tribunal claim).

What is the relevant date?

The ‘relevant date’ is either the date an employee’s employment terminates, or the date of another act complained of. For instance, for a wages claim, the ‘relevant date’ will be the date an employee says they were not paid correctly, or in a discrimination claim it will be the last alleged act of discrimination.

It is important to note that the six month time limit will only apply to those claims where the relevant date is on or after 1 October 2026; claims where the relevant date is before 1 October 2026 will still be subject to the three month time limit.

What is early conciliation?

Early conciliation is a service provided by ACAS, to enable the parties in an employment law dispute to try to reach an agreement, usually a financial settlement, without the employee having to formally issue a claim in the Employment Tribunal.

For almost all types of claims, an employee must commence early conciliation prior to issuing their claim. Early conciliation lasts up to 12weeks, during which time the employee and employer can, if they wish, try to resolve the dispute without having to go to an Employment Tribunal. If an agreement is not reached in this time period, ACAS issues a certificate, which allows the employee to issue a claim in the Tribunal. Without that certificate, no claim can be issued (although an employee can choose to contact ACAS and confirm that they don’t wish to conciliate, in which case the certificate is issued without the employer even being alerted).

When an employee commences early conciliation, this ‘stops the clock’ on the six month time limit; the clock is paused for the duration of early conciliation. So, if early conciliation lasts for two months, the employee effectively has eight months from that ‘relevant date’ to bring their claim. To make the process even more complicated, employees are always given a clear month after their early conciliation certificate is issued to bring their claim. That means, then, that for a dismissal effected today (1 October 2026), it is quite possible that an employee would not need to issue their claim with the Tribunal until nearing the end of July 2027.

What does it mean?

Put simply, employees now have more time to assess their options and prepare their claims, and there is less chance of them missing the deadline to bring a claim. In short, your business might be sued more.

It is widely considered that the change will compound and contribute to further delay and backlog in an already inundated Tribunal system. It is now more than likely that it will take years for any Tribunal claim to reach a final hearing; the Employment Team here are already having final hearings listed for 2029, and that delay is only going to increase. Contrast that with the position a few short years ago, where in many cases there would only be a period of six or seven months from a claim being issued to it being heard by a Judge at a final hearing.

This will have serious implications on an employer’s ability to file an accurate and robust defence (and ironically, employers still only have28 days to do that). Given the strain on the Tribunal service (which means that even once a claim is issued by an employee, in many cases it is not processed by the Tribunal and sent to the employer for in excess of three months), there is a strong possibility that an employer could dismiss an employee and not receive claim paperwork from the Tribunal until more than a year after the dismissal took place. That passage of time will necessarily make it more difficult for an employer to recall what happened, and key documents relating to the matter may have been lost or destroyed, which makes filing a defence somewhat tricky...  

That will also have an impact on witness evidence at any final hearing; not only will witnesses be harder to track down, but their recollection of events will, of course, have deteriorated, particularly if they are giving evidence at a final hearing three years after the allegations in question.

So, what do I do?

Records and documentation are, more than ever, going to be crucial. We would recommend that, as an employer, there is a renewed focus on the HR basics: documenting properly and fully all discussions held with employees; ensuring emails are saved to appropriate personnel files where concerns have been raised; making sure that Teams messages are downloaded and saved down at the time; screen grabbing and saving WhatsApp and text messages; and ensuring that final versions of all letters and other correspondence in relation to employee matters are saved to their files.

What will also be key is reviewing document retention and storage policies to ensure that those documents / emails / Teams messages etc. are not deleted.  Many businesses have auto-delete functions applied to email and Teams messages (in particular) to delete them after a year. We would highly recommend re-visiting that; if all of those documents are wiped after a year, when that claim form lands on your desk 15 months after a dismissal, all of your evidence will already be gone. More generally it would also be worth re-visiting how long you hold former employee personnel files before deleting them; it may well be that the time period needs to increase.

We would also recommend, where you consider it is likely that a claim might be brought (and there are signs! – ACAS early conciliation for one, an employee out and out threatening it for another, and that HR Director sixth sense, which is usually spot on), to take early proofs of evidence from key witnesses. Those should document your witnesses’ recollections of key meetings and interactions with the employee in question, thought processes in relation to decisions taken by those people, and their views and perspectives at the time. That makes preparing a witness statement three years later much, much, easier.

Whilst we’ve painted (admittedly) a rather bleak picture, allis not lost. As an employer, if you are aware of these potential ramifications of this change, and take the steps above to address them now, then both you, and we as your solicitors, will be well equipped to mount a robust and winning defence if that Tribunal claim drops through your letterbox (and on that, do check your post regularly –Tribunals still post claims out on actual paper!). If you’d like to speak to one of our Team to discuss how they can help you with and the things you should be thinking about, please contact Eleanor Disney on edisney@leathesprior.co.uk.

Note: The content of this article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Specific legal advice should be taken in any specific circumstance.