Employment tribunal time limits in Scotland are about to double. From 1 October 2026, most tribunal claims move to a six month deadline rather than three. That applies where the dismissal or other act you are complaining about happens on or after that date. Breach of contract claims in Scotland follow separately on 9 November 2026. This guide explains how the current three month deadline works and what the new rules change. It also covers how ACAS early conciliation pauses the clock, and what to do if your time limit has already passed.
Losing your job is disorientating, and a calendar is rarely the first thing on your mind. In employment law, though, the calendar decides almost everything. Miss the deadline and a tribunal will usually refuse to hear your claim, however strong it might have been.
Employment tribunal time limits are changing. From October 2026 the window widens considerably. Not everyone gets the benefit on the same day, however, and events from before the change stay under the old rule. Below we set out how the current position works, what replaces it, and where the traps sit.
How Employment Tribunal Time Limits Work in Scotland at Present
At present, most employment tribunal claims carry a deadline of three months less one day. The clock runs from the event itself, not from the day you decide to act. ACAS sets the arithmetic out plainly. Take the date of the act, add three calendar months, then take off a day.
Say your employer dismissed you on 15 September. Your claim would then need to reach the tribunal by 11.59pm on 14 December.
When the Clock Starts
Employment tribunal time limits do not all run from the same event. The starting date depends on the type of claim, which is where the complications begin.
For unfair dismissal, time runs from the effective date of termination. In almost every case that means the last day of your notice period. Where your employer gave no notice, it means the date of dismissal itself. A pay or holiday pay claim runs from the date your employer paid you incorrectly. Discrimination claims run from the last act you are including in the claim.
Working out the right date is harder than it sounds. That is especially so where several things went wrong at once, or where the problem is still continuing.
Why an Internal Appeal Does Not Buy You Time
Going through your employer’s grievance, disciplinary or appeal procedure does not pause the clock. Neither does it extend the deadline.
Appeals can run on for weeks or months. Plenty of people find out afterwards that their claim expired while they waited patiently for an outcome. So the safe course is to notify ACAS while the internal process is still live. Doing that costs you nothing, even if it feels premature.
A small group of claims already carries six months. Statutory redundancy pay and equal pay claims are the main examples. Unfair dismissal connected to strike action and certain claims against a trade union also sit outside the three month rule. In the other direction, you must apply for interim relief in some unfair dismissal cases within seven days.
What Is Changing on 1 October 2026
The Employment Rights Act 2025 doubles the primary limit. From 1 October 2026, six months less one day becomes the standard deadline for most tribunal claims. The new employment tribunal time limits apply across Great Britain, Scotland included.
Section 152 and Schedule 12 of the Act do most of the work. Parliament approved a further set of regulations in June 2026, and those regulations pick up a group of claims that Schedule 12 had missed.
The Government has published plain English guidance on the new employment tribunal time limits, and ACAS has updated its own summary of the Employment Rights Act 2025 changes to reflect the confirmed date.
Which Claims Are Covered
The new employment tribunal time limits cover the great majority of claims. The list includes:
- Unfair dismissal, including constructive dismissal
- Discrimination, harassment and victimisation under the Equality Act 2010
- Whistleblowing detriment and dismissal
- Unlawful deduction from wages and unpaid holiday pay
- Redundancy consultation and TUPE information and consultation claims
- Working Time Regulations claims
- Part time worker, fixed term employee and zero hours exclusivity claims
- Blacklisting claims
Breach of contract is the exception in Scotland, and we come to that next. If you work on a zero hours arrangement, our guide to zero hours contracts in Scotland covers the wider rights picture.
The Date That Decides Which Limit Applies
This is the part worth reading twice. The new employment tribunal time limits are not a general amnesty. They revive nothing that has already expired.
What matters is the relevant date, meaning the date of the act or failure to act you are complaining about. Where that date falls on or after 1 October 2026, you get six months. Anything earlier keeps the three month deadline.
Where your claim rests on a series of acts, the tribunal looks at the last of them. Repeated unlawful deductions from wages are the classic example.
The practical result is a sharp line drawn through the autumn. Someone dismissed on 29 September 2026 has three months. A colleague dismissed on 2 October has six, on otherwise identical facts.
Why Breach of Contract Claims in Scotland Have a Later Date
One dismissal can give rise to two separate claims, and most people do not realise it. That distinction matters more than usual this autumn, because the two claims now carry different deadlines.
