⏳ Limitation & Claim Deadline Calculator (England & Wales)

Find the last date to bring a claim in England and Wales — contract, tort, personal injury, land, defamation, human rights and employment tribunal deadlines, with the ACAS pause.

Nothing you enter leaves your device — the whole calculation runs in your browser.

Last date to bring the claim
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Working, step by step
The periods this calculator applies — and the traps

Civil claims. The day the cause of action accrues is left out of the count (the law does not divide a day: Pritam Kaur v S Russell & Sons [1973] QB 336), so a six-year period expiring on an anniversary is usually safe to the anniversary date — but the safest working assumption is the day before. Personal injury claims have a single 3-year period running from the later of the injury and the date of knowledge (s.11(4)); the court can disapply it under s.33, but only exceptionally. Latent damage to property has a 3-year period from knowledge and an absolute 15-year longstop from the act or omission (s.14B) — the longstop cannot be extended. Defamation (s.4A) and Human Rights Act claims can in principle be extended by the court, but the starting period is short.

Employment tribunal claims. Most claims must be presented within 3 months less one day of the act complained of (the effective date of termination for unfair dismissal, the last act in a series for discrimination and deductions). From 1 October 2026 that rises to 6 months less one day for acts, dismissals and terminations on or after that date (Employment Rights Act 2025, s.152 and Schedule 12; in Scotland the equivalent extension for breach-of-contract claims on termination starts on 9 November 2026). Statutory redundancy pay and equal pay claims were already at six months and are unchanged. Where the corresponding date does not exist in the final month, the last day is the last day of that month (Pruden v Cunard Ellerman). ACAS early conciliation is compulsory for most claims and stops the clock: the days from the day after Day A to Day B are not counted, and if the deadline would fall within a month of Day B, the claimant gets a month from Day B (ERA 1996 s.207B). The conciliation period itself can run to 12 weeks for notifications made on or after 1 December 2025.

Not modelled here. Fraud, concealment and mistake (s.32), disability (s.28), the discretion to extend under s.33, acknowledgement or part-payment restarting time (s.29–30), claims for an account, personal injury caused by a dust-related disease, and service out of the jurisdiction. Limitation is fact-specific — a calculator is a check, not a substitute for taking advice.

Time runs from the accrual of the cause of action, not from when the claimant discovers the loss (except where the statute says otherwise). If a limitation date is close, issue the claim and particularise later rather than gamble. — Information only, not legal advice. Based on the Limitation Act 1980, the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the Equality Act 2010, checked 4 October 2026.