Deactivated by Uber, Deliveroo or Just Eat: what can you do?

The app does not sack you. It switches you off. One message, and the drops that paid the rent stop, with no manager and no hearing. Forums will tell you to claim unfair dismissal. For most couriers and private-hire drivers that claim does not exist. What you save this week decides whether you can get the reason, the data, and any pay still owed.

Do this in the next seven days

Do these four things before you argue about status. A later claim depends on them. The appeal does not pause any deadline.

1. Screenshot everything. Save the deactivation message, your rating, recent jobs, pay statements, warnings, and any customer complaint still visible in the app. Export weekly pay summaries if you can. If the message mentions right to work or an ID check, save the document and any share code too. Platforms can cut access to the history fast. Keep copies outside the app.
2. Appeal in writing. Use the in-app review and email support, so you have a copy they do not control. State what happened, when you last worked, and that you want the reason and reinstatement. Keep it short and factual. Insults do not help a later claim. There is no legal right to reinstatement for most riders. The paper trail still matters for a tribunal, a court, and a union rep.
3. Send a subject access request. Ask for the personal data behind the decision, including any automated logic. It is free. They usually have one month. The appeal wording is in the box under these steps. The data request is set out further down.
4. Get free help and start the clock. Contact a union that already represents gig workers, plus Citizens Advice or a law centre. In Great Britain, contact Acas before most tribunal claims. In Northern Ireland, contact the Labour Relations Agency, not Acas. Do not wait to see if the appeal works.

Your status decides your rights

The app calls you self-employed. The law may disagree. There are three categories. Employee. Worker. Self-employed. The contract’s wording is not the test. Courts look at what actually happened.

Uber private-hire drivers are workers. The Supreme Court said so in Uber v Aslam on 19 February 2021. Uber set the fare, penalised refusal, and used ratings as discipline, so the self-employed clause did not decide status. That ruling does not automatically cover Uber Eats couriers. Different app, different contract. Do not assume a courier case is won because a private-hire case was.

Deliveroo riders are not in the same place. In November 2023 the Supreme Court held, in the IWGB’s union-recognition case, that a genuine and usable right to send a substitute defeated personal service. That case did not formally decide minimum wage or holiday pay. It strongly suggests those claims fail too, where the substitution clause is real. A clause you cannot actually use is a different fight. In Stuart Delivery v Augustine the Court of Appeal held couriers were workers where substitution was limited to other signed-up couriers, in agreed slots.

Just Eat is still contested. More than 7,000 couriers had a London employment tribunal hearing listed from 5 May to 2 June 2026. Leigh Day argues they are employees or workers. Just Eat says they are self-employed. We have not found a published judgment as at 8 October 2026. Until one appears, do not plan as if you have already won, or already lost.

If the self-employed label sticks, you lose unfair dismissal, redundancy pay, and the Acas disciplinary code. That is the commercial point of the label. Our view is that you should challenge it where control, ratings and penalties tell a different story, and not spend the deadline on a dismissal claim you cannot bring. Check whether you are an employee, a worker or self-employed.

How appeals really work

Uber has a deactivation review. Deliveroo and Just Eat have internal reviews. No statute forces them to hold a hearing, show you the evidence, or put you back on the app. These are contract or policy channels. They are not a court, and they are not Acas.

The Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary procedures applies to employees. So does any compensation uplift for ignoring it. A worker or a self-employed courier cannot claim that uplift. Of the three platforms, only former Just Eat Scoober staff were employees, and only while that contract lasted.

Run the appeal anyway. It asks for the account back. The data request asks for what they used against you. Neither one stops the tribunal clock. Uber does not publish deactivation appeal success rates. We will not invent a percentage.

There is no appeal against being switched off. There is a claim, if the facts fit, and the deadline runs while you wait for an email.

If another app is lawful for your visa, your insurance and your vehicle, sign up. A sponsored visa is not a spare account. Do not assume a second platform is allowed. Write down lost income week by week. That figure is evidence of loss. It is not, by itself, a debt the platform owes you. If the deactivation cuts what you live on, check what it does to Universal Credit.

Get the evidence with a data request

The platform knows why it cut you off. You are entitled to know too. A subject access request under UK GDPR Article 15 is free. The controller must respond within one month, and may take up to two further months if the request is complex. They must tell you if they extend. They can ask for ID. They cannot charge a fee unless the request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.

