How long do I have to sign a settlement agreement?

Written from primary sources · Editor-reviewed · Law current as of 19 September 2026

By the exitagreement.co.uk editorial team · Published 19 September 2026 · Last reviewed 19 September 2026 · 10 min read

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Short answer 10 days

No statute sets a deadline. The Acas statutory Code of Practice on settlement agreements recommends allowing at least 10 days to consider one. A shorter deadline is not unlawful — but it exposes the employer, because a tribunal can treat undue pressure as improper behaviour and admit the whole conversation in evidence.

The 10-day figure is a recommendation in the Acas statutory Code of Practice, not a statutory deadline. It still matters: if too little time is given, the without-prejudice protection on the conversation can fall away and the discussion itself becomes admissible.

The same diagram as a table

Consideration time, in days
Measure	Days	Source
Recommended minimum	10	Acas Code of Practice on settlement agreements
Offered in this example	3	Illustrative
Shortfall	7	Calculated

Key points

There is no legal deadline to sign. The date in the letter is a commercial position, not a rule.
The Acas Code recommends at least 10 days, and says reasonable time depends on the situation — a disabled worker may need longer as a reasonable adjustment.
The recommendation has teeth because of s.111A(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, not because of the Code itself.
The deadlines that are real are the tribunal time limits running in the background, and settling does not pause them. Acas early conciliation does.
If an offer lapses, nothing happens to you. An unaccepted offer is just an unaccepted offer.

Where the 10 days comes from

It comes from the Acas Code of Practice on settlement agreements, which recommends allowing at least 10 days to consider a proposed settlement agreement. That is the whole source. It is not in the Employment Rights Act 1996, it is not in any statutory instrument, and there is no case you can point to that turns ten days into a rule.

This matters because of how the figure is usually presented. Employers’ letters describe it as guidance. Employees hear it as a right. Both readings are wrong in ways that cost the reader something: the first makes you feel unreasonable for asking, the second makes you expect an entitlement that does not exist and then makes you distrust everything else you were told.

The accurate reading is narrower and more useful. The Code is a recommendation about what is reasonable. Reasonableness is exactly the thing a tribunal assesses when it is asked whether an employer behaved improperly — and that assessment is what unlocks the statutory consequence below.

Why a short deadline is the employer’s problem

When an employer starts a settlement conversation with someone they still employ, they are relying on a specific statutory protection. Without it, the conversation would be evidence that they had already decided to dismiss.

The protection they are relying on:

Employment Rights Act 1996, section 111A

(1) Evidence of pre-termination negotiations is inadmissible in any proceedings on a complaint under section 111. This is subject to subsections (3) to (5). (2) In subsection (1) ‘pre-termination negotiations’ means any offer made or discussions held, before the termination of the employment in question, with a view to it being terminated on terms agreed between the employer and the employee.

Read the section on legislation.gov.uk

Read subsection (1) carefully and two limits appear immediately. First, the protection applies “in any proceedings on a complaint under section 111” — that is ordinary unfair dismissal, and nothing else. It does not cover a discrimination claim, an automatic unfair dismissal claim, or a whistleblowing detriment claim. Second, it is expressly made subject to subsections (3) to (5), and subsection (4) is the one that does the work.

Employment Rights Act 1996, section 111A(4)

In relation to anything said or done which in the tribunal’s opinion was improper, or was connected with improper behaviour, subsection (1) applies only to the extent that the tribunal considers just.

Read the section on legislation.gov.uk

So the chain runs like this. Too little time to consider an offer is capable of being improper behaviour. If a tribunal finds improper behaviour, the inadmissibility in subsection (1) applies only to the extent the tribunal considers just. Which means the settlement conversation the employer thought was confidential — the one where they explained why they wanted you gone — can be read out in the claim they were trying to avoid.

That is why the ten days is worth raising. Not as a plea, but as a reason: the employer has more to lose from rushing you than from waiting a week. Their own advisers know this. Section 111A was inserted by the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, s.14, in force 29 July 2013, and giving proper consideration time has been the standard advice to employers ever since.

The gap almost nobody mentions

Section 111A only protects the conversation against an unfair dismissal claim. If what you have is a discrimination or whistleblowing issue, the employer cannot rely on s.111A at all, and has to fall back on the ordinary without-prejudice rule — which requires a genuine existing dispute. If there was no dispute before they raised settlement, there may be nothing protecting that conversation in a discrimination claim. That changes the balance of the negotiation considerably, and it is one of the first things worth putting in front of a solicitor.

Asking for more time, in one message

The request works better in writing than in a meeting, because it gives the employer something to forward to their adviser rather than something to react to. It does not need to be long, and it should not be apologetic.

What a reasonable request contains

Thanks, and no rejection. You are not turning the offer down, you are considering it. Say that.
The reason, stated as the Code’s reason. That the Acas Code of Practice recommends allowing at least 10 days to consider a settlement agreement, and that you would like that period.
A specific date. Not “more time”. A date. Open-ended requests invite an open-ended argument.
The reason it is in their interest. That you want to take the independent advice the agreement requires, and that the adviser needs time to read it. This is true, it is unanswerable, and it is the condition in s.203(3)(c) without which their agreement does not work.
Any adjustment you need. If you are disabled and need longer, say what the adjustment is for.

What not to include: your view of the merits, your feelings about the process, or a counter-offer. Each of those starts a different conversation and none of them helps you get the extra week.

