Employer gone bust: claim unpaid wages, holiday and notice pay

Your employer has gone bust. You still did the shifts, and the rent is still due. If you were an employee, the National Insurance Fund can cover some unpaid wages, holiday, notice and redundancy pay. It will not clear every debt. Save your payslips and rotas now, then check whether the employer is formally insolvent. That decides where you claim. A locked warehouse or a director who stops answering is not enough.

What to do today

A promise in the group chat is not a claim. A grievance does not stop a deadline.

1. Write the debt down. Record your start date, date of birth, gross weekly pay, last day worked and dismissal date. List each unpaid week, overtime, contractual commission and bonus, holiday taken but unpaid, and holiday accrued but untaken. Save payslips, bank statements, rotas and the dismissal message somewhere the company cannot lock you out of. Photograph the rota if that is all you have.
2. Check who employed you and their legal status. Use the legal name on your contract or payslip, not the name above the shop. Search Companies House for a company. For a sole trader, use the Individual Insolvency Register in England and Wales or Scotland’s Register of Insolvencies. Check the named insolvency practitioner or official receiver.
3. Get the CN number and make the first claim. The practitioner or official receiver supplies this case reference. Apply for redundancy, arrears and holiday within six months of dismissal. You can claim wages and holiday even if you do not qualify for redundancy pay. Request notice pay on the form too, but that request is not the separate notice-pay claim.
4. Claim benefits you may qualify for. Benefits you were eligible to claim can reduce statutory notice pay even if you never claimed them. Keep applications and decision letters. Skipping a benefit claim does not protect your notice payment. See our Universal Credit guide.
5. If there is no formal insolvency, protect your claim now. Do not wait for a CN number that may never arrive. Check for a proposed strike-off and object if you are owed money. Contact Acas about early conciliation before the tribunal deadline. An unpaid redundancy judgment has a possible fund route; an unpaid wages judgment does not, by itself.

Ask your union rep to help collect records and check the claim. Shop and warehouse staff can contact Usdaw or Unite. Care and NHS support staff can contact UNISON or GMB. Unite and GMB also organise in hospitality, security and food production. Cleaners and riders can contact the IWGB. Check what a new membership covers if the dispute has already started. Our union guide helps you choose.

Acas, Citizens Advice and a law centre are advice routes. A helpline call is not an early conciliation notification. If this employer sponsors your visa, get immigration advice promptly, including from the Work Rights Centre. Do not assume the job’s collapse leaves your permission unchanged. See our sponsor licence guide.

Is the employer formally insolvent?

Formal insolvency is a legal status. A shortage of cash alone does not qualify. For a company, qualifying proceedings include liquidation, administration, receivership and an approved company voluntary arrangement. For a sole trader, they include bankruptcy or sequestration, an individual voluntary arrangement or protected trust deed, and a debt relief order. The full legal definition is in section 183 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. A company being struck off, or a director disappearing, does not by itself meet it.

What the fund pays

The service pays specified debts from the National Insurance Fund. The caps apply separately to each type of payment. Unused holiday entitlement cannot cover a wage shortfall. This guide covers the law in force on 1 October 2026, with scheduled changes labelled below.

In Great Britain the weekly cap is £751 where the relevant statutory date falls on or after 6 April 2026, under the 2026 increase of limits order. The previous cap was £719. The applicable date can depend on the debt, so check the calculation if insolvency and dismissal straddle that change. Northern Ireland’s cap is £783. See our rates page.

Unpaid wages and holiday

Covered arrears include wages, overtime, commission and bonuses owed under your contract. Guarantee payments, statutory suspension pay and protective-award remuneration can also count. Even a partly unpaid week uses one of the eight. If you are owed £30 overtime a week for ten weeks, the fund covers £240, not £300.

Holiday pay covers leave taken but unpaid and leave accrued but untaken, subject to the six-week limit and the 12-month period before insolvency. For example, a hotel housekeeper who took a week’s leave but never received the pay should record that separately from unused leave. Our holiday pay guide explains the entitlement, and the calculator helps with days accrued.

If pay varied, the claimant factsheet asks for average pay over the last 12 weeks worked, and a 52-week average for holiday pay. You can use the practitioner’s holiday average or calculate your own. Keep the records behind the calculation; irregular-hours and part-year holiday rules need particular care.

