Trade union workplace access rules from 30 October 2026

The legal drafting here is dense, but the practical story is easier to follow than it first looks. The Trade Unions (Right to Access Workplaces) Regulations 2026 were made on 15 October 2026 and come into force on 30 October 2026. According to the text published on legislation.gov.uk, they apply in England and Wales and in Scotland, and they sit under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 as amended by the Employment Rights Act 2025. If you are trying to work out what changed, start here: these rules create a formal route for a qualifying trade union to ask for access to a workplace, or to communicate with workers by other means, so union officials can provide information to them. That does not mean every request must be accepted. It means there is now a clearer process, a timetable, and a referee when the two sides cannot agree. That referee is the Central Arbitration Committee, usually shortened to the CAC.

The first big thing these Regulations do is set the clock running. Once a qualifying union gives an employer an access request, the employer has 15 working days to respond. If the employer sends a response notice, the union and employer then have 25 working days to try to negotiate an access agreement. If that effort fails, either side may end up at the CAC. The normal deadline for applying to the CAC is the end of the 55th working day after the original access request was given. There is a late window, up to the end of the 70th working day, but only where the CAC is satisfied it was not reasonably practicable to apply earlier. **What this means:** the law is trying to push both sides towards an agreement first, while still giving them a route to a binding decision if talks stall.

The next question is when the CAC must simply say no. The Regulations name several situations where a refusal of access is required. One of the biggest is employer size. If the employer, together with any associated employers, has fewer than 21 workers on the day the access request is received and has averaged fewer than 21 workers over the previous 13 weeks, the CAC must refuse access. That small-employer rule is more detailed than it sounds. The Regulations explain how to count workers, when staff connected to overseas companies should be ignored, and even how some maritime workers should be treated. They also say certain agency workers must be counted as if they had a contract of employment with the temporary work agency for the length of the assignment. **What this means:** the threshold is not just a headcount taken at a glance. It is a legal test, and in close cases the maths will matter.

There are other hard-stop cases too. The CAC must refuse access if it considers that refusal necessary in the interests of national security, or necessary for preventing, detecting or prosecuting criminal offences. It must also refuse access where the proposed agreement would allow union officials access during a short notice period that begins on the day of a CAC determination and ends after the fifth working day. In plain English, the law builds in a short breathing space before access starts. Another strict rule concerns how long an agreement lasts. A proposed access agreement must be set to expire no later than two years after it is entered into, or treated as entered into. It can later be extended by agreement between the parties, but the starting point is that access arrangements should not run on forever without being revisited. That tells you something about the law's design: it gives a route to access, but it also keeps that route under review.

The Regulations then move into a softer category: cases where the CAC may treat refusal as reasonable. This matters because it is not an automatic ban, but it still gives employers important grounds to resist a request. One example is overlapping access arrangements. If another qualifying union is already recognised for collective bargaining, if there is a live recognition request covering some of the same workers, or if another access agreement already exists, the CAC can treat refusal as reasonable. A second example is multiple access requests. If there is another outstanding access request to the same employer and at least some of the same workers are within scope, that too can support a refusal. A third is health and safety. If the CAC thinks union access might jeopardise anyone's health or safety, refusal can be treated as reasonable. **What this means:** this is not a free-for-all. The law is trying to avoid duplication, workplace confusion and obvious risks.

The Regulations also tell the CAC what it should think about when weighing up an application. It must have regard, where relevant, to existing visitor arrangements, the type of workplace involved, whether safeguarding provisions are needed, and whether an employer has taken reasonable steps to get help from a third party where that third party's co-operation is needed for access to happen. That matters because workplaces are not all alike. A school, a care setting, a warehouse, a secure site and an office block do not present the same practical problems. The law leaves room for that. At the same time, it also says some terms should be treated as reasonable rather than exceptional. Weekly access, for example, must be treated by the CAC as not unreasonably interfering with the employer's business if it meets the Regulations' requirements. So the law is not only about when access can be blocked. It also gives a steer on what normal access can look like.

On the detail of an agreement, the Regulations are surprisingly concrete. They say that reasonable terms can include an employer making available existing accommodation and facilities where that is reasonable in all the circumstances, and making sure, so far as reasonably practicable, that direct communications between workers and union officials are private. That privacy point is easy to miss, but it is important. A conversation is not much use if workers do not feel able to speak freely. The union side has duties as well. In most cases, a union must give at least two working days' notice before each occasion of access. Where both physical entry and non-physical communication are possible, the notice must say which kind of access is planned. For the very first occasion of access, the minimum notice is longer: five working days. Union officials must also comply with all reasonable instructions from the employer, including a request to provide identification. **What this means:** the right to seek access comes with rules of conduct, not just rights on paper.

If access is agreed and then someone fails to comply, the financial stakes can become serious. The Regulations cap what can be ordered payable to the CAC at £75,000 for a first order linked to an access agreement, £150,000 for a second order, and £500,000 for a third or later order. When deciding the amount, the CAC must look at the gravity of the failure, how long it lasted, the reason for it, the number of workers affected, the size and resources of the person involved, and any previous failures. These provisions can apply not only to a party to the access agreement, but in some cases to a third party who prevents access from taking place and then fails to comply with a CAC order. That is a reminder that the law expects access arrangements to work in practice, not just exist on paper. The explanatory note says no full impact assessment was produced because no significant effect on the private, voluntary or public sector was foreseen, though a de minimis assessment was prepared by the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade.

So why does all this matter beyond employment lawyers and union officials? Because it draws a line between two ideas that are often blurred in public debate. This is not the same as automatic trade union recognition, and it is not a general right for union officials to walk into any workplace whenever they choose. It is a regulated route for qualifying unions to reach workers, either in person or by other means, with the CAC there to settle disputes. For workers, that could make it easier to hear directly from a union. For employers, it means new deadlines, record-keeping and decision points. For smaller employers, the under-21 threshold is a major shield. For everyone else, the message is that access will now be judged against a defined legal structure rather than informal custom alone. The Regulations also contain a review clause, which means the Secretary of State must publish a report on how they are working within five years of 30 October 2026, and then at intervals of no more than five years after that. In other words, this is not the last word. It is the start of a new system that will be watched, tested and argued over in real workplaces.