The 21-day deadline — and when the clock actually starts

The rule

The same 21-day window applies to a general protections claim involving dismissal. If you are not sure which claim is yours, lodge inside 21 days regardless — the deadline is the thing you cannot fix later.

Which day is day one

The clock runs from when the dismissal took effect — the day your employment actually ended. That is not necessarily any of the dates you have in front of you.

The date on your separation certificate, the date of your final payslip, and the date your access card stopped working are all evidence — but none of them is automatically the legal date. Where it is genuinely unclear, count from the earliest arguable date. Being early costs nothing; being late can cost everything.

What if you're already late

Lodge anyway, immediately, and ask for an extension. The Commission can extend the period, but only if satisfied there are exceptional circumstances.

What 'exceptional' means

It carries its ordinary meaning: out of the ordinary course, unusual, special or uncommon. It does not have to be unique or unprecedented, and it is not disqualified just because similar things have happened in other cases. Importantly, exceptional circumstances can be made up of a combination of ordinary factors that together amount to something out of the ordinary — so the whole picture is worth putting forward, not just the single best fact.

What the Commission weighs

• The reason for the delay — and the length of it. A day late with a good reason is a very different application from three months late.
• When you first found out you had been dismissed.
• Whether you disputed it in the meantime — arguing with the employer, lodging a grievance, or chasing an internal appeal all help show you weren't sitting on your hands.
• Prejudice to the employer from the delay.
• The merits of the underlying case.
• Fairness as between you and other people in a similar position.

Reasons that have carried weight include serious illness or hospitalisation at the relevant time, being misled about the dismissal or the process, and significant delay caused by pursuing an internal appeal the employer encouraged. Reasons that generally have not: being busy, being upset, waiting to see whether the employer changed its mind, and being unaware of the law.

Why this deadline catches so many people

Twenty-one days is short, and it lands in the worst three weeks of someone's working life. In that window people are usually dealing with the shock, telling their family, chasing their final pay, updating their résumé, and applying for other jobs. Working out which tribunal to go to is rarely at the top of the list.

In the enquiries we have seen where a filing deadline was recorded, the median person made contact with 15 days of the 21 left — and about one in five had a week or less, or had already run out of time.

Other employment deadlines, for context

The contrast is stark, and worth understanding: if your complaint is that you were underpaid, you usually have years. If your complaint is that you were dismissed, you have three weeks.