Given less time than that?

Send the details and the date you have been given. Firms advertising for your area can usually tell you within a day whether the deadline is worth pushing back on.

What actually happens when the deadline passes

An offer that is not accepted lapses. That is the entire legal consequence. You are not in breach of anything, because you have not agreed to anything, and a deadline in a document you never signed binds nobody.

What can happen is commercial. The employer may withdraw the offer, reduce it, or replace the settlement route with a formal process — a redundancy consultation, a performance procedure, a disciplinary. Those are real risks and they are the reason the deadline has any force at all. They are also the reason the decision is about your situation rather than about the law: only you know whether the alternative process is one you would rather have.

One asymmetry is worth naming. An employer who withdraws an offer because you asked for the period the Acas Code recommends has done something that reads badly in a tribunal bundle. That does not make it impossible — but it makes it less common than the letter implies.

The deadlines that are real

While the signing deadline is soft, there are hard ones running underneath it, and they do not stop for negotiations. This is the part people get wrong in the other direction: they spend three weeks carefully considering an offer and discover the claim they were using as leverage has expired.

Time limits that run regardless of what happens to the settlement offer
Clock	Length	Runs from	Source
Employment tribunal claim	3 months	The employment ending, or the act complained of	GOV.UK
Acas early conciliation	Compulsory first step	Must be notified before a claim; the limitation clock pauses while it runs	GOV.UK
Unlawful deduction from wages	3 months	The date of the payment from which the deduction was made	ERA 1996 s.23(2)
Statutory redundancy payment	6 months	The date the job ended	GOV.UK

Two practical consequences. If you are close to a time limit, notifying Acas for early conciliation costs nothing and pauses the clock while you keep talking. And if a settlement negotiation is being strung out over weeks, that is itself a reason to get advice rather than a reason to wait.

How long the advice itself takes

Less than most people assume, and that changes the maths on the deadline. A straightforward sign-off — reading the agreement, advising you on its terms and effect, signing the adviser’s certificate under s.203(3)(e) — is an appointment, not a project. Firms that do this volume routinely turn it round the same day or the next one.

So a three-day deadline is often survivable in practice even though it is unreasonable in principle. The reason to push back is not usually that you cannot physically get advice in time. It is that a deadline designed to stop you thinking is also designed to stop you asking whether the figure is right, and those are different questions with different answers.

What a sign-off normally costs and who pays for it, and what is actually negotiable if you decide the figure is wrong.

Common questions

How long do I legally have to sign a settlement agreement?

There is no statutory deadline. No Act of Parliament sets a minimum period for considering a settlement agreement. The Acas statutory Code of Practice on settlement agreements recommends allowing at least 10 days, and that recommendation carries real weight even though it is not a time limit, because a tribunal can take an unreasonably short deadline into account when deciding whether the employer's behaviour was improper.

Can my employer give me 24 hours to sign?

They can ask. Nothing makes a 24-hour deadline unlawful in itself. But it runs against the Acas Code's recommendation of at least 10 days, and the Code gives 'not giving reasonable time to consider an offer' as an example of the kind of pressure that can amount to improper behaviour. Where a tribunal finds improper behaviour, section 111A(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 lets it admit the settlement discussion in evidence to whatever extent it considers just. That is a worse outcome for the employer than waiting a week.

What happens if the deadline passes and I have not signed?

Usually nothing dramatic. A settlement agreement is an offer, and an offer that is not accepted simply lapses. The employer may withdraw it, may extend it, or may leave it on the table. What it does not do is create a penalty: you are not in breach of anything by not signing a contract you never agreed to. The risk is commercial rather than legal, and it is the risk you are weighing.

Does asking for more time make me look difficult?

Asking for the period the Acas Code recommends is not an aggressive act, and the request is easier to make in writing than in a meeting. A short, factual note that refers to the Code's 10-day recommendation and gives a specific date usually ends the conversation, because the employer's own advisers know exactly why that figure matters to them.

Is 10 days working days or calendar days?

The Acas Code recommends allowing at least 10 days and does not define them as working days. Treat the figure as a minimum rather than a formula: what a tribunal would look at is whether the time given was reasonable in the circumstances, and a 10-day window that runs across a bank holiday and a period of annual leave is not the same amount of time as a 10-day window in a normal working fortnight.

I am disabled. Can I ask for longer than 10 days?

Yes. Acas is explicit that reasonable time depends on the situation and that a disabled worker may need longer as a reasonable adjustment. The request is stronger when it says what the adjustment is for — time to obtain advice in an accessible format, or to accommodate a fluctuating condition — rather than simply asking for more days.

Does the deadline to sign affect my tribunal time limit?

No, and this is the deadline that actually is a deadline. Tribunal time limits run from the dismissal or the act complained of, not from anything in the settlement agreement, and they are usually three months. Acas early conciliation is compulsory before a claim and pauses that clock, but negotiating a settlement does not. It is entirely possible to spend a fortnight discussing an offer and lose a claim in the background.

What if I have already signed and I regret it?

A signed settlement agreement is a contract and it is much harder to unpick than it was to improve. There are limited routes — the six statutory conditions in section 203(3) have to have been met, and if one was not, the waiver may not bite. That is a question for a solicitor and it is time-sensitive, because whatever claim the agreement was meant to settle is still running on its own clock.

Sources cited on this page

Every figure above was read from the source it is attributed to on 19 September 2026. How we check this.