Ask for your ratings, GPS logs, customer reports, fraud flags, ID-check images and scores, reviewer notes, and the deactivation log. Also ask for meaningful information about the logic of any automated decision, and about its significance and consequences. That is Article 15. It covers your data. It does not automatically hand over the company’s aggregate statistics, such as false-match rates for other riders.

Since 5 February 2026, section 80 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 has replaced the old automated-decision article with Articles 22A to 22D. Where a significant decision is based solely on automated processing, meaning no meaningful human involvement, the safeguards include information, a chance to make representations, human intervention, and a right to contest. Deactivation is a significant decision. Name those four safeguards in the request. This is not a blanket ban on automated checks. ICO guidance on how the new articles work in practice was still in consultation in 2026, so the edges may move. The right to demand a person looks at the decision is already in force.

1. Send it to the privacy contact. Use the in-app data portal and email a copy to the privacy or data-protection address. Put subject access request and your rider ID in the subject line.
2. Prove who you are. Photo ID, plus the email and phone number on the account, is enough. Do not send extra documents they have not asked for.
3. Ask for the logic and a person. Ask for meaningful information about the logic, the significance and the consequences. Ask to make representations, to obtain human intervention, and to contest the decision under Article 22C.
4. Chase it after one month. If nothing arrives, write again. Then complain to the ICO. An ICO complaint is free. It does not award compensation, and it does not switch the account back on. Compensation for a data breach is a court claim, separate from the tribunal.

British drivers have forced this kind of disclosure before, through the Dutch courts. Uber’s European headquarters are in the Netherlands. In 2023 the Amsterdam Court of Appeal ordered Uber and Ola to disclose profiling and automated-decision data, in cases brought with Worker Info Exchange and the App Drivers and Couriers Union. That ruling binds the Dutch entities. It does not bind a UK tribunal. You can still point to it if the reply says they hold nothing on automated decisions. Read the reply to see which company actually holds your account.

Failed a photo or fraud check you did not fail

A repeated ID-check failure, then a fraud flag, then deactivation, is a pattern with a legal route. If the check works worse for you because you are Black, older, disabled, or because your appearance changed for a religious reason, that can be race, age, disability or religion discrimination under the Equality Act 2010.

Section 83 covers employees, workers, and many people on a contract personally to do work. You do not need the app to call you an employee. A genuine, usable right to send anyone as a substitute can take you outside that definition. That is the same personal-service problem as the Deliveroo union case. Get your own clause read before you assume the Act applies, or assume it does not.

Pa Edrissa Manjang, a Black Uber Eats courier, was removed after repeated Real-Time ID check failures. With Equality and Human Rights Commission backing he claimed indirect race discrimination. Uber tried to strike the claim out, failed, and settled in March 2024. The sum was not disclosed. A settlement is not a ruling that facial recognition is unlawful. It shows a funded claim got past the first knockout attempt, and that Uber paid to end it. Our view is that most riders will not get that funding alone. Join a union before you need the letter.

Save the check photos, the times, the lighting, and every failure message. Ask in the data request for your own images, scores, and any human override on your account. If you complained about discrimination and were then deactivated, that can also be victimisation. How to make a discrimination complaint sets out the practical steps. The tribunal deadline still runs from the deactivation, or from the last discriminatory act, not from the day you finish the appeal.

Money they may still owe you

Deactivation ends future jobs. It does not wipe arrears. If you were in fact a worker while the account was live, you can claim minimum wage shortfalls and holiday pay as unlawful deductions in the employment tribunal. Unpaid fees, bonuses and broken notice terms are breach of contract. Workers and self-employed riders bring those in the civil court, not the tribunal. Employees can use either. Do not claim the same pound in both places.

From 1 April 2026 the minimum rates are £12.71 an hour at 21 and over, £10.85 at 18 to 20, and £8 for under-18s and apprentices. Self-employed couriers have no minimum wage unless a tribunal finds they were workers. Current minimum wage rates and how holiday pay is calculated are the figures to check against your statements. If you were a worker and the pay was below the rate, you can also report it to HMRC. A report does not put you back on the app, and it does not replace a tribunal claim.

