You've been dismissed this week. Do these things first.

Updated September 2026

The useful work in the first 48 hours is boring. Keep the paper. Do not sign. Write the date down. Start Acas. Everything else — the argument about whether it was fair, the LinkedIn post, the revenge email — can wait until the clock is protected.

The first hour

1. Take the letter with you. Photograph it if they will not let you keep a copy. You need the stated reason, the effective date, and any appeal address.
2. Do not sign a settlement in the room. A settlement agreement that waives claims is not valid without independent legal advice. “Sign this now and collect your things” is a negotiation tactic, not a legal requirement.
3. Do not send the late-night email. Anything you write will be in the bundle. A short “I acknowledge receipt and will respond once I have the paperwork” is enough.

The first evening

1. Pin down the effective date of termination. Notice, payment in lieu, and summary dismissal fix that date in different ways. The letter may be wrong. Write your own version of events with times.
2. Put that date into the tribunal deadline calculator. Before 1 October 2026 the ordinary window is three months less a day. On or after that date it is six. Acas can stretch it. An appeal cannot.
3. Check statutory notice. Use the notice calculator. If they walked you out with a week's pay and you have seven years' service, that gap is money.

The first two days

1. Start Acas early conciliation. It is free. It pauses the clock. You can still appeal internally afterwards. People lose claims because they “waited to see” about the appeal.
2. Appeal if the letter offers it. Follow how to appeal a dismissal. Short, dated, factual. The appeal does not buy you time with the tribunal. It can still change compensation and the story.
3. If they called it redundancy, read the three different redundancy clocks before you relax about the cheque.
4. If you have less than two years' service, ordinary unfair dismissal may not be open yet. Automatically unfair reasons (pregnancy, whistleblowing, health and safety, asserting a statutory right) have no qualifying period. See the unfair dismissal time limit.

What can wait

Rewriting your CV. Telling the team. Negotiating the reference wording. Instructing a solicitor for a long merits opinion. All useful. None of it starts the limitation clock, and none of it stops it. The order is: paper, date, Acas, then the rest.

If you are still in shock, give the Acas form to a trusted person and sit with them while they type. The form is short on purpose.

This is general information for England, Wales and Scotland, not legal advice. If the deadline is close, speak to Acas, a solicitor, or your union today.