Unfair dismissal is a statutory claim. It asks whether your employer had a fair reason to dismiss you and followed a fair process. Wrongful dismissal is a contract claim, and fairness does not come into it at all. That claim asks something narrower. Did your employer break the terms of your contract, usually by failing to give you the notice you were due?
An employer can dismiss you perfectly fairly and still be in breach of contract. Walking you out the same day without paying your notice would do it. Most people bring both claims together on the same tribunal form, which is precisely why the split in dates matters.
Employment law is reserved to Westminster, so the statutory framework is the same throughout Great Britain. The six month extension for unfair dismissal comes from the Employment Rights Act 2025. The tribunal’s power to hear contract claims is a different matter altogether.
That power comes from two parallel orders made in 1994, one covering England and Wales and one covering Scotland. Amending the Scottish order is a matter for Scottish Ministers rather than the UK Government. The two changes therefore arrive on different days.
The English and Welsh order changes on 1 October 2026. Government guidance confirms that the Scottish change follows on 9 November 2026. Employment tribunal time limits in Scotland therefore split across two dates this autumn. For roughly six weeks, the two sides of the border are out of step.
What the Split Looks Like in Practice
Take an employment in Scotland ending on 20 October 2026. Two deadlines follow from that single date.
Unfair dismissal. Termination falls on or after 1 October, so the new six month limit applies. The deadline is 19 April 2027.
Wrongful dismissal. Termination falls before 9 November, so the old three month limit still applies. The deadline is 19 January 2027.
Same dismissal, same tribunal form, three months between the two deadlines. It is exactly the sort of overlap that produces a claim lodged a fortnight too late.
ACAS early conciliation pauses both clocks in the same way, so the gap between them does not close. Where two dates apply, the safe course is to work to the earlier one for the whole claim.
How Long the Mismatch Lasts
The gap in employment tribunal time limits is temporary. It affects only employments terminating between 1 October and 8 November 2026. Before 1 October, both claims carry three months. From 9 November, both carry six.
One further point is worth knowing. The tribunal can award no more than £25,000 on a contract claim. Larger claims belong in the sheriff court or the Court of Session instead, where different rules on time apply again.
How ACAS Early Conciliation Affects the Clock
Employment tribunal time limits do not run in a straight line, because ACAS sits in the middle of them. You cannot lodge most claims without notifying ACAS first. Early conciliation gives both sides a chance to settle before anyone files anything, and the service is free.
Notification does something useful to your deadline. The clock pauses from the day you notify ACAS. It restarts when conciliation ends and ACAS issues your certificate.
A further protection applies at the end of the process. Suppose less than a month of your original limit remains when the certificate arrives. You then get a month from the certificate date instead.
One condition matters above all others. The pause only helps if you notified ACAS inside your original time limit. Notify late and there is nothing left to pause.
The Combined Effect from October 2026
The conciliation window itself grew recently. Since 1 December 2025 the maximum early conciliation period has been twelve weeks rather than six.
Stack that on top of a six month limit and the outer edge moves a long way out. From October 2026, a claim could in principle be lodged around nine months after the event.
Even so, we would not encourage anyone to plan around it. Evidence fades and witnesses move on. A claim prepared in a hurry, at the far edge of a long deadline, rarely looks its best. ACAS publishes its own guidance on tribunal time limits if you want to read around the subject.
What Happens If You Are Already Out of Time?
Late does not always mean lost, although it usually does. Employment tribunal time limits are enforced strictly, and tribunals keep only a narrow discretion to hear claims presented outside them. The test depends on the claim.
For unfair dismissal and most claims under the Employment Rights Act 1996, the tribunal asks one question. Was it reasonably practicable to lodge in time? That test is demanding. It asks whether something genuinely prevented you from claiming, not whether the delay was understandable.
Discrimination claims under the Equality Act 2010 are treated more generously. There the tribunal may extend time where it is just and equitable. That is a noticeably broader discretion, though still a discretion rather than a right.
Some arguments rarely succeed against employment tribunal time limits. Waiting for an internal appeal is one. Not knowing the deadline existed is another, as is simply taking too long to act.
Other arguments sometimes do succeed. Serious illness and a genuine physical or mental impediment are the obvious ones. Being misled about a fact central to the claim can also persuade a tribunal to extend time.
If you think your deadline has passed, take advice straight away rather than assume the position is hopeless. It costs nothing to find out.
What the Change Means If You Are an Employer
For employers, the change is less welcome. Risk stays live for twice as long. Add the twelve week conciliation period and a dismissal in November 2026 could still produce a tribunal claim well into the following summer.
