Employment Tribunal & Settlement
If the employment has ended, or is about to, this is where the site’s material on settlement, ACAS Early Conciliation and tribunal claims comes together: the deadline that decides everything, what a claim is worth, and where drafting and negotiation change the result. Start wherever your question is.
The process at a glance
Settlement and tribunal guide
A plain-English guide to settlement, ACAS Early Conciliation and employment tribunal claims: the deadline, the route, and what each step involves.
Based on the law as at 15 October 2026.
Terms are agreed in writing. There is no hearing, and the dispute ends on the terms you agree.
You bring a claim and a tribunal decides, after a process with fixed steps and dates.
Settling and claiming are not opposites. The time limit runs while you negotiate, so the deadline has to be managed alongside the talks.
s.18A Employment Tribunals Act 1996; ACAS, How early conciliation works.
Settlement talks and internal processes: they do not pause the time limit
Tribunal time limit: runs from the act complained of, or the date employment ended
Six months where the act or dismissal falls on or after 1 October 2026. Notifying ACAS within the time limit gives you at least one month from the certificate to claim.
A tribunal has discretion over late claims, but do not rely on it. Treat the date as fixed.
s.111 Employment Rights Act 1996; ACAS, How early conciliation works; GOV.UK, Employment tribunal time limits (business.gov.uk); GOV.UK, Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act: timeline update; ACAS, Employment Rights Act 2025.
Select a step to jump to it.
Step 01 of 06
Six months
For most claims, counted from the act complained of or from the date employment ended.
Three months
The earlier time limit applies to acts and dismissals before that date.
Be exact
Work out the last day, not the first, and diarise it. A short count error can end a claim.
A tribunal has discretion to consider a claim that is out of time, case by case. Do not rely on it. Treat the date as fixed.
s.111 Employment Rights Act 1996; GOV.UK, Employment tribunal time limits (business.gov.uk).
Step 02 of 06
Investigation, hearing, decision and appeal, or the grievance route.
In most cases the step before a claim. Notifying ACAS within the time limit protects your position. Conciliation can last up to 12 weeks.
The claim form frames what the tribunal reads, so precise facts and framing matter.
Notifying ACAS is required before most tribunal claims, though taking part in conciliation is voluntary and some claims are exempt. If you notify ACAS within the time limit, you have at least one month from receiving the certificate to make your claim.
s.18A Employment Tribunals Act 1996; ACAS, How early conciliation works.
Step 03 of 06
A written agreement that can validly waive claims where the legal conditions are met, including that you have taken advice from a relevant independent adviser.
A settlement reached through ACAS conciliation and recorded on an ACAS form.
s.203 Employment Rights Act 1996; s.111A ERA 1996; ACAS Code of Practice on Settlement Agreements 2013, paras 6, 7, 12 and 16 to 18.
The duty to take reasonable steps to find new work applies. An award can also move up or down by as much as 25 per cent for an unreasonable failure to follow the ACAS Code. Every figure depends on pay, service, loss and evidence, so a schedule of loss is the way to set it out.
ss.113 to 116, 119 and 123 Employment Rights Act 1996; s.124 Equality Act 2010; s.207A TULRCA 1992.
Step 04 of 06
The form
The claim is presented to the tribunal with the ACAS certificate number. There is no fee to bring a claim.
The particulars
The facts, the dates, the claims you bring and the remedy you seek. Precise facts and framing matter.
What follows
The tribunal sends the claim to your employer, which then has a set time to respond.
The claim form is the document the tribunal reads first. It is worth drafting with care.
Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024 (SI 2024/1155); GOV.UK, Making a claim to an employment tribunal (T420).
Step 05 of 06
Your employer must respond within 28 days of the tribunal sending it the claim.
The issues are identified, and dates and directions are set for each side.
Documents are exchanged, a hearing bundle is prepared and witness statements are served.
Tribunal orders set dates that bind both sides. Read each one on the day it arrives and diarise every date in it.
GOV.UK, Responding to an employment tribunal claim (T422); Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024 (SI 2024/1155).
