The Employment Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 4 and Transitional and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2026 were made on 26 May 2026 and signed by Kate Dearden, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business and Trade. According to the statutory instrument published on legislation.gov.uk, the Regulations set the next commencement dates for section 25 of the Employment Rights Act 2025, which concerns the right not to be unfairly dismissed, including qualifying period and compensation, and for Schedule 3, which makes linked amendments. The instrument does two separate jobs. First, it brings a narrow part of the 2025 Act into force on 1 July 2026. Second, it brings the remainder of the unfair dismissal provisions into force on 1 January 2027, while also setting rules for cases that fall across that changeover date.
The 1 July 2026 start date is deliberately limited. Regulation 2 commences section 25(5) only so far as it relates to paragraph 5 of Schedule 3, and it also commences paragraph 5 itself. The Explanatory Note states that this early commencement is intended to allow the power to make further consequential amendments to be used from that date. In practical terms, the July change is about legal housekeeping rather than the full unfair dismissal package. It gives ministers the ability to make follow-on amendments when using section 154 of the 2025 Act, so that the statute book can be adjusted in light of the repeal of section 124 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 by section 25(3) of the 2025 Act.
The substantive change arrives on 1 January 2027. Regulation 3 brings into force the remainder of section 25, so far as it is not already in force, together with the remaining parts of Schedule 3 that make minor and consequential amendments tied to section 25. For employers, advisers and tribunal users, that date is the main operational point. From 1 January 2027, the revised unfair dismissal provisions in section 25 and the associated amendments in Schedule 3 move from enacted law to law in force, subject to the transitional rules in regulation 4.
Regulation 4 is likely to matter most in live disputes. The key test is not simply when the dismissal decision was taken, but whether the employee's effective date of termination falls before, or on or after, 1 January 2027. Where an employee is dismissed before 1 January 2027 but the effective date of termination is on or after that date, the amendments made by section 25(2) and (3), and by paragraphs 1(2), 1(3)(a), 1(4) to (7), 1(9), 2(3) and 4 of Schedule 3, will apply. The reverse is also stated clearly. If the effective date of termination falls before 1 January 2027, those amendments do not apply. The Regulations rely on the established meanings of 'dismissed' and 'effective date of termination' in Part 10 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, drawing specifically on sections 95 and 97, rather than creating a separate test for these commencement rules.
The saving provision in regulation 4(3) is narrower but still important. It states that the amendment made by section 25(4) of the 2025 Act does not affect regulations made under section 209(5) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 as that subsection stood immediately before the amendment took effect. That is a continuity measure. Its practical effect is to avoid accidental disruption to existing secondary legislation made under the earlier version of section 209(5). For departments, legal teams and those maintaining internal compliance materials, the message is that the new commencement does not displace earlier regulations unless Parliament or ministers amend them expressly.
The Regulations are technical, but the real-world effect is straightforward. Cases that run across the 2026 to 2027 boundary will need to be checked carefully against the effective date of termination, especially where notice is given in late 2026 and employment ends in early 2027. Employers will need dismissal processes, template letters and case triage arrangements to reflect that dividing line. The Explanatory Note also points readers to the broader policy material behind the Act. Impact assessments prepared for the Employment Rights Bill first published on 10 October 2024, and supplementary economic analysis and enactment summary impact assessments published on 7 January 2026, set out expected cost effects for business, the voluntary sector and the public sector. Taken together, this commencement instrument is less about announcing a new policy direction than about fixing the dates and legal boundaries for how the unfair dismissal changes will take effect.