Notice and redundancy

Notice cover is the statutory minimum, not whatever your contract promised. After one month’s employment you normally have at least one week’s statutory notice. From two years, it is one week per complete year, up to 12 weeks. You can claim if notice was not worked, only partly worked, or worked without pay. Contractual notice above the statutory minimum remains a creditor claim. Read our notice guide.

Statutory redundancy pay normally requires two years’ continuous employment. Count each complete year at the age you were then. A year below age 22 earns half a week’s pay; a year from 22 to 40 earns one week; a year aged 41 or over earns one and a half weeks. Only the most recent 20 years count. Use the redundancy calculator and redundancy pay guide before accepting the employer’s figure.

The fund does not cover enhanced redundancy, expenses, benefits in kind or the compensatory part of an unfair-dismissal award. Do not assume tips or tronc payments qualify as contractual wages. Record them separately and ask the service for a decision on the entitlement. Our tips guide explains the separate rights to allocated tips.

Income tax and National Insurance deductions apply to wage, holiday and notice payments. The service does not deduct either from statutory redundancy pay. Check the payment breakdown rather than treating the gross examples below as cash you will receive.

£800 of preferential wages has not moved since 1986. Two 36-hour weeks at £12.71 are £915.12.

Money over the cap

Tell the practitioner about the full debt and ask how to submit a creditor claim for what the fund does not pay. Preferential status means a debt ranks ahead of ordinary unsecured debts. It does not guarantee payment.

Wages for the four months before the relevant insolvency date are preferential up to £800 in total, not £800 per week. Accrued holiday pay relating to employment before that date has preferential status without that monetary ceiling. The official receiver’s guidance, paragraphs 43.90 and 43.91, confirms both rules. The wage cap still comes from the 1986 monetary limits order. Wage arrears outside that preferential allowance, and notice or redundancy the fund does not cover, are generally ordinary unsecured debts. Recovery depends on the assets left.

Once the fund pays a debt, the Secretary of State takes over your creditor rights for the amount paid. That claim has priority over your remaining preferential wages or holiday claim. You cannot recover the same money twice. Register the unpaid balance and keep the fund’s breakdown.

How to claim

You must qualify as an employee for the fund’s employee-debt scheme. Workers who are not employees and genuine contractors instead register as creditors. Your contract’s label is not decisive. Our employment status guide explains the distinction. Company directors qualify only if they are also genuine employees.

1. Make the first online claim. Use Claim for redundancy and other money you’re owed. You need the CN number, National Insurance number, bank details, employment dates, gross pay, wages owed and holiday records. You still start here if notice pay is your only claim. Indicate that you want to claim notice pay.
2. Check the claim against your records. The service uses information from you and the practitioner. If a cleaner’s paid hours omit overtime, or a kitchen rota has disappeared, send your own evidence and explain the difference. Keep the submission and reference number.
3. Make the separate notice claim when invited. After the statutory notice period would have ended, the service sends an LN reference. The notice period can be up to 12 weeks; that is not a promise that the reference arrives on a particular day. Use Claim for loss of notice with the LN number. The notice-pay factsheet explains this second claim.
4. Check every payment breakdown. Payments may arrive separately. Check the weeks allowed, weekly pay, caps and deductions. Contact the service if the stated timeframe passes or the calculation is wrong. Do not assume the first bank credit settles everything.

The RP1 factsheet is guidance, not a form you post to start a Great Britain claim. If records are missing, use bank statements, rotas and messages to support the amount owed. See your payslip rights. Contact details are on the claim page; keep correspondence in writing where possible.

The benefits trap

The notice-pay rule deducts benefits you were eligible to claim, even if you did not claim them. Pay from a new job during the notice period also reduces the payment. Claim the benefits you may qualify for and keep the decision letters. If refused, send that evidence to the service so it can assess what you were actually eligible for. A refusal letter is evidence, not a guarantee of a particular calculation.

If you believe the benefit deduction is wrong, the payment guidance says to ask your Jobcentre for a letter confirming you were not entitled. Send the evidence to [email protected] and request reassessment.

