This guide is written for solicitors, trainees and law students in England and Wales.
Employment Rights Act implementation runs in stages to January 2027. Three dates land this year. Electronic balloting starts on 31 August. The six-month tribunal limit follows on 1 October. Harassment duties and the trade union package land on 30 October. The heaviest changes, unfair dismissal and fire and rehire, arrive on 1 January 2027.
Who is this tracker for?
Employment advisers, HR teams and in-house counsel who need to know what is confirmed and what is not.
The Act reached the statute book in 2025. Almost none of it commenced then. Instead the Department for Business and Trade published a roadmap and has revised it twice since. Anyone who briefed a client off the first version has been wrong twice.
This page holds the current position. It separates dates that are fixed from measures that still depend on regulations nobody has seen.
Which measures are already in force?
Four, and they commenced in April 2026.
Statutory sick pay lost its lower earnings limit and its three waiting days on 6 April 2026. SSP now runs from day one, for every employee. The rate is the lower of the flat rate or a percentage of earnings.
The protective award for failing to consult on collective redundancy doubled the same day. It went from 90 days’ pay to 180.
The Fair Work Agency opened on 7 April 2026. It brings enforcement of the national minimum wage, holiday pay, statutory sick pay and labour market rules under one body.
The Fair Work Agency is the one to watch of those four. It is a new enforcement body rather than a change to a duty, and it takes over work previously split between three separate teams. How it uses its powers in its first year will matter more to employers than the letter of any provision commencing later.
Those four are live now. Everything below is not.
Employment Rights Act implementation: the full timetable
| Date | Measure | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 6 April 2026 | SSP lower earnings limit and waiting days removed. Collective redundancy protective award doubled to 180 days. | In force |
| 7 April 2026 | Fair Work Agency established. | In force |
| 31 August 2026 | Electronic and workplace balloting for industrial action. | Confirmed |
| 1 October 2026 | Tribunal time limit rises from three months to six for most claims. | Confirmed |
| 30 October 2026 | Duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. Third-party harassment liability. Trade union package: duty to inform workers of the right to join, union access rights, recognition and derecognition reforms, protections for union representatives, wider protection against detriment for industrial action. | Confirmed, moved from 1 October |
| 9 November 2026 | Six-month limit extends to breach of contract claims in Scotland. | Confirmed |
| By end of 2026 | Tipping reforms. | Date not fixed |
| 1 January 2027 | Unfair dismissal qualifying period cut to six months. Statutory cap on unfair dismissal compensation removed. Fire and rehire restrictions. | Confirmed, moved from October 2026 |
What is still waiting on regulations?
More than the table suggests, because a confirmed date does not mean settled content.
The harassment duty is the clearest case. Regulations are expected to name which steps count as reasonable for the all reasonable steps test. Until they appear, employers face a standard whose content has not been published.
Tipping is in the same position, which is why it has no date. So are the seafarer provisions and the Fair Pay Agreement machinery for adult social care.
The practical rule is simple. Draft the framework now. Leave the definitions open until the regulations land, or you will be redrafting.
The 1 October tribunal change is the one that reaches every file. Doubling the window from three months to six doubles the period in which a dismissal or grievance can become a claim. That changes what an early settlement is worth. It has not moved through two revisions, and nothing suggests it will.
How has the timetable moved?
Twice, and in one direction.
The first roadmap appeared in July 2025. On 3 February 2026 the government reset it, pushing fire and rehire restrictions from October 2026 to January 2027.
On 16 July 2026 it moved again. The harassment duties and the trade union package went from 1 October to 30 October. Tipping slipped from October to a vaguer commitment to arrive by the end of the year.
Nothing has ever moved forward. Treat any future date here as a floor rather than a promise. And keep the two October dates apart, because running them together is the commonest error.
What could still move?
Three things would change this page. A further revision from the Department for Business and Trade. Regulations laid under the Act. Or a code of practice published to sit beneath it.
A pattern is visible in what has moved so far. Measures that need fresh regulations to define their content have slipped. Measures that do not have held.
Electronic balloting and the tribunal time limit both fall in the second group. Neither needs regulations to say what it means, which is part of why neither has moved through two revisions.
The harassment duty and tipping both fall in the first. Both have moved, and tipping has now lost its date entirely.
Apply that test to anything still ahead. If a measure needs regulations nobody has published, treat its date as provisional however firmly it is stated.
Step by step: what to do and when
Now. Audit every date given to a client since February. Anything issued between 3 February and 16 July naming 1 October for harassment duties is wrong and needs correcting.
Before 31 August. Check whether any client is in a live industrial action process. Postal-only balloting ends and the practical timetable for a ballot changes.
Before 1 October. Review settlement strategy and record retention. Investigation notes, grievance outcomes and dismissal paperwork all need to stay accessible for twice as long.
Before 30 October. Draft the harassment framework without fixing the definitions. Prepare the statement telling workers about the right to join a union. Check whether any client site has an access arrangement that will need renegotiating.
Before 1 January 2027. Rework probation and performance processes against a six-month qualifying period. Anyone hired from 1 July 2026 clears the threshold on day one of the new regime.
Common mistakes
Treating the two October dates as one. They sit four weeks apart. The tribunal limit is 1 October. Harassment and unions are 30 October.
Reading the unfair dismissal change as a start-date rule. It applies to dismissals from 1 January 2027, not to employment beginning then.
Forgetting the compensation cap goes too. A six-month qualifying period and an uncapped award arrive together. A dismissal in early 2027 of someone with seven months’ service could produce an uncapped claim.
Assuming six months covers every claim. It covers most, not all. Check the jurisdiction.
Finalising harassment policy wording early. The regulations may contradict it.
Official sources
Acas keeps a plain-English summary on its Employment Rights Act 2025 page. Pinsent Masons runs a fuller practitioner timeline in its Out-Law implementation guide.
The Legal Brief reported the July revision in its news piece on the changed timetable. It set out the wider programme in the King’s Speech 2026 round-up.
Last updated: 1 August 2026. This tracker is revised each time the Department for Business and Trade republishes its implementation roadmap.