Six months, not three: the new tribunal deadline arrives on 1 October

For years, the three-month clock has shaped how employers handle dismissals, grievances and disputes. From 1 October 2026, that clock doubles. Nothing about your day-to-day processes changes on the day, which is why this reform is easy to underestimate. What changes is how long the consequences of those processes can come back to you.

What's changing

The deadline for bringing most employment tribunal claims, including unfair dismissal and discrimination, rises from three months to six under the Employment Rights Act 2025. The early conciliation rules have been amended alongside it, so check the detail if your processes reference them.

What isn't changing

• Breach of contract claims on termination stay short. They must still be brought within three months less one day of the end of employment. In Scotland, the equivalent change for these claims takes effect on 9 November 2026.

• It isn't retrospective. The longer limit applies only where the act or failure complained of happens on or after 1 October 2026. For a series of acts, the last one must fall on or after that date. A dismissal in September still runs on the old three-month clock.

  
  

What this looks like in practice

Take an employee with several years' service who is dismissed for performance on 15 October 2026. Under the old rules, the deadline to bring a claim would have fallen in mid-January. Under the new rules, it falls in mid-April.

Now suppose the manager who ran the process leaves in December, and their only record of a key meeting is a set of handwritten notes in a notebook that goes with them. If a claim arrives in April, the employer is defending a decision made six months earlier, with a witness who has moved on and a paper trail with a gap in it. Under the old limit, that claim would probably never have been possible. That's the shift: the same dismissal, handled the same way, carries a longer and less certain tail.

Why it matters more than it looks

More uncertainty after someone leaves. Employers could once feel a dismissal was behind them after three months. Now the window is half a year, and longer once conciliation is factored in.

Evidence goes stale. Managers move on, HR colleagues change roles and emails get archived. An account written at the time is worth far more than one reconstructed later.

Claim volumes may rise. Some practitioners expect the extension to increase claims and add to the pressure on an already backlogged tribunal system. More time also gives someone who has struggled to find new work longer to reconsider.

Settlement conversations change. A longer exposure period affects how employers value exit deals and how long they want a waiver to cover.

What to do now

1. Update retention schedules so investigation notes, disciplinary records and emails are kept for at least the new window.

2. Capture accounts early. Take witness statements as part of the process, not when a claim letter arrives.

3. Record decisions and reasons at the time, in plain language.

4. Brief your managers. Anyone running a disciplinary, redundancy or grievance process should know the clock is longer and the paper trail matters more.

5. Review settlement templates so waiver wording still fits the new limits.

   
   

Quick checklist before 1 October

•  Diary which live cases fall under the old three-month limit and which under the new six-month one

•  Extend document retention to cover at least six months after any exit, plus a margin

•  Move manager notes and meeting records into a shared, retained system

•  Make sure leavers hand over investigation files, not just their laptops

•  Share a one-page briefing on the change with everyone who runs people processes

•  Check settlement agreement templates and timings

  
  

The bottom line

The change is simple to state and slower to feel. Employers who already investigate promptly and keep good records will need to adjust very little. Those who rely on the three-month clock to draw a line under a dispute will find the line has moved. It's also the first step in a bigger programme, with unfair dismissal reforms due in January 2027, so this is a good moment to review your processes as a whole.

If your policies, records or manager training haven't been reviewed with this change in mind, that's exactly the kind of gap Maarifa Consultancy Ltd helps organisations close, working through your processes so you're ready before 1 October rather than reacting after a claim lands.