Our view is that deducting an unclaimed benefit punishes people who did not know the rule. But it is the rule you need to plan around. Your employer’s debt and the fund’s payment are different amounts. Read our final pay guide for what the employer should have paid.

Administration, liquidation or a sale

If you keep working after insolvency, ask the practitioner in writing who is responsible for each payday. GOV.UK warns that you cannot claim unpaid wages, holiday, bonuses or commission from the fund for the period between insolvency and later dismissal. Do not confuse that exclusion with permission to use your labour for free.

In administration, pay for continued employment can have special priority, particularly where administrators adopt the employment contract. Appointment alone does not make every unpaid sum an administration expense. If there have been two insolvency events, obtain both dates; the fund’s guidance excludes debts between the first insolvency and dismissal. Get advice if the practitioner disputes responsibility for pay.

Under TUPE regulation 8, a qualifying sale out of administration can transfer your employment while specified pre-transfer debts are met by the fund within its limits. Liabilities above those limits can pass to the buyer under the normal TUPE rules. Continuing in a transferred job does not, by itself, give you redundancy or notice pay. Those payments depend on a qualifying termination and the other eligibility rules.

In liquidation proceedings aimed at winding up the assets, TUPE’s usual automatic-transfer and transfer-dismissal protections generally do not apply. A transfer before insolvency does not itself open a fund claim. Read our TUPE guide and get advice before accepting that the buyer owes nothing or signing away arrears.

When the director disappears

No formal insolvency means no ordinary CN online claim. It does not mean you should wait until the company vanishes from the register.

1. Object to a proposed strike-off. If the company is applying to be struck off, tell Companies House you are a creditor and supply evidence of the debt. Citizens Advice recommends evidence such as a grievance letter or tribunal claim from the last six months, showing your full legal name. Follow the company for updates. If it has already been dissolved, get advice about restoration; objecting is no longer enough.
2. Notify Acas before the wage-claim deadline. For a Great Britain wage deduction, including a failure to pay wages, on or after 1 October 2026, the usual tribunal limit is six months less a day from the relevant payday. For a series, the date of the last deduction matters. Earlier relevant dates keep the three-month limit. Notify Acas for early conciliation in time. Early conciliation can adjust the filing deadline; a grievance or helpline call cannot. Use our time limits guide and calculator. Northern Ireland uses the Labour Relations Agency and its own limits.
3. Claim statutory redundancy separately if owed. Its usual claim window is six months from dismissal. If the employer refuses or fails to pay, section 166 provides a possible fund route after reasonable steps to recover it. In practice, obtain a tribunal decision and evidence that it remains unpaid, then contact the Redundancy Payments Service directly. You do not need a CN number for that separate route. A wages or holiday judgment does not give the same entitlement without formal insolvency.
4. Get help with enforcement or insolvency proceedings. A tribunal judgment does not collect itself. Ask a union solicitor or law centre about enforcing it and whether a winding-up petition is appropriate. A petition can create the formal insolvency needed for fund cover, but fees and legal risks make it a last resort, not the first step after a missed payday.

If the practitioner disputes employee status or redundancy entitlement, obtain the reasons in writing and take advice about a tribunal claim. Proceedings against a company in administration or compulsory liquidation may require the practitioner’s consent or court permission. A status judgment can establish eligibility, but does not automatically create a CN number or prove every debt.

An employer that is still trading but cannot afford statutory redundancy can apply for RPS financial assistance. That does not replace your need to protect your own deadline. For an employer simply withholding pay, read our wage deductions guide.

Who can claim

Employees can qualify, including fixed-term staff and employees on zero-hours contracts. A zero-hours label does not settle employment status. Workers who are not employees and genuine self-employed contractors do not qualify for this employee-debt scheme. Check our zero-hours guide and get advice if the practitioner disputes your status. The Great Britain scheme is for people who worked, or habitually worked, in England, Wales or Scotland. Immigration and right-to-work questions can also affect eligibility; get advice rather than assuming a passport decides it.

Agency staff must identify their employer. If the agency is insolvent and you were its employee, you may claim against the agency. If only the warehouse, hotel or care home where you were placed has failed, that does not release the agency from wages it owes. Do not let it send you to the hirer’s practitioner without checking the relationship. See our agency worker guide.

