From 1 October 2026, employees will have considerably longer to bring most Employment Tribunal claims.
The usual time limit is currently three months minus one day. From October, that will increase to six months minus one day for most claims where the relevant event occurs on or after 1 October 2026.
For employers, this is not simply a change to Tribunal procedure. It should also change how you think about HR records, emails, WhatsApp messages, meeting notes and other evidence after an employee leaves or a workplace dispute appears to have ended.
At present, most Employment Tribunal claims must be started within three months less one day of the relevant event.
For example, in an ordinary unfair dismissal claim, time will usually run from the employee's effective date of termination. In a discrimination claim, it will generally run from the discriminatory act complained of, although continuing acts can make the position more complicated.
From 1 October 2026, the time limit for most claims will increase to six months.
The change applies where the relevant time limit starts on or after 1 October 2026. Claims based on events before that date will generally remain subject to the existing time limits.
There is a separate commencement date of 9 November 2026 for breach of employment contract claims in Scotland.
Claims affected include many of the claims employers commonly face, including unfair dismissal, discrimination and claims relating to wages and employment rights.
There is another point employers need to bear in mind.
Before bringing most Tribunal claims, an employee must first notify Acas. If they do so within the relevant limitation period, the Employment Tribunal time limit is paused while Acas early conciliation takes place. Acas says early conciliation can last for up to 12 weeks.
That means an employer should not assume that once six months have passed, a claim can no longer arrive.
The practical period between an incident taking place and the employer receiving an Employment Tribunal claim can be considerably longer.
Employment Tribunal cases often turn on what happened months earlier.
A manager may clearly remember a disciplinary meeting today. Eight or nine months later, that memory may be much less reliable.
The contemporaneous documents created at the time can then become critical.
Depending on the dispute, useful evidence may include:
One common problem is that employers retain the formal outcome letter but lose the evidence explaining how the decision was reached.
The decision-making trail is often just as important as the final letter.
There is another practical problem for small businesses.
Suppose a manager dismisses an employee in October. The manager then leaves the company in January.
The former employee starts Acas early conciliation several months later.
By that stage the manager's company email account may have been deleted, their laptop wiped and their messages removed.
The person who actually made the decision may also be difficult to contact.
The employer is then trying to defend a decision without the person who made it and without the contemporaneous documents behind it.
That is avoidable.
Your employee-leaver process should include consideration of whether the departing employee or manager holds information relating to:
Relevant records should be preserved before accounts or devices are deleted.
No.
Employment records contain personal data, so UK GDPR requirements still apply.
The ICO says there is no single statutory retention period applying to all employment records. Employers should decide how long information is genuinely required and should not retain personal data indefinitely simply because it might one day be useful. The possibility of defending a legal claim can, however, be a legitimate reason for retaining relevant information.
This means the answer is not "keep every employee email forever."
The better approach is to review your retention policy and identify which records may need to be retained for longer because of the new Tribunal limitation periods.
Retention periods should also allow sensible additional time for Acas early conciliation and the administrative period before an employer actually receives a claim.
1. Review your HR retention policy
Check whether any records are currently deleted shortly after the existing three-month Tribunal limitation period.
If so, those periods may need revisiting.
2. Review your leaver process
Do not automatically delete email accounts or HR material without checking whether they contain evidence relating to an existing or recent workplace dispute.
3. Keep the reasoning, not just the result
A dismissal letter saying an employee was dismissed for poor performance is useful.
The meeting notes, warnings, targets, review records and emails showing how that conclusion was reached may be far more important at Tribunal.
4. Preserve evidence as soon as a dispute becomes likely
If an employee threatens a claim, alleges discrimination, raises whistleblowing concerns or begins Acas early conciliation, relevant documents should be preserved.
That may include telling particular managers not to delete emails or messages concerning the employee.
5. Train managers to make proper records
Longer limitation periods mean managers may be asked to explain decisions made many months earlier.
A short, factual note written at the time is considerably more useful than trying to reconstruct a conversation from memory several months later.
The extension gives employees more time to consider whether to bring a claim and more time for workplace disputes to be resolved before litigation.
For employers, however, it also means the period during which a dispute can remain live will be longer.
A matter which previously felt safely in the past after a few months may still result in an Acas notification or Employment Tribunal claim later.
That makes record keeping more important.
From 1 October, employers should work on the basis that decisions involving dismissal, discrimination, pay, whistleblowing and other employment rights may need to be explained and evidenced many months after the event.
Good paperwork will not prevent every Employment Tribunal claim but if a claim does arrive, being able to produce a clear record of what happened, who made the decision and why can make an enormous difference to how easily the business can defend it.