The HR1 form: when and how to notify redundancies

If your organisation is planning 20 or more redundancies, it’s essential to understand the rules around collective redundancy notification, including the HR1 form. The rules changed at the end of November 2025, when the paper HR1 form was withdrawn and the process moved to online forms only.  

Employers need to be clear about the number of proposed redundancies, the establishment affected, and the deadline for notifying the Redundancy Payments Service (RPS).

The HR1 form is a statutory notification that UK employers must use when giving advance notice of making 20 or more redundancies within a 90-day period. Having an online process makes it important to get the timing, establishment, and information right first time. Notifications of redundancies must reach the Redundancy Payments Service at least 30 days before the first dismissal, where 20 to 99 redundancies are involved, or at least 45 days before, where 100 or more are proposed. 

This change to an online process means that the HR1 form is a vital part of the statutory process that revolves around collective redundancies, and the date that the RPS receives completed notifications is the relevant notification date.

To put this into perspective, the latest Insolvency Service figures from September 2026 showed that 353 HR forms were received. This covered 50,904 potential redundancies and 311 employers. The previous month there had been 282 HR forms received, covering 19,557 potential redundancies from 238 employers. While these figures are management information, not official statistics, they do demonstrate the scale of workforce change being notified through the scheme. 

The starting point is straightforward – if an employer is looking to dismiss 20 or more employees at an establishment within 90 days or less, it must notify the RPS. The important word to hone in on here is “establishment.” An establishment is generally the site where an employee is assigned to work, so this threshold isn’t automatically calculated across the whole of the organisation. If an organisation has several sites, each is considered separately for HR1 purposes. 

For example, a business with 15 redundancies at one site and 10 at another doesn’t necessarily need a single 25-person HR1 notification. The location and organisational arrangements need to be considered carefully.

The Insolvency Service says that one HR1 form can sometimes cover multiple sites, provided the affected sites are listed in an attachment.

Proposed redundancies	HR1 requirement	Minimum notification period
Fewer than 20	HR1 normally not required	No HR1 notification period
20 to 99 at one establishment	HR1 required	At least 30 days before the first dismissal
100 or more at one establishment	HR1 required	At least 45 days before the first dismissal

These periods are measured against the first dismissal, not the date from when the redundancy programme has been announced. The notification must also be made before individual notices of dismissal are issued, with the legislation underpinned in section 193 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULRCA). 

One common misconception is that HR1 should only be completed once an organisation knows exactly who is to be made redundant. This isn’t how the current process works. UK employers are required to notify the RPS of potential redundancies, with the Insolvency Service pointing out that employers should provide their best estimate or worst-case scenario based on information available when the form HR1 is submitted.

This is vital to understand, as a redundancy proposal can still be subject to consultation and change. Processing an HR1 form doesn’t mean that every person included will definitely lose their job. It’s advanced notification of proposed redundancies so that there is government support available for those affected. But if circumstances change, employers should notify the Insolvency Service immediately. 

As already mentioned, the HR1 process changed at the end of November 2025. The paper form was removed, so paper submissions are no longer accepted, and UK employers must use the online HR1 form, which has 8 parts and takes about 40 minutes to complete.

Here are 2 crucial points that HR teams need to note: 

Once an HR1 form has been submitted, it can’t be retrieved or reviewed. A confirmation email only confirms that the form has been received, and doesn’t contain a copy of any answers given. It’s therefore advisable to save or print the completed HR1 before submitting, just in case an affected employee or trade union representative requires a copy. 

Additionally, there’s no functionality to export the form for internal review before submission.

The safest way for HR teams to tackle this is to treat the completed HR1 form as a document that needs its own internal approval and record-keeping process before anyone presses the submit button.

Another limitation on the new online form is that the HR1 system won’t accept a consultation start date in the future. However, the Insolvency Service’s Q&A confirms that same-day consultation commencement dates are acceptable. 