Uber’s private-hire model pays the minimum from acceptance to drop-off. Waiting time stays unpaid, and whether it counts is still disputed. Courier cases are not decided by the private-hire settlement. Just Eat’s claimants argue that logged-on time counts. Treat that as open until a judgment says otherwise.

Some platforms add a holiday percentage to each payment instead of paid weeks off. For irregular-hours and part-year workers, rolled-up holiday pay is allowed at 12.07% of the right pay, for leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024. A line on a statement is not proof the sum is lawful, or that it used the right earnings.

Civil court claims for breach of contract in England and Wales have six years. Do not assume that period in Scotland. Sheriff court time limits differ, and simple procedure stops at £5,000. Northern Ireland small claims stop at £5,000. The England and Wales small-claims track stops at £10,000. A larger contract claim can still be brought. It leaves the small-claims track. Breach of contract claims set out the employee route. Workers use the civil court for the same kind of broken term.

Tribunal or court, and the new deadlines

Miss the date and you lose even a strong case. Count from the deactivation, or from the underpayment, not from the day you read this guide. An act on 30 September 2026 does not get the new six-month limit.

In Great Britain you must contact Acas for early conciliation before most tribunal claims. Conciliation started on or after 1 December 2025 can last up to 12 weeks. Time in conciliation does not count against the tribunal deadline. That pause is not a reason to sit on the claim. The six-month time limit rules and how to bring a tribunal claim cover the forms. The tribunal deadline calculator is the place to test a date. There is no fee to start a tribunal claim. The civil court charges a fee based on the amount claimed.

Employment tribunal breach-of-contract claims are for employees only. In England and Wales that time limit moved to six months on 1 October 2026. In Scotland it moves to six months on 9 November 2026. Other Scottish tribunal claims, including discrimination and wage deductions, took the six-month limit on 1 October 2026.

Cut off after a safety complaint or for joining a union

If you were deactivated after you reported dangerous brakes, an assault on a late drop, an e-bike fire, or a legal breach, the legal label of the cut can change. A vague grumble that pay is low is not automatically whistleblowing. A qualifying protected disclosure is. Section 47B of the Employment Rights Act 1996 protects workers, including workers who are not employees, from detriment for that kind of disclosure. There is no qualifying period. Deactivation can be the detriment. Keep the complaint, the date, who saw it, and the deactivation message.

Trade union detriment is narrower than people think. The current protection from detriment for union membership and activities covers employees, not workers. Reforms in the Employment Rights Act 2025 may widen union rights. They are not a pleadable right for a deactivated courier on a date we can give you. Do not rely on that ground alone. A discrimination claim or a whistleblowing claim may fit the facts better. Whistleblowing protection and punishment for union activity spell out the tests. Get advice before you choose the ground.

Join a union that already does this work. The IWGB took Deliveroo to the Supreme Court and represents couriers in deactivation appeals. The ADCU, with Worker Info Exchange, forced the Amsterdam disclosure orders against Uber and Ola. GMB has recognition with Uber. Ask which union already has reps on your platform, and what they will actually do on a dead account. Membership is how you get someone who has seen the form before. It is not a slogan.

Free routes beside a union are Acas in Great Britain, the Labour Relations Agency in Northern Ireland, Citizens Advice, and law centres. Worker Info Exchange is the organisation that has run the data cases. Use them for the request. Do not pay a claims firm a cut of wages you have not won.

What the new laws change

This guide states the law as at 1 October 2026. Anything later is scheduled, not a right you already have.

1. 1 Dec 2025Early conciliation can last 12 weeks

   In force. For Acas early conciliation started on or after this date, the maximum rose from six weeks to 12. The pause helps only if you have already contacted Acas. It is not extra time to think about it.

2. 5 Feb 2026Automated-decision safeguards in force

   In force. Articles 22A to 22D give you information, representations, human intervention and a right to contest a solely automated significant decision. Use those words in the appeal and the data request.

3. 1 Oct 2026Most Great Britain tribunal limits become six months

   In force. The act complained of must be on or after this date. Earlier acts keep three months less a day. Equal pay and statutory redundancy were already on a longer limit. This change brings most other claims into line. It does not revive a deadline that has already expired.

4. 1 Jan 2027Unfair dismissal qualifying period shortens

   Scheduled, not in force. For employees only, two years becomes six months for dismissals on or after this date, and the compensatory cap is due to go. It still does nothing for a worker or a self-employed courier unless status changes first.