Employment tribunals – your rights

(updated October 2025)

Employment Tribunals (ET) hear employment disputes which haven’t been resolved in the workplace, between employers and employees. Their decision is legally binding but can be challenged, if either party is unhappy with the result, at the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT).

Employees can take a claim to an ET for any of the reasons listed below. Employment Tribunals in Northern Ireland are still called Industrial Tribunals. Workers and freelancers have more limited circumstances to make a claim – we detail these below.

Reasons you may go to an Employment Tribunal

You’re always advised to try to resolve your problem with your employer before lodging a claim at ET. Both sides (employer and employee) can have unrealistic expectations of what will happen at an ET – employees may want a chance to clear their name or force the employer to recognise what has happened to them, and employers may seek vindication or want to send a message to other employees. Both sides could be disappointed after a lengthy and sometimes distressing process.

That said, you can take your employer to an Employment Tribunal for any of the following reasons:

• Unfair dismissal (including constructive dismissal and an Employers failure to provide a written statement for the reasons for dismissal). Employees only. You need two years continuous service before you can claim most types of unfair dismissal – there are some exceptions which don’t require two years service – see below. Compensation is given for any successful claim based on the Employees lost earnings – it doesn’t include payment for injury to feelings. Since 29th July 2013, a cap has existed on the compensatory award for unfair dismissal, which is currently the lower of £118,223 (or a year’s gross pay, whichever is lower) (from 6th April 2025) . The cap in Northern Ireland (from 6.4.25) is £118,455 and this is not subject to the 52 weeks pay limit. This cap doesn’t apply to dismissals for whistle-blowing, for certain health and safety reasons, or for selection for redundancy. A week’s pay will be based on the claimant’s annual gross salary and will not include pension contributions, benefits in kind or discretionary bonuses, although in University of Sunderland v Drossow 2017, the EAT said that an employer’s pension contributions should be included in a week’s pay.
• Failure to receive Equal Pay for equal value work (employees only)
• Failure of your employer to pay redundancy pay or failure to inform and consult in a redundancy or business transfer situation; failure to allow time off to look for work during a redundancy situation (employees only)
• Breach of Contract – if you’ve suffered a financial loss and your employment has ended you may bring a claim to an ET. In other circumstances, the claim must be made at a County or other Civil court (employees only)
• Working Hours – your employer’s failure to limit weekly or night working limits or to ensure you get the proper rest breaks (employees and workers only)
• Failure to pay or allow you to take your statutory holiday entitlement (employees and workers only). From 1st October 2024, the right to receive tips, on a fairly allocated basis, which must be paid to the member of staff in the month following the month the tip was received.
• Unauthorised deduction from your wages (employees only) or failure to provide you with a written pay statement (employees and workers only)
• Failure to provide you with a written statement or a written statement of any subsequent changes to your terms and conditions (employees only)
• Underpayment of the National Minimum Wage (employees and workers)
• Breach of the Agency Workers Regulations – from 1st October 2011 (employees and workers only)
• Refusal of employment (by an employer or via an agency) on the grounds of your trade union membership (workers and employees only)
• Refusal by your employer to allow you to be accompanied to a disciplinary or grievance hearing (employees only)
• If as an employee on a Fixed Term Contract you’ve suffered less favourable treatment than a permanent employee, dismissal, you’ve failed to receive a written statement confirming it has ended, or a written statement confirming that you’re now a permanent employee (employees only)
• If as a part-time employee you have suffered less favourable treatment and/or dismissal than a full-time employee (employees and workers)
• Failure by your employer to allow time for Trade Union activities, jury service or other public duties, or ante-natal care (employees only)
• Suffered less favourable treatment due to requesting or taking time off for paternity or adoption leave or to assist a dependant (employees only) or take Statutory Bereavement Leave and Pay
• Suffered detriment and/or dismissal for claiming flexible working or your employer has breached the flexible working procedures (employees only)
• Suffered detriment and/or dismissal for refusing to work on a Sunday (employees only)
• Suffered discrimination due to pregnancy, maternity leave or childbirth. Employees, workers, and freelancers (in most cases freelancers are covered but please see our ‘What are my main Employment Rights’ guide for more details)
• Discrimination claims – there’s no cap on compensation limits and payments can be made to successful claimants for injury to feelings. Open to employees, workers and freelancers (in most cases freelancers are covered but please see our ‘What are my main Employment Rights‘ guide for more details).
• From 26th October 2024 there is a new law on Workplace Sexual Harassment and you can see the details here.
• Those on zero-hours contracts can bring a claim of unfair dismissal if the reason for their dismissal is that they failed to comply with a (now banned) exclusivity clause – no qualifying period is necessary. (workers only)

Discrimination claims

There are various discrimination claims that can be made, which include:

• Disability discrimination
• Sexual orientation discrimination
• Gender re-assignment
• Sex discrimination
• Race/Nationality/Ethnic origin discrimination
• Age discrimination
• Marriage and Civil Partnership
• Pregnancy and Maternity
• Religious discrimination.

Health and Safety

There are also circumstances under Health and Safety Laws where an employee can make an unfair dismissal claim to an ET without needing two years employment (this is called automatically unfair dismissal), including where you have been dismissed for complaining or refusing to work in unsafe working conditions e.g. you were dismissed for ‘taking action’ over a health and safety issue, which includes:

• carrying out any health and safety activities which you have been asked to do by your employer
• performing or proposing to perform any functions as a health and safety official
• bringing a reasonable health and safety concern to your employer’s attention if there is no health and safety rep available
• leaving your workplace because you believe you are in a serious and imminent danger which could not be avoided
• taking appropriate steps to protect yourself or other people because you believe they are in serious danger.

