UK Employment Law Changes from 1 October 2026: Tribunal Claim Deadlines and Right-to-Work Checks

From 1 October 2026, two changes to UK employment law took effect: the deadline for bringing a claim to an Employment Tribunal has been extended from 3 to 6 months, and the duty to check right to work now extends to contractors, the self-employed and online platforms.

In short

• From 1 October 2026, the Employment Tribunal claim deadline rose from three to six months minus one day, but only for new cases.
• If the problem arose before 1 October 2026, the old deadline applies — three months minus one day, regardless of when the claim is actually filed.
• A formal internal grievance and ACAS conciliation are required before filing a claim — without an ACAS certificate, the claim won’t be accepted.
• From 1 October 2026, right-to-work checks must be carried out both by those commissioning work from self-employed contractors and by online platforms such as Uber and Deliveroo.
• The fine for an employer hiring without a right-to-work check is up to £60,000 per worker, rising to up to 5 years in prison for knowingly covering it up.

Employment Tribunal claim deadline doubled

From 1 October 2026, the deadline for bringing a claim to an Employment Tribunal has been extended from three months minus one day to six months minus one day — exactly double. The new deadline is counted from the moment the workplace problem arose.

The change applies to most categories of employment disputes, not just one: unfair dismissal, workplace discrimination, harassment, unlawful deductions from wages, non-payment of wages or leave owed (including maternity and parental leave), breaches of agency workers’ rights, and a number of other employment matters.

The extended deadline applies only to problems arising on or after 1 October 2026. If the incident happened before that date — say, in August or September — the old three-month-minus-one-day deadline still applies, regardless of the fact that the general rules have already changed. It matters for the worker to pin down the exact date the problem arose: that date determines which of the two deadlines applies to their case.

How the clock starts: a one-off incident versus ongoing discrimination

The starting point of the deadline depends on the nature of the breach. For a one-off incident — dismissal, for example — the clock starts from the date of the event itself: it happens on a specific day, and that day is when the countdown to file a claim begins.

It works differently for ongoing discrimination, which consists not of a single episode but of a series of connected events. In that case, the clock starts from the date of the last episode in the series, not from the first instance of discrimination. This distinction holds regardless of which deadline applies — the old one or the extended one from 1 October 2026.

The company’s internal process before going to tribunal

Before turning to outside bodies, an employee is expected to go through the company’s internal process — every employer has its own grievance policy and procedure, and it needs to be followed.

1. Informal approach. First, try to resolve the issue directly — with your line manager, manager or team lead.
2. Formal grievance. If the informal approach gets nowhere, the employee files a formal grievance within the company — against a specific person or situation that occurred at work.

It’s at the formal grievance stage that problems most often arise: the time it takes to resolve a grievance has roughly doubled compared with before. In large companies a grievance can drag on for a very long time — it happens in smaller companies too, just less often.

An employee who believes they are following the rules and has done everything the company policy requires expects to be able to go further, to an Employment Tribunal, if needed. In practice that doesn’t always work out: while the internal process drags on, the clock on filing a claim keeps running. If the deadline passes, a claim can no longer be filed through the normal route, although in certain cases a tribunal may accept a late claim — for example, if filing it earlier was genuinely not possible. So an employee can’t afford to wait indefinitely for a response: if the internal process is dragging on, action is needed before the deadline runs out.

In practice that doesn’t always work out: while the internal process drags on, the clock on filing a claim keeps running.

Steps before filing with an Employment Tribunal

• Informal approach to a line manager or managerFirst step: try to resolve the issue directly
• Formal grievance filed within the companyFiled if the informal approach didn’t help
• Record the date the problem aroseIt determines which claim deadline applies
• Notify ACASA required step before filing with the tribunal
• Obtain the ACAS certificateWithout it, the Employment Tribunal claim won’t be accepted
• File the claim with the Employment Tribunal within the deadline3 or 6 months minus one day, depending on the date of the incident

ACAS: mandatory conciliation before filing with the tribunal

A claim cannot go straight to an Employment Tribunal — the law requires contacting ACAS first, a publicly funded body that handles conciliation in workplace disputes between employee and employer. If a workplace problem can’t be resolved internally and the employer won’t budge, the next step is notifying ACAS, not filing a tribunal claim right away.

From the moment ACAS is notified, the six-month tribunal deadline is paused: under the existing mechanism, the clock stops while ACAS is handling the case. Before October 2026, a similar mechanism applied to the previous three-month deadline — it has now been aligned with the extended limit of six months minus one day.

ACAS acts as a conciliator in the dispute: a caseworker contacts the employer and tries to broker an amicable settlement. In practice, in roughly 90% of cases the employer has no interest in conciliation or simply holds its ground, leaving nothing to discuss.

