Deadlines after a PIP ends: every clock, shortest first

Every clock, shortest first

A plan ends one of a few ways, and several of them start a clock: the time you have to challenge the ending, to undo a signature, or to act on something the ending changed. Across the countries this guide covers those clocks differ by two orders of magnitude, from seven days to two years, and the one thing they share is that missing one usually ends the matter rather than delaying it.

Whichever way you are hoping the plan goes, the date to write down is the day anything ends. This page puts every clock the guide covers in one place, shortest first, with the page that explains each. The first list is the time to challenge the ending itself.

1. United Kingdom — seven days, and only for one kind of claim. To ask a tribunal for interim relief, an order continuing your contract for pay and continuity while the claim runs. It is open to employees only, and only where the tribunal thinks you are likely to win at the full hearing. It runs from the effective date of termination, which where notice was given is the day the notice expires rather than the day you were told, and an application may be made before that date as well as after. Nothing else in this list is close to this short, and it is usually spent before anybody hears of it: a PIP after reporting wrongdoing.
2. Germany — three weeks, in calendar weeks. From receiving notice, to file the Kündigungsschutzklage under § 4 of the dismissal-protection act. Miss it and even a baseless dismissal becomes valid, and there is no conciliation stage to buy time. The usual route runs through it rather than around it: file, then settle on the court record — the Germany page.
3. Spain — twenty business days, from the day after the dismissal. A clock of caducidad under article 59.3 of the Workers' Statute: it expires rather than lapsing, and Saturdays, Sundays and court holidays do not count. The mandatory conciliation filing is the step that must land inside it, and filing pauses it for a bounded time; talking to your employer does not pause it at all — the Spain page.
4. Estonia — thirty calendar days, from receipt. To challenge a cancellation at the töövaidluskomisjon or a court, counted from the day you receive the cancellation declaration and not from your last working day. Miss it and the cancellation is valid from the start; the deadline can be restored, and the dispute body checks it of its own motion — the Estonia page.
5. Canada — forty-five days, ninety days, or two years, and which is yours is the first question. No single number describes Canada. In Quebec, with two years of uninterrupted service, forty-five days to complain to the CNESST that the dismissal was without good and sufficient cause. If your employer is federally regulated, which covers the banks, telecoms, airlines and railways, and you have twelve months and are outside a bargaining unit, ninety days for an unjust dismissal complaint, with reinstatement among the remedies. Everywhere else it is the ordinary civil limitation period, two years in most provinces, and one year for an Ontario human rights application — the Canada page.
6. Portugal — sixty days. From the dismissal, to challenge it, as the file behind this page reads article 387 of the Labour Code and marks it to verify. Worth knowing early, because the dismissal routes are heavy on formalities and the same file notes that a procedural defect alone can sink one — the Portugal page.
7. The Netherlands — two months, and three for the transition payment. Not a general challenge clock: a Dutch employer needs a court's or the UWV's permission before it can end a permanent contract, so these run once the contract has actually ended — two months to ask the court to undo or price an ending it was not entitled to make on its own, and three months to claim an unpaid transition payment, both under article 7:686a of the civil code — the Netherlands page.
8. United Kingdom — three months, and six for anything on or after 1 October 2026. To bring an employment tribunal claim. The change is commenced, and it does not switch on the date you file. It switches on the date of the act for a detriment claim and on the effective date of termination for an unfair dismissal, so both figures are live at once and one person can be on three months for one and six for the other — the UK page.
9. Ireland — six months, extendable to twelve. To lodge a complaint with the Workplace Relations Commission, the extension for reasonable cause only, as the file behind this page reads the Workplace Relations Act 2015 and marks it to verify. And since the money in Ireland is decided by the mitigation record, the log of applications starts on day one of any exit — the Ireland page.
10. France — twelve months. To contest a dismissal at the conseil de prud'hommes. Long by comparison, and the letter fixes the grounds of whatever follows — the France page.
11. United States — no single clock this guide carries. The files behind the two US pages hold no general time limit for an employment claim, and this page does not supply one. What they do hold are two clocks that start when employment ends, in the last list on this page.