Employment Tribunal judgments database

The Ministry of Justice launched a new online database in February 2017,  making years of employment tribunal decisions from England, Scotland, and Wales easily searchable. In addition, those proceedings that are ‘dismissed’ and don’t get to Tribunal, or are withdrawn on settlement via ACAS (with a COT3 form), are also included in the database.

The higher courts and the Employment Appeal Tribunal usually have details published on the BAILII website.

More information about Tribunals in England and Wales

• You should take advice from ACAS, your Trade Union representative or the Citizens Advice Bureau before making a claim as it can be confusing and complicated
• You must normally make your claim within three months or either your employment ending or of the date the issue happened (that is the subject of the claim). In redundancy and equal pay cases, the time limit is six months (minus one day). However, a 2015 case that went to the Employment Appeal Tribunal in Higgins v Home Office confirmed that where an employee is suffering from very serious mental health issues a delay in starting proceedings may not be fatal to her application
• After 29th July 2013, there was a fee to bring a claim to an ET. However, the Supreme Court declared these fees unlawful on 26th July 2017. You can read details about the previous fee regime and the Supreme Court’s decision at the bottom of this article
• You must now start a claim by contacting Acas first. You can read details about the process here
• ACAS will involve one of their “conciliation” officers to see if they can help resolve your case without it going to ET. See more details about ‘pre-conciliation’ below
• Employment Tribunals can ‘strike out’ a case if they think it is too weak, at a pre-hearing, meaning the case will not proceed. They can also order you to pay costs if they hear your claim but then think you have behaved ‘unreasonably’ during the case. From 29th July 2013 pre-hearings and ‘case management discussions’ will be combined and known as ‘preliminary’ hearings, which will ‘sift’ the case and explore the possibility of settlement or alternative dispute resolution to avoid the case going to Tribunal
• You’re able to withdraw or settle your case at any point during the process
• If your case reaches the tribunal the case will usually be heard by a panel of three people which will include a qualified Employment Judge
• If you disagree with an ET’s decision about your case you can appeal if the Tribunal has made an error in law or if their decision is ‘perverse’ (i.e. a decision was reached that no ‘reasonable’ Tribunal could have made on the evidence in front of it). There are more fees to pay to appeal the process
• The losing party at a Tribunal does not automatically find themselves having to pay the other party’s costs of litigation. However, the Tribunal has discretion to order costs where a party or their representatives have acted “vexatiously, abusively, disruptively or otherwise unreasonably”
• And, if an appeal is successful at Employment Appeal Tribunal the EAT is able to make costs order against the respondents, requiring it to the pay the cost of any appeal/hearing fees to the appellant
• There are two Employment Tribunal websites – one for England, Wales and Scotland , and one for Northern Ireland.

Pre-claim conciliation

Claims to a Tribunal must be submitted to ACAS before they are lodged with the Tribunal. This ‘Pre-Claim Conciliation’ service is mandatory.

Complaints to ACAS can be made online, by post or telephone. The complainant only has to tell ACAS their name and address and that of the prospective respondent (normally the employer), no details of the complaint have to be given.

ACAS will make “reasonable attempts” to contact the claimant and then the respondent (if the claimant agrees). If ACAS cannot make contact with one of the parties it will conclude that settlement is not possible. The parties to the claim will be offered conciliation for one month in an attempt to resolve the dispute with their employer (before lodging the claim) with ACAS’s help. This period can be extended by another 14 days if there is a reasonable prospect of achieving a settlement.

If this is unsuccessful or if one party refuses, the claim can proceed to Tribunal (ACAS will issue a ‘conciliation certificate’ to allow the claim to proceed to Tribunal). If ACAS can’t resolve the matter in this period then their services will remain available right up until the case is heard by an Employment Tribunal.

While the claim is under conciliation, this ‘stops the clock’ for claims to be submitted to a Tribunal in time; so the period of three months in which a claimant must usually submit their claim to a Tribunal will be put on hold and will start again once an ACAS certificate is received. See our employers guide to ‘How to deal with an ACAS conciliation contact request’.

Fines for employers

If a Tribunal finds in favour of the individual and believes an employer is in breach of employment rights, they can be fined from a minimum of £100 to a maximum of £5,000.

This can happen in cases where there is a breach of the individual’s statutory rights, which has one or more “aggravating features”, and is intended to reduce deliberate and repeated breaches of employment law.

The financial penalty will be between £100 and £5,000 (it will be 50% of any compensation award made to the individual, capped at £5,000). The penalty will be reduced by 50% if it’s paid within 21 days. The penalty is paid directly to the Secretary of State and not to the individual. The tribunal can decide whether to impose a penalty or not and will take into account the employers ability to pay.

There is no statutory definition of what an “aggravating feature” is but the explanatory notes to the legislation says an employer is more likely to face a financial penalty when:

• The action was deliberate or committed with malice
• The organisation had a dedicated Human Resources team, or
• The employer repeatedly breached the employment rights concerned.

So the potential financial exposure for employers with employment claims will be increased as they risk paying compensation to a successful claimant, being ordered to reimburse the claimant for the tribunal fees they have had to pay and this new financial penalty.

Tribunal fees declared unlawful

On 26th July 2017, the UK Supreme Court made the momentous decision that the UK’s employment tribunal fee regime (Fees Order 2013), that had been in place since July 2013, was unlawful and discriminatory (in R [on the application of UNISON] v Lord Chancellor 2017).

It was estimated that between £27-32 million in fees had already been paid by individuals, and these fees were set to be repaid to all the individuals involved (the government had previously promised they would repay fees if the system was ever found unlawful).

In 2025 it was reported that the Labour Government may re-introduce tribunal fees, but in October 2025 they said they would not do this.