Live now · October 2026

What the 6-Month Tribunal Window Means for a 10-Person Business

Last verified: 7 October 2026

Since 1 October 2026, most employment tribunal claims can be brought up to six months after the event — double the old three-month limit. For a 10-person business without an HR department, that change is really about one thing: your memory is no longer good enough. Here is the practical response.

You won't find a generic explainer of the new time limits here — gov.uk and Acas already own that territory. This is the small-employer angle: what a doubled claim window does to a business where the owner is also the HR department, the witness statements live in people's heads, and the filing cabinet is a shared Google Drive.

The 6-month tribunal window, in one paragraph

Under the Employment Rights Act 2025, the time limit for bringing most employment tribunal claims rose from three months to six months on 1 October 2026. It covers the claims small businesses worry about most: unfair dismissal, discrimination and harassment, unlawful deduction of wages, and the rest. The practical effect is simple to state and uncomfortable to absorb: events from last autumn are still claimable. A dismissal in November, a pay dispute over Christmas, a grievance that went nowhere in February — all of it can still turn into a claim today, and the six-month window will keep rolling forward from here.

The context makes it heavier. Unfair-dismissal claims are already up 29% year-on-year. The government's economic analysis (January 2026) expects roughly 3,000 extra tribunal claims a year as the Act's other changes bite — and remember, from 1 January 2027 the unfair-dismissal qualifying period drops to six months, bringing an estimated 6.3 million more employees into scope. More people who can claim, with twice as long to do it.

The transitional cut-off: which limit applies to which event

The new six-month limit applies to events on or after 1 October 2026; events before that date are generally governed by the old three-month limit. That sounds simple until you hit the boundary cases: a dismissal on 28 September, a series of wage deductions spanning August to October, a course of conduct that started in the summer and continued into the autumn. For continuing acts and series of deductions, the timing rules get technical fast — this is exactly the territory where getting the date wrong means a claim you thought had timed out is still live, or vice versa.

The practical takeaway for a small employer: don't do limitation maths yourself. If anything arrives — a claim form, an Acas early conciliation notification, even an angry solicitor's letter — check the date of the underlying event against 1 October 2026 and get advice promptly. Limitation deadlines are strict, and they cut both ways: they can end a claim against you, or quietly preserve one you assumed was dead.

Acas early conciliation still extends the clock

One thing the doubled window doesn't change: most claimants still have to go through Acas early conciliation before filing, and that process pauses ("stops the clock" on) the limitation period. So the effective deadline can stretch beyond six months from the event. For you as the employer, an Acas conciliation notification is your earliest warning that a claim may be coming — treat it as one. It's also, frankly, your best off-ramp: conciliation is free, it's designed for exactly this, and settling at conciliation stage avoids the fees, the months of distraction, and the year-plus wait for a hearing. When the notification lands, engage with it seriously rather than filing it under "deal with later."

Why this hits small teams hardest

In a 200-person company, a tribunal claim triggers a process: HR pulls the file, the file is complete, because completing files is someone's job. In a 10-person business, the "file" is often the owner's recollection, a few WhatsApp messages, and whatever the supervisor remembers about a conversation six months ago. The doubled window punishes exactly that setup, because human memory degrades precisely over the period the new law added.

Three specific problems get worse:

1. Witnesses leave. Small teams churn. The supervisor who handled the disciplinary may have moved on by the time a claim lands five months later. Without a written record made at the time, their evidence is gone — and you can't reconstruct a fair process from an empty folder.

2. Informal becomes invisible. Small businesses run on corridor conversations: the quiet word about lateness, the verbal warning that was never written down, the "we sorted it" after a complaint. Tribunals don't disbelieve you out of malice; they decide on evidence. An informal step you can't prove looks, on paper, like a step you never took.

3. The backlog changes the maths. The tribunal system is carrying more than 70,000 single claims — up 51% year-on-year (Ministry of Justice, April–June 2026) — and 71% of those involve firms with fewer than 50 staff. Cases take a long time to be heard. A claim filed in month six might not reach a hearing for a year or more, by which point you're trying to remember an 18-month-old incident. Every month the system delays you is another month your undocumented decisions fade.

The 70,000-case backlog makes early settlement worth thinking about

Here's the sentence nobody in the advice industry likes to write plainly: sometimes the rational move for a small employer is to settle a claim you'd probably win, because winning costs more than settling.

Run the numbers the way a small business has to. A tribunal claim means solicitor's fees (several thousand pounds even for a straightforward case), your own time across many months, the distraction cost to a business where you are the management layer, and the lingering effect on the rest of the team — all to reach a hearing that the backlog may push a year or more out. Against that, an early settlement through Acas conciliation — often a fraction of the defence cost — buys certainty and a clean line under the dispute.

This isn't advice to settle everything; some claims should be fought, and settling a weak claim can invite more of them. But the backlog has changed the price of being right. Build a standing rule now, before you're emotional about a specific claim: get early advice from Acas or a solicitor when any claim or pre-claim letter arrives, put a realistic settlement figure next to a realistic defence cost, and make the decision on paper rather than on principle. The businesses that get hurt worst are the ones that decide "we'll fight this on principle" in week one and quietly settle for more in month fourteen.

A file-keeping system for a business without an HR department

You don't need HR software. You need a folder per employee and the discipline to put things in it the day they happen. Here's the minimum viable system:

One folder per current employee (a Drive folder or a physical file — either works if it's consistent). Inside it, five things, dated as they happen:

1. Contract and written particulars — the signed version, plus any variations. If terms changed by email, the email goes in the folder.
2. Probation and performance notes — even two lines after each review: date, who was present, what was said, what was agreed. From January 2027 this file is your evidence under the 6-month dismissal qualifying period; start the habit now.
3. Absence and lateness records — dates, reasons given, SSP paid. Day-one SSP (in force since April 2026) means absence records are now pay records too.
4. Disciplinary and grievance notes — every step, every letter, every meeting note, with dates. If you took an informal step, write "informal verbal warning given on [date]" and file it. Informal is fine; invisible is not.
5. Exit paperwork — resignation letters, dismissal letters, settlement agreements, final pay calculations. Keep these for at least six months after the employee leaves — realistically, longer, since Acas early conciliation can extend limitation.

Two rules make the system work: write it the same day (a note made the day of the meeting is evidence; a reconstruction three months later is a story), and keep leavers' folders for at least a year after departure. Storage is free; the alternative is a tribunal asking you to prove what happened and having nothing to show.

For the full sequence of what the Act changes and when — including the 30 October harassment duty and the January 2027 dismissal reforms — work through our master checklist.