On September 1, 2026, the United Kingdom government made the Employment Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 5 and Transitional Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/954), bringing Section 152 and Schedule 12 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 into force on October 1, 2026. Signed by Kate Dearden, Minister of State at the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, the instrument raises the standard employment tribunal claim time limit from three months to six months for nearly every Great Britain employment claim, from unfair dismissal and discrimination to deductions, TUPE and working-time complaints. It is the first of the marquee Employment Rights Act 2025 provisions to take effect, landing 27 days from publication.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 (c. 36) received Royal Assent on December 18, 2025 as the legislative vehicle for the government's Plan to Make Work Pay. Most of its headline duties were deferred to later commencement instruments; SI 2026/954 is the one that triggers the tribunal time-limit increase, made under sections 155 and 159(3) of the Act. The full instrument is published on legislation.gov.uk.
What exactly changes on October 1, 2026?
Section 152 and Schedule 12 rewrite the limitation periods for presenting claims to an employment tribunal. Where the long-standing rule gave claimants three months (strictly, three months less one day) from the relevant date to file an ET1, the new default is six months. The Schedule lists the covered enactments and pins a "relevant date" to each: section 111 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (unfair dismissal, relevant date is the effective date of termination), section 120 of the Equality Act 2010 (discrimination, relevant date is the date of the act or the end of a continuing course of conduct), regulations 12 and 15 of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006, regulation 30 of the Working Time Regulations 1998, and the trade-union, deductions, guarantee-payment, flexible-working and time-off provisions across the 1992, 1996 and 1999 Acts.
The claims that make up the day-to-day workload of every GB employment tribunal are caught. A separate provision (regulation 5) makes a minor cross-reference correction to the Commencement No. 2 Amendment Regulations 2026, substituting "regulation" for "paragraph" in regulation 7(2); that took effect on September 2, 2026 and is editorial only.
Who is affected, and what must employers do before October 1?
Every GB employer and its HR, legal and claims-management function. A six-month window does not change who can bring a claim, but it materially extends how long the workforce carries live litigation risk: dismissal-related claims that would have timed out by late December 2026 under the three-month rule now remain live until late March 2027. For reserving, insurance deductibles and litigation forecasts, that is a direct uplift in exposure on dismissals and discriminatory acts occurring on or after the commencement date.
The transitional provision in regulation 4 is the line to internalise: the six-month limit does not apply where the relevant date occurs before October 1, 2026. For unfair dismissal that is the effective date of termination; for discrimination, the date of the act or the end of a continuing course of conduct. Acts and dismissals before the line stay on the three-month clock; acts on or after it get six months. HR teams should map any dismissal or potential claim whose trigger date straddles late September to early October and record the applicable limit explicitly on the file.
| Claim type | Relevant date | Old limit | New limit (from October 1, 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unfair dismissal (ERA 1996 s.111) | Effective date of termination | 3 months | 6 months |
| Discrimination (Equality Act 2010 s.120) | Date of act / end of conduct | 3 months | 6 months |
| Unauthorised deductions (ERA 1996 s.23) | Date of wage payment | 3 months | 6 months |
| TUPE failure to inform and consult (TUPE reg.15) | Date of relevant transfer | 3 months | 6 months |
| Working time (WTR 1998 reg.30) | Date right should have been allowed | 3 months | 6 months |
How does this fit the wider Employment Rights Act 2025 rollout?
The tribunal time-limit increase is the opening move of the Act's marquee provisions. The commencement calendar confirms the sequence: trade-union auto-recognition measures on February 18, 2026; statutory sick pay, whistleblowing and day-one leave on April 6, 2026; the fair-work agency on April 7, 2026; then the tribunal time limit on October 1, 2026. The strengthened all-reasonable-steps sexual harassment prevention duty and third-party harassment liability follow on October 30, 2026, with day-one unfair dismissal and the uncapped compensatory award arriving January 1, 2027. Employers tracking the Act should read October as the start of its densest compliance phase, not a single isolated change.
Subscribe to the free newsletter
What should compliance teams do now?
The action list is narrow and urgent. Confirm that dismissal, disciplinary and claims-tracking templates reflect the six-month limit for trigger dates on or after October 1, 2026. Brief line managers and claims handlers on the transitional line: a relevant date before commencement keeps the three-month clock, on or after it gets six months. Review reserving and litigation-risk reporting with the longer exposure window in mind, and flag any live dismissal whose effective date of termination falls in late September. Obsidian's per-jurisdiction monitoring surfaces commencement instruments like this the moment they publish, so the gap between detection and the deadline stays measured in days, not weeks.
