From 1 December 2025, the Acas Early Conciliation period has been temporarily extended from six weeks to twelve weeks under new government regulations.
This change comes from The Employment Tribunals (Early Conciliation: Exemptions and Rules of Procedure) (Amendment) Regulations 2025, and it affects anyone starting early conciliation with Acas on or after 1 December 2025.
Early conciliation is a required step before you can submit an ET1 form to the Employment Tribunal. With this update, you’ll now have more time to try and reach a settlement before your case progresses further — but it also means your overall timeline for submitting an ET1 will change.
In this article, we’ll explain what’s different, how it affects your tribunal deadlines, and what practical steps you should take if you’re preparing to make a claim.
Before you can make a claim to an Employment Tribunal, you must first go through a process called Acas Early Conciliation. This step gives you and your employer a chance to resolve the issue without going to tribunal.
During early conciliation, a trained Acas conciliator helps both sides discuss the problem and explore options for settlement. It’s free, confidential, and can save you time, stress, and the need for a formal hearing.
If an agreement is reached, you enter into a written agreement with your employer, called a COT3 and the dispute ends there. If not, Acas will issue an Early Conciliation Certificate containing a certificate number, which you’ll need to include when submitting your ET1 claim form to the Employment Tribunal.
Until now, early conciliation lasted up to six weeks — but from 1 December 2025, this timeframe has been extended to 12 weeks.
As of 1 December 2025, the UK government has introduced new legislation that extends the Acas Early Conciliation period from six weeks to twelve weeks. This change is part of The Employment Tribunals (Early Conciliation: Exemptions and Rules of Procedure) (Amendment) Regulations 2025.
This means that when you contact Acas to start early conciliation on or after 1 December 2025, the conciliator now has up to 12 weeks to help both sides reach an agreement before the process ends.
If you start early conciliation before 1 December 2025, the old six-week rule still applies. Only new cases raised from that date onwards fall under the updated 12-week period.
The extension to a 12-week Acas Early Conciliation period changes the timing of when you can submit your ET1 claim to the Employment Tribunal.
Normally, when you start early conciliation, the clock on your Tribunal deadline pauses. Once Acas issues your Early Conciliation Certificate, the clock starts again — giving you a set number of days to submit your ET1 form, depending on your type of claim. You always have at least a month from the date the Early Conciliation certificate is issued to submit your claim to the Employment Tribunal.
You need to contact Acas by a certain date. This is called the primary time limit. For most employment law claims, this is three months less one day from the date of the act that the complaint is about, for example, your dismissal or an act of discrimination.
For statutory redundancy pay or equal pay claims, the claim must be made within six months less one day.
This means that, for example, if you were unfairly dismissed on 1 May, you would need to contact Acas to start Early Conciliation by the end of the day on 31 July.
The Early Conciliation process currently takes place over a maximum period of six weeks. If you don’t manage to come to an agreement at the end of that period, then Acas will issue you with an Early Conciliation Certificate before the end of the six weeks. From 1 December 2025, this will be extended to 12 weeks.
When you have received your Early Conciliation Certificate, you’ll then have a further period of time to put in your ET1. This will be at least a month from the date that is given on your Certificate, but it does depend on the date of the incident(s) and when you started and finished Early Conciliation.
As the primary time limit is paused while Early Conciliation takes place, the length of time you are carrying out Early Conciliation is added to the primary time limit to give you the overall time limit for submitting your claim to the Employment Tribunal.
It can get a bit complicated, if you need some help please get in touch and our support team can help with this.
Under the new rules, because conciliation can now last up to 12 weeks, you may experience a longer pause in your timeline before you have to submit your claim. This gives you more time to negotiate or prepare, but it’s still crucial to track your overall deadline carefully.
For example:
Missing your ET1 deadline can mean your case isn’t accepted by the tribunal and therefore cannot go ahead, so it’s important to plan ahead. Use the extra conciliation time to gather evidence, review your documents, and prepare your ET1 form in advance — so you’re ready to submit as soon as your certificate arrives.
If you’re unsure how your specific timeline is affected, check your Acas certificate date and contact us.
If you’re about to start early conciliation with Acas or are already in the process, the key is to plan around the new 12-week window. While the extension gives you more breathing space, it’s still important to keep your Employment Tribunal deadlines in mind.
Here’s what you can do now:
To learn more:
Valla’s step-by-step tools and templates can help you complete your ET1 form, Particulars of Claim, and supporting documents.
Find out how to prepare a strong ET1 claim so it’s ready to submit when your Acas conciliation ends.