Pensions and statutory payments

Missing pension contributions have a separate route. The scheme’s trustees or other authorised person claim from the fund, not you through the wages form. Contact the practitioner and pension provider with evidence of deductions and missing contributions. A defined-benefit scheme may qualify for Pension Protection Fund protection. Our workplace pension guide explains the employer’s duty.

Keep contractual sick pay separate from statutory sick or maternity pay in your records. Do not assume a statutory-payment dispute belongs in the ordinary wage claim. HMRC decides disputed statutory-pay entitlement. Contact its Statutory Payment Dispute Team and explain that the employer is insolvent. Ask the practitioner how any arrears should be handled. See our maternity pay and sick pay guides.

If the fund says no

Ask for the refusal or calculation in writing. Identify the disputed weeks, your pay and the evidence supporting it. Request a correction, but do not let that correspondence use up the tribunal deadline.

For refusal or underpayment of arrears, holiday, notice or a basic award, the tribunal route is a complaint under section 188 against the Secretary of State and the former employer. If the decision was communicated on or after 1 October 2026, the usual limit is six months less a day from that date. An earlier decision keeps the three-month limit. The commencement regulations confirm that transition. The longer limit does not revive an expired claim. Get advice on early conciliation requirements for the particular complaint.

A refusal of statutory redundancy pay has a different tribunal route. Do not assume section 188 covers it or that its decision-date deadline applies. An adviser should check the redundancy entitlement, the original dismissal deadline and the fund’s decision together.

A tribunal’s basic unfair-dismissal award can be covered by the fund. Its compensatory award cannot. Ordinary unfair dismissal still normally requires two years’ service as at 1 October 2026, although some claims do not require that service. Scheduled changes from January 2027 do not put compensatory awards into this scheme. Read our unfair dismissal guide.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

Scotland uses the same employee-debt service and £751 weekly cap as England and Wales. Scottish personal insolvency terms include sequestration and protected trust deeds. Tribunal claims for breach of contract have separate rules; do not assume the wage-deduction deadline applies to a contract claim. The proposed Scottish extension should not be treated as a right already in force on 1 October 2026.

Northern Ireland uses the Department for the Economy’s Redundancy Payments Service. Its weekly cap is £783 from 6 April 2026. Its online claim system launched in May 2026. Paper applications are no longer accepted to create new cases. Follow the Northern Ireland guidance and the practitioner’s instructions, not the Great Britain form. Pension trustees have a separate process.

Disputes go to an Industrial Tribunal, with Labour Relations Agency conciliation rather than Acas. The October 2026 Great Britain extension does not apply. Most Northern Ireland employment claims retain a three-month limit, usually described as three months less a day, while statutory redundancy has a six-month window. Check the claim-specific deadline. Residence alone does not decide which service covers you; someone living in Northern Ireland who worked in Great Britain may fall within the Great Britain scheme. See our Northern Ireland guide and nidirect’s insolvency claim guidance.

What is in force, and what is not

1. 6 April 2026Great Britain weekly cap rises to £751

   In force for the relevant statutory dates from this day. The previous cap was £719. The maximum protective award also rises from 90 to 180 days for dismissals from this day. Fund cover remains subject to the arrears limits.

2. 1 October 2026Longer Great Britain tribunal limits take effect

   Wage-deduction and section 188 complaints move from three to six months where their relevant date is on or after this day. Earlier relevant dates retain the old limit. This does not extend the already-existing six months to apply to the fund after dismissal.

3. 1 January 2027Unfair-dismissal changes are scheduled

   For terminations from this date, the ordinary qualifying period is scheduled to fall to six months and the compensatory cap to be removed. Neither change makes the compensatory award payable by the fund.

Questions people ask

Can you claim unpaid wages without two years’ service?

Yes. The two-year requirement normally applies to statutory redundancy pay, not the fund’s wage and holiday cover. You still need employee status, a qualifying insolvency and a covered debt. Statutory notice normally starts after one month’s employment.

What are the CN and LN numbers?