In practice, in roughly 90% of cases the employer has no interest in conciliation or simply holds its ground, leaving nothing to discuss.

If no agreement is reached, ACAS issues a certificate — a document confirming that the parties attempted to settle the dispute without going to tribunal. This certificate is mandatory: without it, a claim cannot be filed with an Employment Tribunal at all — it functions as a kind of gateway to further proceedings.

Right-to-work checks extended to contractors and platforms

From 1 October 2026, the scope of people whose right to work must be checked has been widened: it now covers not just employees but self-employed contractors too. If a self-employed person takes on work from another company (a business-to-business arrangement), the company commissioning the work is required to check whether that person has the right to work in the UK.

Before this date, the mechanism worked differently. A person without status could register as self-employed, obtain a UTR number from the tax authority, and legally pay tax on their earnings — all while effectively having no right to work in the country, with no one tracking it. It was enough for the company commissioning the work to receive an invoice from the subcontractor and pay it; there was no requirement to verify their right to work, at most their subcontractor identification number was requested.

Now, responsibility for checking falls on every link in the supply chain. This applies not only to a small construction or cleaning firm that hires subcontractors directly, but also to large companies — a developer, for instance, who receives work from a subcontractor further down the chain. The requirement also extends to online matching platforms: the operator of such a platform is likewise required to check the right to work of anyone offering services through it.

The rule covers any business, including a sole trader: if they pass work on to another contractor, they are the ones responsible for checking that contractor’s right to work.

Why working legally without status was possible before October 2026

Until 1 October 2026, a loophole existed in the UK that let a great many people work without legal status — and almost no one noticed, including the people themselves. This concerns those who were in the country before Brexit: entered on an ID card with no restrictions, obtained a National Insurance Number, worked for a year or two, then, say, returned home. Or those who lived in the UK before Brexit but never applied for status — or applied and were refused.

a loophole existed in the UK that let a great many people work without legal status — and almost no one noticed, including the people themselves

In both cases, the person had once been in the country legally and, during that time, had obtained a National Insurance Number — the number needed to legally pay tax and National Insurance contributions. That number became the key to continuing to work legally without status: with it, a person could register as self-employed, and the tax authority would issue them a UTR — a unique taxpayer reference number for sole trader activity.

With that number, a person could operate quite lawfully within the country: filing annual returns and paying tax to the tax authority — despite having no status, and therefore, formally, no right to work in the UK. It is exactly this situation that the amendment taking effect on 1 October addresses: right-to-work checks now also cover self-employed individuals without status who operate through their own registered business.

Penalties for employers who hire without a right-to-work check

For each worker without a confirmed right to work, an employer faces a fine of up to £60,000. The sum is charged per head — that is, for each illegally hired worker separately, not as a single fine on the company.

If an employer knew the worker had no status and knowingly turned a blind eye, the penalty moves into a different category entirely: up to 5 years in prison and an unlimited fine. The difference between the two scenarios comes down to awareness: an ordinary check that simply wasn’t carried out through oversight is punished by a fine capped at £60,000, while knowingly covering up someone’s illegal status is a criminal offence with no upper limit on the fine.

Who the new rules don’t cover: self-employed people with private clients

Right-to-work checks don’t apply to self-employed people who provide services only to private individuals and have never taken on work from companies. If a person has no status or right to work but has never entered into a business-to-business relationship with a legal entity, formally no one checks them at all.

This doesn’t mean such work is legal — operating without status remains a breach of the law. The changes from 1 October 2026 aren’t aimed at this category; they target people carrying out work for other companies.

The new rules do cover drivers and couriers for platforms such as Just Eat, Uber and Deliveroo — checks are mandatory for them, since the platform is the one commissioning the service. But someone taking small private jobs directly from individuals falls outside this scheme and can keep working without confirmed status — although that work itself remains unlawful.

Frequently asked questions

What happens if the deadline to file an Employment Tribunal claim has already passed?

A claim can no longer be filed through the normal route. In certain cases a tribunal may accept a late claim — for example, if filing it earlier was genuinely not possible. This shouldn’t be counted on in advance, so an employee can’t afford to wait indefinitely for a response from their employer.

Does the claim deadline pause while the employer is handling an internal grievance?

No. While a grievance is being handled internally within the company, the six- or three-month claim deadline keeps running. The deadline only pauses once ACAS is notified — not during the employer’s internal process.

How long must an employer keep records of right-to-work checks on an employee?

Records must be kept for the entire period of the person’s employment and for at least a year afterwards — this applies both to employment relationships and to business-to-business arrangements with contractors.