The Trade Unions (Right to Access Workplaces) Regulations 2026 were made on 15 October 2026 and come into force on 30 October 2026. According to the statutory instrument, the rules extend to England and Wales and Scotland and sit within the framework added to the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 by the Employment Rights Act 2025. The instrument was approved by both Houses before being made, and the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade presents it as part of the wider access agreement regime. In practical terms, the Regulations set the timetable for access requests, define when the Central Arbitration Committee can or must refuse access, and establish the terms the CAC must treat as reasonable when disputes reach formal determination.
The first change is procedural clarity. The Regulations state that an employer has 15 working days to respond after receiving an access request from a qualifying trade union. If the employer issues a response notice, the parties then have 25 working days from that notice to negotiate an access agreement. If no agreement is reached, the route to the CAC is also time-limited. The usual deadline for an application is the end of the 55th working day after the original access request, although the period can run to the 70th working day where the CAC accepts that it was not reasonably practicable to apply sooner. The instrument defines working days by excluding weekends, Christmas Day, Good Friday and bank holidays, which means employers and unions will need a disciplined record of service dates from the outset.
The Regulations also identify cases where the CAC must refuse access. One of the most important is the small employer threshold. The CAC must refuse access where the employer, together with any associated employers, has fewer than 21 workers on the day the request is received and an average of fewer than 21 workers across the preceding 13 weeks. The drafting is detailed on how that headcount is to be assessed. Agency workers on assignment are counted for this purpose, and workers employed by associated employers outside Great Britain are generally ignored unless they ordinarily work in Great Britain. The Regulations also require refusal where national security makes access inappropriate, where access would need to be denied to avoid prejudice to the prevention, detection or prosecution of criminal offences, where a proposed agreement allows access during the post-determination notice window, or where the proposed agreement does not expire within two years unless later extended by agreement under the 1992 Act.
Beyond those mandatory bars, the instrument sets out circumstances in which a refusal of access is to be treated as reasonable. According to the Regulations, that includes cases where access would overlap with existing union recognition arrangements, with a live statutory recognition process, or with an existing access agreement covering at least some of the same workers. The same approach applies where there are multiple outstanding access requests to the same employer with overlapping worker coverage, and where the CAC considers that access might jeopardise health or safety. The policy effect is clear: the regime is designed to avoid duplicate access structures, conflicting claims over the same workforce and unsafe arrangements on particular sites. For employers already managing recognition or access activity, the existence and scope of current arrangements will therefore matter heavily in any CAC proceedings.
The instrument does more than set refusal grounds. It also tells the CAC what to weigh when a determination is required. The Regulations say the committee must consider existing visitor arrangements, the type of workplace involved, whether safeguarding terms are needed, and whether the employer has taken reasonable steps to secure co-operation from any third party whose assistance is needed for access to happen. The same part of the instrument gives the CAC a statutory starting point on what counts as workable contract terms. Weekly access must be treated as not unreasonably interfering with the employer's business if the agreement is drafted in the form described by the Regulations. That can mean weekly physical entry, weekly non-physical communication, or a weekly opportunity using either route where both forms are allowed. Where both forms are available, the agreement may leave the weekly choice to the union.
Employer duties under an access agreement are also framed in practical terms. The CAC must treat a requirement to provide reasonable existing accommodation and facilities as a reasonable employer step, and it must also treat a privacy clause for direct worker communications as reasonable so far as that can be achieved in practice. For many employers, especially those operating shared premises or controlled sites, that points to advance planning on room availability, visitor rules and confidential space. On the union side, the Regulations support a basic notice structure. The CAC must regard a term requiring at least two working days' notice before each access occasion as reasonable, while the first occasion of access must usually carry at least five working days' notice. Where an agreement allows both physical and non-physical access, the notice must say which form will be used. The Regulations also support employer instructions on identification and other reasonable site requirements.
Part 4 of the instrument deals with enforcement. The Regulations cap the amount payable under CAC orders in relation to an access agreement at £75,000 for a first order, £150,000 for a second and £500,000 for a third or later order. According to the statutory text, the CAC must assess the seriousness of the failure, its duration, the reason for it, the number of workers affected, the size and resources of the person involved and any previous failures under access agreements. Those provisions do not apply only to the formal parties to an agreement. They also cover cases where another person, named in the initial complaint, prevents access or fails to comply with a CAC order requiring steps to make access happen. That gives the enforcement model a wider reach where control over the workplace is shared or where obstruction comes from someone other than the employer signatory.
The Regulations require the Secretary of State to review the regime and publish a report within five years of commencement, with later reviews at intervals of no more than five years. The explanatory note also states that no full impact assessment was prepared because no significant effect on the private, voluntary or public sector was expected, although a de minimis assessment has been produced. For employers, the immediate task is administrative rather than abstract. Organisations above the 21-worker threshold will need a clear process for receiving requests, calculating headcount across associated employers, tracking the statutory timetable and preparing evidence on safety, safeguarding or overlap where relevant. For unions, the drafting rewards precision on worker scope, access purpose and the intended form of access. From 30 October 2026, the CAC will be working within a much more prescriptive rulebook, and both sides will be expected to prepare accordingly.