How to claim unfair dismissal

The three-month deadline and the effective date of termination

A tribunal cannot consider an ordinary complaint unless it is presented before the end of three months beginning with the effective date of termination, which everyone counts as three months less one day. Acas states it the same way, 3 months minus 1 day, and adds that running a grievance, a disciplinary or an internal appeal does not move it.

The clock does not start on the day the news was delivered. Section 97 fixes the effective date of termination as the date notice expires where the dismissal was on notice, and the date termination takes effect where it was not. Where the employer gave less than the statutory minimum notice, the later date that notice would have expired is used instead for the qualifying period and the basic award.

A late claim can be heard only where it was not reasonably practicable to present it in time, and then only within such further period as the tribunal considers reasonable. A claim presented after notice is given but before the job actually ends must be accepted.

The two-year qualifying period, and who needs no service

Section 108 requires two years of continuous employment ending with the effective date of termination, a figure substituted on 6 April 2012 and unchanged since. gov.uk gives the same answer and notes that in Northern Ireland it is 1 year.

The exemptions are wide rather than narrow. Section 108(3) removes the qualifying period for the automatically unfair reasons, which include health and safety, working time representatives, pension scheme trustees, employee representatives, protected disclosures and pregnancy and family leave. Subsections (4) and (5) remove it again where the reason is political opinion or affiliation, or membership of a reserve force.

Acas confirms that no service is needed for a discrimination claim or a wrongful dismissal claim either, and that political opinion is not itself a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.

The claim in order, from Acas to the appeal

Early conciliation is a precondition, not a courtesy. Section 18A of the Employment Tribunals Act 1996 requires the prescribed information to go to Acas first and bars the claim without a certificate, whose number then goes on form ET1.

Stage	When it has to happen
Notify Acas of early conciliation	Before the claim, and before the limit expires
Conciliation period	Up to 12 weeks from the day Acas receives the form
Apply for interim relief, where the reason is one of the listed ones	Within 7 days of the effective date of termination
Present form ET1 with the certificate number	3 months less one day from the effective date of termination
Employer files its response	Usually 28 days from receiving the claim
Ask the tribunal to reconsider a judgment	14 days from the judgment or reasons being sent
Apply for a costs order, which can specify up to £20,000	Up to 28 days after the final judgment was sent
Appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal	42 days from the written reasons being sent, by 4pm

Contacting Acas stops the clock rather than restarting it. Section 207B leaves out the period from the day after Acas is contacted to the day the certificate arrives, and where the limit would otherwise expire inside that window or within a month of the certificate, it expires at the end of that month instead.

There is no fee to make a claim and no fee to appeal. Representation is a separate cost, and most employment claims sit outside the categories legal aid still covers, which turn on income and capital limits as well as on the type of case. At a preliminary hearing a tribunal can order a deposit of up to £1,000 as a condition of continuing to advance an argument with little reasonable prospect of success.

The reason itself can be demanded in writing. After two years’ service an employee can request a written statement of reasons for dismissal, which has to be provided within 14 days, and a woman dismissed while pregnant or after childbirth gets one without asking and whatever her length of service. An unreasonable failure to provide it, or untrue particulars in it, costs the employer two weeks’ pay.

The five potentially fair reasons and the reasonableness test

The right not to be unfairly dismissed is a statutory one, and the burden starts with the employer. Section 98 requires it to show the reason and that the reason was capability or qualifications, conduct, redundancy, a statutory restriction, or some other substantial reason of a kind justifying dismissal.

Only then does fairness come into it. Section 98(4) asks whether, in the circumstances including the size and administrative resources of the employer, it acted reasonably in treating that reason as sufficient, decided in accordance with equity and the substantial merits. A reason can be genuine and the process still unfair.

What compensation is made of, and the £123,543 cap

Part of the award	How it is worked out	Limit
Basic award	1.5 weeks’ pay per year worked aged 41 or over, 1 week aged 22 to 40, half a week under 22, 20 years maximum	Week’s pay capped at £751
Minimum basic award, health and safety, working time reps, pension trustees, employee representatives, or trade union grounds	A floor whatever the length of service	£9,157 minimum
Minimum basic award, blacklists	A floor whatever the length of service	£5,000 minimum
Compensatory award	Whatever is just and equitable for the loss caused, after mitigation and any contributory conduct reduction	Lower of £123,543 and 52 weeks’ pay
Compensatory award, health and safety or protected disclosure dismissals	Same basis	No limit
Additional award where a reinstatement order is ignored	26 to 52 weeks’ pay	Week’s pay capped at £751
Acas Code adjustment	Up to 25% either way for unreasonable failure to follow the Code	Applies to unfair dismissal awards

Those figures rose on 6 April 2026, from £719 to £751 and from £118,223 to £123,543, by S.I. 2026/310. Article 4 fixes them by the effective date of termination, so the numbers that apply are the ones in force when the employment ended, not when the hearing happens.