Combine that with the wider programme of reform and the picture sharpens further. From 1 January 2027 the qualifying period for unfair dismissal drops from two years to six months. Our overview of the Employment Rights Act 2025 sets out the full timetable.
A few practical steps follow from the new employment tribunal time limits:
- Review document retention. Notes, minutes, appraisals and correspondence need to outlive the six month window that many policies currently assume.
- Write decisions down at the time. Contemporaneous records win cases where memory alone does not.
- Train your managers on process. Dismissal, redundancy and grievance handling are where most avoidable claims begin.
- Budget for a longer tail of risk when planning a restructure or an individual exit.
- Consider settlement earlier. It remains the only way to close a matter off with real certainty.
Our pages on redundancy and settlement agreements set out how we help on both sides, and our guide to signing a settlement agreement in Scotland explains the process from the employee’s point of view.
Why Choose Pomphreys?
Pomphreys has acted for employees and employers across Wishaw, Lanarkshire and the wider central belt since 1897. Employment tribunal time limits are the most common reason a good claim never gets heard. We therefore treat the deadline as the first question rather than the last.
We will tell you plainly where you stand. That means the date your employment tribunal time limit expires and whether the new six month rule applies to you. It also means an honest view on whether the claim is worth bringing at all.
Our advice is realistic rather than encouraging for its own sake. Sometimes the right answer is to negotiate, sometimes to lodge a claim, and occasionally to leave it alone.
Our employment law team advises on unfair dismissal, redundancy and settlement agreements. When a deadline is close, we can usually see you quickly.
Speak to us before your deadline passes
Employment tribunal time limits are unforgiving, so a short conversation now is worth far more than a long one later. Call Pomphreys on 01698 373365 for a confidential, no obligation chat about where you stand. You can also get in touch through our online contact form and we will come back to you quickly. Tell us the date you were dismissed and we will work out your deadline for you.
Frequently Asked Questions About Employment Tribunal Time Limits
Do the new employment tribunal time limits apply in Scotland?
Yes. Employment law is reserved to Westminster, so the six month limit applies in Scotland from 1 October 2026 in the same way as in England and Wales. The one exception is breach of contract, sometimes called wrongful dismissal. That jurisdiction sits under a separate Scottish order, and the longer limit applies there only where employment terminates on or after 9 November 2026.
Does the new six month limit apply to a dismissal that happened before October?
No. The extended limit applies only where the act you are complaining about falls on or after 1 October 2026. For unfair dismissal, that means the effective date of termination. A dismissal on 20 September 2026 keeps the three month deadline, even if you only take advice in November. Where a claim rests on a series of acts, the tribunal looks at the date of the last one.
How is the three month time limit actually calculated?
Yes, but only in limited circumstances. For unfair dismissal and most Employment Rights Act 1996 claims, the tribunal asks whether it was reasonably practicable to lodge in time. Discrimination claims under the Equality Act 2010 use a broader just and equitable test. Either way the extension is discretionary, and it is refused more often than it is granted.
Can a tribunal ever accept a claim that is lodged late?
Not for the claims listed in the agreement, which is precisely what your employer is paying for. You keep the right to enforce the agreement itself, and standard carve-outs preserve accrued pension rights and personal injury claims you did not know about when you signed. No agreement can prevent you making a protected disclosure. This is why the advice you receive beforehand matters so much, because once the document is signed there is generally no way back.
Do I need to go through ACAS before I can lodge a claim?
Yes, in almost all cases. You must notify ACAS and obtain an early conciliation certificate before a tribunal will accept your claim. Taking part in the conciliation itself is voluntary and you can decline it. Since 1 December 2025 the conciliation period can run for up to twelve weeks, and your time limit is paused throughout, provided you notified ACAS within the original deadline.
This article is by Sarah Lynch
Sarah Lynch, Managing Partner
Sarah Lynch is the Managing Partner at Pomphreys. Sarah studied at Dundee University, achieving a 2:1 LLB Honours degree in Scots Law. She then moved back to Glasgow to study the Diploma in Legal Practice, being one of only a small number of students to be offered a funded position for academic excellence achieved during the LLB. Sarah then secured a traineeship concentrating on Personal Injury before deciding to broaden her scope of work to all civil litigation. We recently caught up with Sarah to discuss her role in Pomphreys.
Tel: 01698 373 365
Email: sl@pomphreyslaw.com