The CN is the insolvency case reference for your first online claim. Get it from the practitioner or official receiver. The LN is the later reference for your separate notice-pay claim, sent after the statutory notice period would have ended. Requesting notice pay on the first form does not submit the second claim.

Can you claim holiday you never took?

Yes, qualifying accrued but untaken leave and leave taken but unpaid can both be covered. The fund’s ceiling is six weeks, relating to the 12 months before insolvency, with the applicable weekly cap. Record the two kinds separately. Eligible accrued holiday above the fund limit can remain a preferential creditor claim.

The director has disappeared. Can the fund pay a tribunal judgment?

A judgment for wages or holiday does not itself open fund cover. You need formal insolvency for that route. Unpaid statutory redundancy is different. After reasonable recovery steps, usually including an unpaid tribunal decision, contact the service about section 166. Protect the company from strike-off and get enforcement advice.

Will Universal Credit reduce your notice pay?

Benefits you were eligible to claim can be deducted even if you never claimed them. New earnings during the notice period also count. Apply for benefits you may qualify for and keep decision letters so the service can check eligibility and the correct deduction.

Do you get redundancy pay if your job transfers to a new owner?

Not simply because the owner changed. If your employment transferred, you may still claim qualifying pre-transfer debts under the insolvency rules, but a continuing job does not itself create redundancy or notice entitlement. Ask the practitioner which debts the fund covers and which liabilities transfer to the buyer.

Sources

1. Your rights if your employer is insolvent, GOV.UK. See what you can get, how to apply, payment and notice deductions and continued work and transfers.
2. Claim for redundancy and other money you’re owed and Claim for loss of notice, GOV.UK.
3. What to do when you’ve been made redundant and Claim for loss of notice pay, Insolvency Service claimant factsheets.
4. Explaining your redundancy payments, Insolvency Service, tax treatment, shared protective-award limit and notice-pay reassessment.
5. Employment Rights Act 1996, section 166, section 182, section 183, section 184, section 185, section 186 and section 188, legislation.gov.uk.
6. Employment Rights Act 1996, section 86 and section 162, legislation.gov.uk, statutory notice and redundancy calculations.
7. Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, section 189, legislation.gov.uk, protective awards.
8. Employment Rights (Increase of Limits) Order 2026, legislation.gov.uk.
9. Employment Rights Act 2025 commencement and transitional regulations, SI 2026/954, legislation.gov.uk.
10. Employment Rights Act 2025 commencement regulations, SI 2026/559, legislation.gov.uk, scheduled January 2027 changes.
11. Insolvency Act 1986, schedule 6, paragraph 9, and Insolvency Proceedings (Monetary Limits) Order 1986, legislation.gov.uk.
12. Technical guidance for official receivers, chapter 43, Insolvency Service, particularly paragraphs 43.16, 43.90 and 43.91 on subrogation, the £800 wages preference and accrued holiday.
13. Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006, regulation 8, legislation.gov.uk.
14. Technical guidance for official receivers, chapter 58, Insolvency Service, employment law and insolvency.
15. Insolvency Service annual report and accounts 2025 to 2026, 14 July 2026. Source for 70,633 claims, 11.1-day average processing, the 12-day target and customer experience findings.
16. Tribunal statistics quarterly, April to June 2026, Ministry of Justice, 10 September 2026. Source for the 70,000 open single claims and 51% annual increase.
17. Payment of employment tribunal awards, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2013. Historical source for 51% not paid in full and 35% not paid at all.
18. Getting paid if your employer goes out of business or disappears, Citizens Advice.
19. If the employer is no longer trading, Acas.
20. Increase in unfair dismissal and redundancy limits, Department for the Economy, 23 March 2026.
21. Redundancy Payments Online: forms and advice, Department for the Economy, updated 18 June 2026.
22. Insolvency payment claims, nidirect, including the pension contribution route.
23. FOI response on redundancy payment claims, 2022 to 2025, Insolvency Service, October 2025, jurisdiction.
24. Statutory pay entitlement: how to deal with disagreements and Statutory Payment Dispute Team, HMRC.
25. Financial assistance for employers unable to pay statutory redundancy payments, GOV.UK.
26. Employment Rights Act 2025, schedule 2, paragraph 1, legislation.gov.uk, prospective preferential treatment of shift payments.