Continuous service checker

Unfair dismissal can arrive before your two years do

On 1 January 2027 the qualifying period for ordinary unfair dismissal drops from two years to six months. That is section 25 of and Schedule 3 to the Employment Rights Act 2025, commenced by SI 2026/559.

It was announced as a day one right and it did not end up as one. Six months is what passed.

The consequence people miss is arithmetic rather than politics. The change can land before your two years does. Somebody who started in March 2026 is nowhere near two years, but they are well past six months by January, so they are protected on 1 January 2027 rather than in March 2028, which is over a year early. Anybody with six months or more on that date gets it immediately, with no waiting and no transition.

So the honest answer to "when am I protected" is not one rule but two, and which one applies depends on when you started. That is the calculation this page does.

And it splits two rights that currently move together

Unfair dismissal and statutory redundancy pay are both two years today. People treat them as one threshold because right now they are one threshold.

From 1 January 2027 they come apart: six months for unfair dismissal, two years for redundancy pay. Redundancy pay is not part of the change. An employee dismissed in February 2027 with a year's service can bring an unfair dismissal claim and is owed nothing in statutory redundancy pay, which is a combination that has not existed before.

The qualifying date is the day before the anniversary

Section 211(1)(a) says the period of continuous employment begins with the day the employee starts work. That first day is inside the count, so the period is complete at the end of the day before the anniversary.

Start on 1 January 2024 and your two years are complete on 31 December 2025, not 1 January 2026. The Court of Session settled the point in Pacitti Jones v O'Brien: an employee who started on 8 April 2001 had a year's service when dismissed on 7 April 2002.

A calculator that prints the anniversary is a day late every time, and on a two year threshold a single day decides whether there is a claim at all.

Most gaps do not break continuity

The instinct is that any gap resets the clock. It usually does not, and section 210(5) presumes continuity unless the contrary is shown, so the burden sits with whoever says the service was broken.

Section 212(3) keeps the clock running where there is no contract in force at all:

• Sickness or injury, for up to 26 weeks
• A temporary cessation of work, judged after the event by how the gap compares with the work either side of it
• Arrangement or custom, where the employment is regarded as continuing

Section 218 then carries service across a change of employer: a TUPE transfer, a move between associated employers, a change of partners, and several public sector transfers. Your service runs from the day you started with the first employer, not from the transfer.

Holiday, maternity, paternity, adoption and parental leave never break it, and neither does a lock-out or a period of reserve forces service.

The strike exception runs the other way

A strike is the one case where continuity survives but the time does not.Section 216(1) excludes the week, and section 211(3) postpones the start of your continuous employment by the days in it. Your service is intact and every qualifying date moves later.

The statute excludes the whole week in which any strike day falls, not just the days out. If a qualifying date is close, count the weeks rather than the days.

Forces service, overseas work and agency arrangements

Service with the armed forces, work overseas, agency arrangements and some fixed term patterns all have their own rules, and a contract can always give more than the statutory minimum. This works the default position from the dates, which is the right thing to take to a conversation rather than the last word in it.