Where the complaint succeeds, the tribunal has to explain reinstatement and re-engagement and ask whether the claimant wants either before it turns to money. Practicability for the employer is part of that decision, and engaging a permanent replacement is normally left out of account.

An unpaid award is chased separately. The Fair Work Agency can send a warning notice, and a respondent that does not reply within 28 days may face a fine; in England and Wales the Fast Track high court scheme costs £71 and a county court warrant £83, both added to the debt.

Two dated changes, 1 October 2026 and 1 January 2027

Change	Effect from	Which cases it reaches
Time limit rises from three months to six months less one day	1 October 2026	Effective date of termination on or after that day
Qualifying period falls from two years to six months	1 January 2027	Effective date of termination on or after that day, even where notice was given earlier
Compensatory award cap repealed outright	1 January 2027	Same rule, since regulation 4 covers the amendments made by section 25(2) and (3) and 25(3) is the repeal
Breach of contract claim limit rises to six months in Scotland	9 November 2026	Scottish contract claims only

The trigger is the same in both cases and it is not the claim date. A dismissal taking effect on 30 September 2026 carries a three-month limit; one taking effect on 1 October 2026 carries six. Notice served in December 2026 that expires in January 2027 lands under the six-month qualifying period.

Outcomes and waiting times, 2025/26

Unfair dismissal was the largest single jurisdiction in the last quarter of 2025/26, at 23% of complaint receipts and 25% of disposals. Of 9,173 complaints disposed of in single cases across the year, this is how they ended.

How the claim ended	Share of 9,173 disposals
Acas conciliated settlement	30%
Withdrawn	25%
Dismissed upon withdrawal	24%
Struck out, not at a hearing	6%
Unsuccessful at a hearing	5%
Successful at a hearing	3%

Most disputes stop earlier still. Acas records that 68% of early conciliation notifications did not progress to a tribunal in October to December 2025, and that 80% of cases did not proceed to a hearing in January to March 2026.

Waiting times moved sharply. The median single case took 27 weeks or less to clear in 2025/26 against 17 weeks the year before, and the mean was 30 weeks against 20. The open single caseload reached 64,000 at the end of March 2026, up 55% in a year.

Unfair dismissal in Scotland and Northern Ireland

Employment law is reserved, so Scotland runs the same statute and the same limits. Northern Ireland runs a different one.

	England and Wales	Scotland	Northern Ireland
Statute	Employment Rights Act 1996	Employment Rights Act 1996	Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996
Qualifying period	2 years, 6 months from 1 January 2027	Same	1 year, not changing
Time limit	3 months less one day, 6 months from 1 October 2026	Same	3 months less one day, not changing
Week’s pay cap	£751	£751	£783
Minimum basic award	£9,157	£9,157	£9,512
Compensatory cap	Lower of £123,543 and 52 weeks’ pay	Same	£123,785 flat
Conciliation body	Acas	Acas	Labour Relations Agency
Forum	Employment Tribunal	Employment Tribunals (Scotland)	Industrial Tribunal
Solicitors regulated by	Solicitors Regulation Authority	Law Society of Scotland	Law Society of Northern Ireland

Scotland is a separate tribunal jurisdiction with its own President and its own judiciary, sharing the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024 with England and Wales. Costs are called expenses and are taxed by the auditor of court rather than assessed in a county court. An unpaid award is enforced by extract and sheriff officer, not by the Fast Track scheme, which is England and Wales only. Appeals above the Employment Appeal Tribunal go to the Inner House of the Court of Session rather than the Court of Appeal, which is the route a solicitor on the Glasgow list uses for a Scottish appeal.

Northern Ireland is a different scheme rather than a variation on this one. The limits are set by the Department for the Economy and were raised on 6 April 2026 by S.R. 2026/57, conciliation runs through the Labour Relations Agency, and article 130A makes a dismissal automatically unfair where the employer failed to complete the statutory dismissal and disciplinary procedure that Great Britain repealed in 2009. There is no fee, a chairperson and two lay members, and a deposit capped at £500 rather than £1,000, which is the procedural detail a firm on the Belfast list works to daily.