An amendment to the Upper Tribunal procedural code will take effect on 6 November 2026 after being made on 12 October 2026 and laid before Parliament on 16 October 2026. The Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) (Amendment) Rules 2026 update the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, which govern practice in the Upper Tribunal other than the Lands Chamber. The statutory instrument is limited in scope but important in day-to-day case management. It sets a filing deadline for certain Online Safety Act appeals, changes service steps in immigration judicial review, creates a formal reply stage after an acknowledgement of service, and sets out how parties may seek permission to appeal where an immigration judicial review decision is issued without a hearing.
The most direct change for digital regulation appears in rule 21(3). A new sub-paragraph provides that an application under section 168(1) of the Online Safety Act 2023 must be made within three months of the date on which OFCOM publishes notice of the decision being challenged, in line with the relevant provisions of that Act. That drafting matters because it ties the Upper Tribunal deadline to a clear public event: publication by OFCOM. For firms, platforms and legal advisers considering a challenge, the filing period now runs from the published notice rather than from a less certain procedural marker. In practical terms, teams handling potential appeals will need to record publication dates immediately and treat them as the point from which the tribunal timetable begins.
In immigration judicial review proceedings, the amendment revises rule 28A. Once the Upper Tribunal accepts an application under rule 28A(1), it must now seal the application and send it to the applicant. The next step for the applicant is then reset, because the nine-day period for service runs from the date on which the Tribunal sends the sealed application, not simply from the point of acceptance. The revised wording also requires the applicant to provide a copy of the sealed application when serving the respondent and any other relevant person. As the Explanatory Note makes clear, the change is designed to ensure that the document entering circulation is the version accepted by the Tribunal. That gives a clearer procedural record and reduces the scope for disagreement about what exactly has been accepted for judicial review.
A separate amendment inserts a new rule 29A, creating a defined reply stage after an acknowledgement of service. An applicant may provide a reply to the Upper Tribunal, but it must be lodged no later than seven days after the acknowledgement of service is sent or provided to the applicant. Any reply must also comply with any practice direction governing its content and length. The rule also imposes parallel service obligations. The applicant must provide a copy of any reply to the respondent and to any person who has been sent or provided with a copy of the application for permission, and must do so as soon as reasonably practicable and in any event within seven days of filing the reply with the Tribunal. The time limits cannot be extended by agreement between the parties, which keeps control of the timetable with the Tribunal rather than with private arrangements between litigants.
The instrument also changes how immigration judicial review cases may be concluded and then taken forward on appeal. Rule 40 is amended by removing paragraphs (1A) and (1B), while rule 44 gains a new paragraph (4BA). Read alongside the Explanatory Note, the effect is to allow the Upper Tribunal to dispose of immigration judicial review proceedings other than at a hearing. Where that happens, a party may apply in writing for permission to appeal. The application must be received by the Upper Tribunal no later than twelve working days after the Tribunal sent notice of its decision to that party. For representatives, that creates a distinct deadline which is expressed in working days rather than calendar days, and it will need to be diarised separately from the seven-day and nine-day periods used elsewhere in the amended rules.
The accompanying note states that no impact assessment has been produced because no, or no significant, effect on the private, voluntary or public sectors is foreseen. That is consistent with the character of the instrument. It does not create a new jurisdiction and it does not alter the substantive tests that the Tribunal applies. Its focus is procedure, timing and document handling. Even so, the case-level effect should not be understated. Online Safety Act appellants will need to track OFCOM publication dates with precision, immigration judicial review applicants will need to serve sealed documents within a revised timetable, and parties in judicial review proceedings now have a clearer structure for replies and written permission-to-appeal applications. For tribunal users, the immediate question is procedural compliance rather than policy substance.
The Rules were made by the Tribunal Procedure Committee on 8 October 2026 and signed by Lord Justice Ian Dove, Faridah Eden, David Franey, Sean O'Brien, Jonathan Dobson, Matt Jackson, Sanaz Saifolahi, Mark Blundell and Peace Egbulefu. They were allowed on behalf of the Lord Chancellor by Sarah Sackman, Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice, on 12 October 2026 under the powers in section 22 of, and Schedule 5 to, the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. The commencement date leaves a short implementation window. Before 6 November 2026, practitioners working in Upper Tribunal matters will need to update filing templates, service checklists and deadline tracking systems to reflect the new three-month Online Safety Act appeal period, the sealed-application requirement in immigration judicial review, the seven-day reply rule and the twelve-working-day route for seeking permission to appeal where a decision is issued without a hearing.