The technical requirements of the form shouldn’t be confused with the statutory timetable for collective consultation. To ensure that the legal consultation requirements and HR1 notification deadlines are met, employers still need to plan the wider redundancy process.

Before heading down the HR1 route, business leaders and HR teams should agree on the core details. The online form requires information about the employer, the establishment or establishments affected, the proposed redundancies, and the reason for them. The number entered should reflect the total number of proposed redundancies, not just the number of staff initially considered.

It’s worth building an internal checking stage into the process. An incorrect establishment, an incomplete form, or a submission that’s rejected can create unnecessary pressure when the statutory clock is ticking. If a submission is rejected, the employer will need to start from scratch, and resubmit the HR1. The employer must also provide a copy of the notification to the relevant trade union or elected employee representative.

Failure to notify about redundancies is a criminal offence under section 194 of TULRCA. If you do not submit an HR1 form, the legislation states that an employer is committing an offence and is liable to an unlimited fine. Where an offence by a company is attributable to the consent, connivance, or neglect of a director, manager, secretary, or similar level of office, that individual can also be guilty of the offence. That means this responsibility doesn’t necessarily stop with the company.

The Insolvency Service’s guidance is equally direct – failure to comply with the statutory notification periods, without good cause, may result in prosecution and a fine for the company and / or an officer of the company.

This isn’t a legal technicality that can be fixed by submitting an HR1 form once someone has noticed it has been missed. The statutory timetable is part of the redundancy process and must therefore be planned from the start.

Submitting an HR1 form doesn’t replace collective consultation. If an employer is proposing 20 or more redundancies at one establishment within 90 days, there are separate collective consultation requirements involving employee representatives. 

Running the two processes together is the way to go for HR leaders, with the aim of embedding the HR1 notification deadline and collective consultation timetable in the same project plan.

An HR1 is a government notification, but redundancy is ultimately a people process. A redundancy communications report, from Careerminds, found that 34% of employees first learned about redundancies through rumours, gossip, or workplace whispers. That’s not how it should be.

While the HR1 isn’t an employee communication strategy, its timing should sit within one. HR teams should know in advance who will receive the notification, when representatives will receive their copy, who’s responsible for communicating with affected employees, and how managers should respond to questions.

For those employees who are potentially facing redundancy, the period between hearing that their role is at risk and finding their next opportunity can be a real time of uncertainty. To make that transition more manageable, a company should provide structured support, such as outplacement support, which can include help with drafting CVs, career coaching, and job search support.

The UK HR1 process only covers the UK statutory notification requirement. It doesn’t remove the need to check notification, consultation, or employee-protection requirements elsewhere, including Europe.  A single restructuring programme may trigger different notification duties, consultation periods, and government filings in different jurisdictions.

Careerminds operates across 100+ countries and can provide outplacement support tailored to multiple jurisdictions. 

A UK HR1 should be treated as one item on the wider compliance checklist, rather than evidence that the organisation has completed its international redundancy obligations. 

Before submitting an HR1, business leaders and the HR department should be able to answer the following questions:

1. Have we reached the threshold? Are we proposing 20 or more redundancies at one establishment within 90 days?
2. Have we identified the correct establishment? If several locations are involved, have we identified if separate HR1s are needed?
3. Have we worked backwards from the first dismissal? Is the HR1 being received at least 30 days beforehand for 20 to 99 redundancies, or at least 45 days beforehand for 100 or more?
4. Have we checked all of the information before submitting? Once submitted, the HR1 cannot be saved or retrieved.
5. Have we connected the HR1 to the wider people plan? Have employee representatives, managers, affected employees, and the wider workforce been considered as part of the communication and support strategy?

An online HR1 makes the mechanics of submitting the notification more straightforward, but it doesn’t make the underlying responsibility any less significant. The deadline is statutory, the information needs to be correct, and the consequences of getting it wrong can extend beyond an administrative correction.

When redundancies are imminent, the HR1 deadline should be one of the first dates in your plan – not one of the last things on your checklist.