Guide · Time limits

Out of time — what now?

If the deadline has passed, the claim is not automatically dead — but it is in serious trouble. Tribunals have a limited power to extend time, they use it sparingly, and everything now depends on two things: which statutory test applies to your claim, and how fast you move from this moment on.

If you are reading this because a deadline just passed or is about to: every additional day of delay from now on actively damages the case for an extension. Whatever else you do today, the pattern that tribunals respond worst to is discovering the problem and then waiting. Speak to ACAS (0300 123 1100) or an adviser today, not next week.

The two tests

Different claims carry different extension tests, and the gap between them is wide:

"Not reasonably practicable" — unfair dismissal, unpaid wages, and most Employment Rights Act claims. The tribunal can extend time only if it was not reasonably practicable to present the claim in time, and it was then presented within a further reasonable period. This is a strict test. Broadly, it asks whether presenting in time was reasonably feasible — and things like knowing about the dismissal but misunderstanding the deadline, or simply waiting for an internal appeal to finish, have very often failed it. Serious illness, or genuinely not knowing (and having no reasonable means of knowing) crucial facts in time, are the kinds of territory where it can succeed. Both limbs matter: even where the first is satisfied, delay after the obstacle cleared can still sink the claim.

"Just and equitable" — discrimination and other Equality Act claims. Here the tribunal has a broader discretion: it can extend where it considers it just and equitable to do so, weighing things like the length of and reasons for the delay, the effect on the evidence, and the balance of prejudice between the parties. Broader does not mean generous — the time limit remains the rule and extension the exception — but arguable cases that would fail the stricter test can succeed under this one.

Which test applies can matter more than the delay itself. The same three-weeks-late claim might be hopeless as unfair dismissal but arguable as discrimination. Many workplace situations genuinely involve both kinds of claim — which claims arise from your facts, and which test each carries, is precisely the question to put to an adviser, urgently.

Things worth checking before concluding you're out of time

Is the trigger date actually what you think it is? The effective date of termination is not always the letter's date — see the EDT guide. An earlier assumption about the date is sometimes simply wrong, in either direction.
Continuing acts. In discrimination claims, conduct extending over a period is treated as done at the end of the period. If the treatment continued more recently than the incident you had in mind, time may run from later than you feared.
A series of deductions. For wages claims, time generally runs from the last deduction in a series — a more recent underpayment may reset the relevant date.
The ACAS extension arithmetic. If you notified ACAS before the original deadline, the pause and the one-month backstop may mean you are not actually late — run the calculator with Day A and Day B before assuming the worst.

If you are genuinely late

The practical sequence most advisers would recognise: get advice immediately; if proceeding, present the claim as soon as possible rather than perfecting it; and be ready to explain the whole timeline of the delay candidly — when you knew what, what obstacles existed, and what you did once they cleared. The tribunal decides extension on the real story, and gaps in it are what lose these applications.

Be realistic, too: extension applications fail more often than they succeed, and a regulated adviser can give you an honest view on prospects before you invest hope and effort. That honest view is a service worth having even when — especially when — the answer is disappointing.

Free help, today

ACAS (0300 123 1100), your trade union, Citizens Advice, and law centres can all help you work out which tests apply and what to do next — free. Given what this page is about, the operative word is today.

Ready to put this into practice?

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