Clocks that run toward undoing a signature

Three countries give a signature a time limit of its own, and all run the other way: not the time to act, but the time to take an action back.

• The Netherlands — fourteen days, twenty-one if the agreement did not mention the right. To revoke a signed vaststellingsovereenkomst, without giving a reason. It expires hard: after it, a bad deal is final — the Netherlands page. The Dutch clocks that run the other way are in the first list.
• France — fifteen calendar days, for each party. After a rupture conventionnelle is signed, to retract; then fifteen working days of homologation in which silence approves — the France benefit page.
• The United States — seven days, at 40 or over, on a release of age claims. After signing a waiver that gives up claims under the age-discrimination statute, to revoke it. The parties cannot shorten it by agreement. It attaches to that release rather than to the country, so a worker under 40 has no equivalent — the severance page.

Clocks that run on something other than the claim

• United States, on a work visa — up to sixty days, at an officer's discretion. The grace period runs from the day after the last day of employment and not from the notice, or until the I-94 expires if that is sooner; it is discretionary rather than automatic, so the termination letter and proof of the last day are the two things to keep; a lump-sum severance does not extend it; and a proposed rule to remove it was published on 11 September 2026, with comments open until 10 November and nothing changed yet. The figure is read from the regulation itself — the visa page.
• Canada, an EI decision — thirty days, then thirty more. To request a reconsideration after a decision is communicated, and then thirty calendar days from receiving that decision to appeal to the EI Board of Appeal, which replaced the Social Security Tribunal's General Division on 1 April 2026. An earlier clock beats both: apply within four weeks of your last day worked, and do not wait for the Record of Employment — the EI page.
• Canada, on a closed work permit — no clock at all, and that is the point. There is no Canadian grace period: the day the employment ends you stop working, for that employer and any other, until a new permit is approved. The ninety days that exist are for restoring status once it has been lost, they are unpaid and unworkable, and they are a repair mechanism rather than a window to spend — the work-permit page.
• United States, a benefit denial — ten to thirty days, by state. To appeal, and hearings take evidence, which is the evidence gathered during the plan — the US benefit page.
• France, a notice to return — fifteen calendar days at least. After a formal notice to return following an abandon de poste, the presumption of resignation applies when the deadline expires — the France benefit page.
• Portugal, the notice of intent — at least five working days, per practitioner sources. To respond to it in the inadaptação procedure — the Portugal page.

What the clocks have in common

Three things, and none of them is a number.

They do not all start from the last day. Germany's runs from receiving the notice, Estonia's from receiving the declaration, Portugal's from the dismissal, and the visa clock from the day after the last day of employment. The date on the document, the date you received it, and the last day itself are each worth writing down the day they happen.

Negotiating does not stop them. The Spanish, Portuguese and Irish files each name the same trap: letting the clock run while the talks go on. A conversation about an exit is not a filing, and nothing about it is recorded anywhere the clock can see.

The shortest are the least forgiving. The seven days for UK interim relief is gone before most people have found a solicitor, three weeks in Germany has no conciliation stage in front of it, and twenty business days in Spain expire rather than lapse. Where the clock is short, advice is worth taking in the first week rather than the last.

One employer runs its own clocks in front of all of these. If you work for a government body or a public university in the United States, the appeal and grievance deadlines inside the employer's own process usually run in days and start before any of the statutory clocks above — and missing one of them can forfeit the internal remedy that was the fastest route to a result. A plan in a US government or university job sets out which process attaches to which kind of post.

Two of these deadlines are moving

Fairhanded is not a law firm. Two of the figures above are moving — the United Kingdom's under a reform commenced for 1 October 2026, the United States visa clock under a proposed rule — and the files behind three of the others are due for re-checking; the chip at the top carries the date the sources were last read. If anything has ended, take the date to an employment lawyer where you live this week, not next.