Guide · Dated change
What changes in October 2026
Two separate dates, routinely reported as one. Employment tribunal time limits double on 1 October 2026. The harassment duties and the trade union measures take effect on 30 October 2026. This guide sets out what each one changes, who it affects, and what it does not change at all.
At a glance
The dates, in order
- 25 August 2026
Electronic and workplace balloting becomes available for statutory trade union ballots, where the employer and union agree.
- 1 October 2026
Time limits for bringing most employment tribunal claims increase from three months to six. This is the change that affects the largest number of individual people.
- 30 October 2026
Employers must take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their workers, and become liable for harassment by third parties unless they took all reasonable steps to prevent it.
- 30 October 2026
Trade union measures: a duty to inform workers of the right to join a union, updated access rules, and new rights for union representatives and equality representatives.
- 9 November 2026
The time limit change reaches breach of contract claims in Scotland.
- 1 December 2026
New seafarer regulations covering health and safety, pay, job security and rest breaks.
Verified against ACAS guidance on the Employment Rights Act 2025, last updated 19 August 2026, and the government implementation timeline. How several of these measures work in detail remains subject to consultation. Check the position at the date you rely on it.
October 2026
Tribunal time limits double
From 1 October 2026 the time limit for bringing most employment tribunal claims rises from three months to six. For anyone who has ever watched a good claim die because an internal appeal took seven weeks, this is the most consequential individual change in the entire Act. The three-month rule was, without much competition, the most destructive provision in the system, and it caught people every week who had done everything else right.
The detail that matters is the transition. The extended limit applies where the relevant date, usually the dismissal or the act complained of, falls on or after 1 October 2026. If your relevant date is earlier, plan on the existing limit. Nobody should be relying on a transitional provision to save a claim that could have been notified in time.
| Before 1 October 2026 | On and after 1 October 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Limit for most claims | Three months, usually expressed as three months less one day. | Six months. |
| What starts the clock | The relevant date, commonly the effective date of termination. | Unchanged. |
| Effect of an internal appeal | None. The clock keeps running. | Still none. This does not change. |
| Effect of notifying ACAS | Pauses the clock through Early Conciliation. | Unchanged, and still the step that protects you. |
| Breach of contract in Scotland | Three months. | Six months from 9 November 2026. |
October 2026
The harassment duties on 30 October
Two changes land together. First, the preventative duty tightens: employers move from taking reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their workers to taking all reasonable steps. One word, and a meaningful shift in what an employer has to be able to evidence. Second, employers become liable for harassment of their workers by third parties, such as customers or clients, unless they have taken all reasonable steps to prevent it.
The government is expected to specify in future regulations what counts as reasonable, so anyone offering a definitive checklist today is guessing. The direction is already clear enough to act on. A policy that exists but is not communicated, training delivered once at induction and never refreshed, reporting routes that lead to the person complained of, and reports that are received but never followed up, were all weak positions before. Against an all reasonable steps standard they are considerably weaker.
A hospitality worker reports repeated sexual comments from a regular customer. The employer’s response is that customers cannot be controlled and that this is part of front-of-house work.
What changes on 30 October 2026. That answer stops being available as a default. Liability attaches for third-party harassment unless the employer took all reasonable steps to prevent it, which turns the question into what they actually did: whether there was a policy covering customer conduct, whether staff knew how to report, whether earlier reports were acted on, and whether anything was done about this customer specifically.
How Zhan Associates helps
These matters usually arrive tangled: a harassment complaint, a grievance that was mishandled, and sometimes a disciplinary running in the opposite direction. We treat that as one case rather than three, because the connections between them are usually where the strength is.
- Grievance framing and representation. See raising a grievance for how to put this in writing.
- Equality Act overlay. Where a protected characteristic is engaged, the Complex Case overlay handles overlapping grounds.
- Conciliation and tribunal. ACAS Early Conciliation and ET1 drafting where the matter proceeds.
October 2026
What October does not change
Nothing about how a fair disciplinary is run. The ACAS Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures continues to set the standard for investigation, notification, the hearing itself, accompaniment and appeal, and the adjustment of up to twenty five per cent for unreasonable failure to comply with it is unaffected. If you are facing a hearing in November, the rules governing that hearing are the same rules that governed it in September.
Two further points worth correcting, because both circulate widely. The Fair Work Agency, established in April 2026, brings together enforcement of matters such as holiday pay and statutory sick pay. It does not enforce disciplinary fairness, which remains a matter for the employment tribunal. And the new duty on employers to inform workers of their right to join a trade union does not alter your right to be accompanied, which has never depended on union membership and never carried a qualifying period.
The larger change is three months later: what changes in January 2027 →
Common questions
October 2026 questions people ask
The time limit for bringing most employment tribunal claims rises from three months to six. That happens on 1 October 2026 and it is the change that affects the largest number of individual people.
Not automatically. The extended limit applies where the relevant date, usually the dismissal or the act complained of, falls on or after 1 October 2026. If your relevant date is earlier, plan on the three-month limit and do not gamble on the transitional provisions.
That formulation applies where the relevant date falls before 1 October 2026. On or after that date the equivalent period is six months. The safe practice is unchanged either way: work backwards from the earliest arguable date and notify ACAS early rather than counting to the edge.
No, and treating it that way is a mistake. Evidence degrades, witnesses leave, memories move, and the internal process runs to its own timetable. A longer deadline changes when a claim becomes impossible, not when it becomes wise.
Because two different sets of changes land in the same month. The tribunal time limit changes on 1 October 2026. The harassment duties and the trade union measures take effect on 30 October 2026. They are routinely reported together as "October changes", which is how people end up planning against the wrong date.
Employers move from taking reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment to taking all reasonable steps. Separately, employers become liable for harassment of their workers by third parties, such as customers or clients, unless they have taken all reasonable steps to prevent it.
The detail is expected to be specified in future regulations, so anyone giving you a definitive list today is guessing. What is already clear is the direction: a policy sitting unread on an intranet has never been enough, and the higher threshold makes gaps in training, reporting routes and follow-up easier to expose.
It can be significant if you work in a customer-facing role and your employer has treated abuse from customers as part of the job. From 30 October 2026 that position is much harder to sustain, because liability attaches unless the employer took all reasonable steps to prevent it.
Indirectly. From 30 October 2026 employers have a new duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union, alongside updated access rules and new rights for union representatives. It raises the general visibility of representation, but it changes nothing about your own right to be accompanied, which has never depended on union membership.
No. The ACAS Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures continues to govern how a fair process is run, and the Fair Work Agency established in April 2026 does not enforce disciplinary fairness, which remains a tribunal matter. What changes in October is how long you have to bring a claim, not what makes a dismissal unfair.
Keep reading
Related guides
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Unfair dismissal protection at six months instead of two years, the compensatory cap abolished, and fire and rehire becoming automatically unfair.
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