Paying for cancelled shifts: what UK employers will owe

Written 30 August 2026 · about a 7 minute read

Cancelling a shift at short notice is about to cost money. How much is not yet known — the Act creates the obligation and leaves the amount to regulations. But the shape of it is set, one number is capped in the legislation, and the records that will decide whether you owe anything are ones you are either keeping now or you are not.

Not legal advice. Taken from Employment Rights Act 2025, section 3 and Acas. Linked so you can check it.

What the Act requires

Section 3 inserts a new Chapter 4 into the Employment Rights Act 1996. Under s.27BP(1), an employer must make “a payment of a specified amount” to a worker where a qualifying shift is cancelled, moved or curtailed at short notice.

Three events, not one. It is worth being precise, because operators tend to hear “cancellation” and assume the other two are free:

Cancelled — the shift does not happen.
Moved — the shift happens at a different time.
Curtailed — the shift is cut short. Sending somebody home three hours early because it is quiet is a curtailment, not a favour.

How much? Not decided

The Act says “a specified amount” and stops. The figure comes in regulations that have not been made. Acas gives no calculation method either.

You will find articles offering worked examples. Treat them as illustrations of how such a scheme might operate, not as the rate. Anyone quoting you a percentage or a formula today is guessing, and if they are selling you something on the strength of it, they are guessing in their own favour.

The one figure that is fixed

There is a hard number in the Act, and it is genuinely useful for planning.

Short notice is capped at seven days

Under s.27BQ(4), the “short notice” period for these payments is capped at a maximum of seven days.

Regulations will set the actual period somewhere at or below that. So while the amount is unknown, the window has a ceiling: a change made more than seven days ahead cannot fall inside the short-notice regime, whatever the regulations eventually say.

That gives you something to design around today. A rota published and stable eight days out sits outside the payment regime by construction. A rota that firms up on the Thursday for the following Monday does not, and never will.

How “short notice” is measured

Section 27BP(6) defines it contextually, and the reference point shifts depending on what happened:

Cancellation — less than the specified time before the shift would have started.
Moved or curtailed with a change of start — measured against the earlier of the original and new start times.
Curtailed without moving — less than the specified time before the shift starts.

Note the second one. Moving a shift earlier is measured against the new, earlier start — so pulling somebody forward at short notice is squarely in scope. A system that only measures against the original time will get this wrong.

The exemption worth knowing

Under s.27BR(1)(b) there is an exemption for shifts the worker requested, unless the worker “reasonably believed” they would be needed to work it.

That is narrower than it first sounds, and it turns on the worker’s reasonable belief rather than on your intention — which is, once again, a question that will be answered from records rather than from recollection.

When it lands

Acas places these provisions in 2027, with no date announced. If you have seen October 2026 attached to them, that date belongs to the harassment and trade union provisions taking effect on 30 October 2026, not to these. We set this out in more detail under reasonable notice of shifts.

What this does to short-notice cover

The operational consequence is not the payment. It is that the cheapest way to cover a gap stops being the default.

Today, when trade is quiet, the reflex is to cut a shift. When somebody calls in sick, the reflex is to move people around at a day’s notice. Both become chargeable events inside the short-notice window. That does not make them wrong — sometimes you have to — but it puts a price on a decision that has always been free, and prices change behaviour.

Two habits are worth forming before the rate arrives, because both take months to bed in:

Firm the rota up earlier. Every change made outside the window is a change that cannot cost anything, whatever the regulations set the rate at.
Build a genuine open-shift and swap mechanism. A shift a worker volunteers to pick up is a different event from one you impose at short notice, and the s.27BR exemption for requested shifts turns on exactly that distinction.

What to start recording now

Whenever the rate arrives, it will be applied to events. If the events are not recorded, the argument is not about the rate — it is about whether the cancellation happened when you say it did.

Every cancellation, with the timestamp and who made it.
Every move, with both the original and the new start time.
Every curtailment, including sending people home early — the one nobody logs.
Whether the shift had been requested by the worker, for the s.27BR exemption.
How far ahead the change was made, measured from the right reference point.

Most rota systems record the current state of the rota and quietly discard the previous one. That is exactly the data this regime turns into money. See proving you gave notice for what an adequate record looks like.

The cost of not knowing

Compliance here is enforced against records, and the Fair Work Agency can require documents to be produced by a specified date. Its penalties for underpayment run to 200% of the sum owed, capped at £20,000 per worker. A cancellation payment not made is, on any sensible reading, a sum owed.

Sources

Regulations made since we wrote this? Tell us.