Step 06 of 06
1
Witnesses give their evidence, usually from their written statements.
2
Each side can question the other side’s witnesses.
3
Each side summarises its case for the tribunal.
4
The tribunal decides, on the day or later in writing, and then deals with remedy where it is needed.
GOV.UK, The hearing: guidance for claimants (T424); Employment tribunals: the judgment (T426).
It can hear an appeal where the tribunal made a legal mistake. It is not a second hearing of the facts.
An appeal must be made within 42 days of the date the decision, or the written reasons, were sent to you. Late appeals are rarely allowed.
GOV.UK, Appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT): How to appeal.
In force
The time limit for most tribunal claims rises from three months to six, where the act or dismissal falls on or after that date.
Confirmed
For dismissals on or after that date, unfair dismissal needs six months’ service rather than two years, and the cap on the compensatory award is removed.
Not in force
ACAS consulted on a replacement disciplinary and grievance Code. Until it is brought into effect, the 2015 Code applies.
GOV.UK, Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act: timeline update; ACAS, Employment Rights Act 2025. ACAS draft Code consultation closed 23 September 2026. Re-verify at the point of use.
General information only, based on the law as at 15 October 2026.
Start here
Choose the option closest to where you are. Nothing here is a substitute for advice on your own case, which is what the free consultation is for.
After a dismissal two clocks run in parallel: the internal appeal deadline in the outcome letter, and the tribunal time limit, which an internal appeal does not pause. An appeal can still reverse or reduce a dismissal, and a documented record strengthens whatever follows.
A negotiated exit converts uncertainty into agreed terms: reference, notice and a settlement figure. It works from a prepared position built on the leverage in the case, and a statutory settlement agreement is signed off by an independent adviser at the end.
Almost every tribunal claim begins with mandatory ACAS Early Conciliation, which pauses the time limit while it runs. The claim itself starts with an ET1, where the drafting frames everything the tribunal reads. The time limits are strict and easily miscalculated.
Short answer One deadline, strictly enforced. Only notifying ACAS pauses it.
The tribunal clock runs from the relevant date, usually the dismissal or the act complained of, not from the date you decide to act. An internal appeal does not pause it, which is the single most destructive misunderstanding in the whole system: people wait for the appeal outcome, then find the deadline has passed. Notifying ACAS for Early Conciliation is what pauses the clock. If a date is close, that notification is what preserves the claim.
Key rule
An internal appeal does not extend or suspend the time limit for presenting a tribunal claim. Notifying ACAS for Early Conciliation is what pauses the clock. For most claims the limit is six months less one day where the relevant date falls on or after 1 October 2026, and three months less one day where it falls before that.
Source: Employment Rights Act 2025, s.152 and Sch.12, in force 1 October 2026 under SI 2026/954 (regulation 4 fixes the relevant date); breach of contract claims in England and Wales under SI 2026/759
Practical guidance: The determining fact is the relevant date, not the date of enquiry, so a matter can be in time on one basis and out of time on another. Where a date is close, notify ACAS first and take advice second.
The deadline comes first: the free Tribunal Claim Readiness Check applies the right limit to your relevant date, adjusts it for Early Conciliation, and checks qualifying service, the claims and the documents. The figure is a different question: the schedule of loss calculator and the settlement calculator answer it. All run in your browser and transmit nothing.
Three steps, in order
Whether the right move is to settle or to claim depends on what happened, what it is worth, and how long you have. These three take you from the question to the decision, and the first two are free and require nothing from you.
Settle, or claim
Each is a fixed fee, scaled to what you earn, agreed in writing before any work begins. The fee schedule is on each service page; nothing is restated here.
The questions people actually ask
Each links to the answer on the guide that covers it. Nothing is duplicated here.
The dated changes that move the numbers
Two sets of changes, on two different dates, both of which widen who can claim and what a claim is worth. Each has its own guide, kept dated and sourced.
Drawn from the dismissal guide, because these are the points that most often decide whether a claim survives to be heard.
Seen in practice
Written around the method rather than the result: what was alleged, what the evidence showed, and what was put on the record.
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