Termination Letter: Template, Examples, and the Rules

What has to be settled before you write

The letter is the last step, not the process. Before it goes out, the reason must be one the law recognises, the procedure must have happened, and the paperwork must exist: the warnings, the notes of the meetings, the performance record, the investigation. A letter that announces a dismissal for poor performance when the file contains no warning is evidence against the employer, not for it.

Decide the leaving date, the notice position, and the final pay before you send, because the letter has to state them.

United States

Federal law sets a floor and the state sets almost everything the letter has to say. Two of the biggest states start from the opposite premise to the one this page opened with, so read the state rules before you treat the letter as your own choice.

• At-will, with more exceptions than the phrase carries. Every state treats employment as at-will except Montana, which requires good cause once the employee has finished a probationary period; Montana's default runs a year unless the employer sets its own, with an outer limit of 18 months. Puerto Rico is not at-will at all: Act 80 of 1976 requires just cause for an indefinite-term employee and sets a statutory indemnity, the mesada, where there is none. Everywhere else the law demands no reason, which does not make any reason safe: a dismissal that is discriminatory, retaliatory, or in breach of a contract or policy is still unlawful, and the reason stated in the letter is where those claims start.
• In some states the letter is not optional and its contents are prescribed. New York Labor Law section 195(6) requires an employer to notify a terminated employee in writing of the exact date of termination and the exact date benefits are cancelled, no later than five working days after the termination. Missouri goes further in a different direction with its service-letter law: a departing employee past a short service threshold can compel a signed letter, within 45 days of a properly made written request, certifying what they did, for how long, and the true reason they left. Neither obligation appears in the template libraries, and both are exactly the kind of thing a dismissed employee's lawyer checks first.
• Mass layoffs need 60 days' notice, unless your state says 90. The federal WARN Act covers an employer with 100 or more employees excluding part-timers, or 100 or more who together work at least 4,000 hours a week excluding overtime. A plant closing triggers it where a site shutdown costs 50 or more employees, part-timers excluded, their jobs within 30 days. A mass layoff triggers it where 50 or more lose their jobs at one site within 30 days and make up at least a third of the workforce there, or where 500 or more do regardless of proportion. Employment loss reaches beyond dismissal: a layoff over six months counts, and so does cutting hours by more than half for six months, while a discharge for cause does not count towards the threshold at all. Notice goes to the union representing the affected employees, or to each affected employee where there is none, plus the state dislocated worker unit and the chief elected official of the local government.
• The state WARN law is not a scaled-down copy. New York and New Jersey both require 90 days rather than 60, New York from employers with 50 or more full-time employees in the state and on a mass layoff trigger as low as 25 employees at 33 percent, and New Jersey adds mandatory severance of one week's pay for each full year of service. Serve 60 days in either state and you have breached state law and, in New Jersey, bought the severance as well. Check the law of every state you have a site in before you fix the notice date.
• Health cover has a clock, a floor, and a price. Federal COBRA reaches only employers who normally had 20 or more employees on a typical business day in the previous calendar year; below that, the state mini-COBRA law applies with its own windows. Where COBRA does apply, the employer has 30 days from the qualifying event to notify the plan administrator and the administrator 14 days from being told to send the election notice, so 44 days in total where you are your own administrator, and multiemployer plans may set longer periods in the plan terms. The employee then has at least 60 days to elect, counted from the later of that notice and the date cover would otherwise end. Tell them what it costs: the plan may charge up to 102 percent of the premium, they have 45 days after electing to make the first payment, and a dismissal for gross misconduct is not a qualifying event at all, so no continuation right arises.
• Final pay runs by state, and so does whether unused leave is owed. Federal law requires no payout of accrued vacation; California treats vested vacation as wages and requires everything, leave included, to be paid immediately on discharge, against up to 72 hours for someone who quits without notice, with a waiting-time penalty of up to 30 days' wages for getting it wrong. Several states run the same asymmetry. Check yours before you set the date, and do not put "accrued and untaken leave" in the letter as though it were universal.

Great Britain: England, Wales and Scotland

The Employment Rights Act 1996 extends to England, Wales and Scotland but not to Northern Ireland, so everything in this section is Great Britain unless it says otherwise. Northern Ireland has its own section below.

• Notice from the employer rises with service. The statutory minimum is one week once the employee has a month's service, then one week for each complete year, up to a maximum of twelve weeks at twelve years or more. A contract can give more, and where it gives less the statutory minimum applies instead. Two things sit outside that floor: either party can waive notice or accept a payment in lieu, and neither owes notice where the other's conduct entitles them to end the contract summarily, which is the basis for dismissing without notice for gross misconduct.
• The date you write down may not be the date that counts. Where the statutory notice would have run past the termination date the letter states, the later date is the effective date of termination for the qualifying period, the basic award, and the week's pay calculation. Short notice therefore does more than underpay by a fortnight: it can move the employee across a service threshold you were relying on.
• Unfair dismissal: the qualifying period changes on 1 January 2027. An employee currently needs two years' continuous service to bring an ordinary claim. Under the Employment Rights Act 2025 that falls to six months for dismissals taking effect on or after 1 January 2027, and the cap on the compensatory award, currently the lower of 123,543 pounds and 52 weeks' pay, goes on the same date. What governs is the effective date of termination and not the date of your letter, so a dismissal notified in December 2026 that takes effect in January 2027 is already under the new rule and already uncapped. The widely repeated claim that it became a day-one right is wrong: the Act as passed sets a six-month qualifying period.
• The reason has to be one of five and the procedure has to match the Acas Code. The potentially fair reasons are conduct, capability or qualifications, redundancy, contravention of a statutory restriction, and some other substantial reason. Qualifications is its own ground and is routinely mislabelled: a lost licence, a failed certification, or a withdrawn registration is a qualifications dismissal, not a capability one. Where the employer unreasonably fails to follow the Acas Code on disciplinary and grievance procedures, a tribunal can increase the award by up to 25 percent. Some dismissals are automatically unfair regardless of service, including those for pregnancy, whistleblowing, or asserting a statutory right.
• Written reasons are a right on request. An employee can ask for a written statement of the reasons for dismissal and the employer must provide it within fourteen days. The qualifying period is two years and drops to six months on 1 January 2027 alongside the unfair dismissal change; there is no qualifying period where the employee is dismissed while pregnant or on statutory maternity or adoption leave.
• Twenty redundancies change the whole timetable. Proposing 20 or more redundancies at one establishment within 90 days triggers collective consultation with employee representatives, starting at least 30 days before the first dismissal takes effect, or 45 days at 100 or more. The maximum protective award for failing to consult doubled to 180 days' pay per affected employee for dismissals on or after 6 April 2026. Separately, you must notify the Secretary of State on form HR1 before giving any of them notice to terminate, which means before the letter goes out; failing to do so is a criminal offence.
• The employee can bring someone to the meeting. Where a worker is required or invited to a disciplinary hearing and reasonably asks to be accompanied, the employer must allow it. The companion may be a trade union official or another of the employer's workers, may put and sum up the worker's case, and where the chosen companion is unavailable the worker can propose a new time within five working days.
• Tribunal time limits are moving. The limit for bringing a claim rises from three months to six for acts occurring on or after 1 October 2026, and from 9 November 2026 for breach of contract claims in Scotland. Plan your document retention around the longer window rather than the old one.

Northern Ireland is a separate jurisdiction

Employment law in Northern Ireland is devolved and runs on the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996. The notice ladder survives the crossing, because Article 118 is word for word the Great Britain provision. Almost nothing else does. The unfair dismissal qualifying period in Northern Ireland is one year, not two: the increase made in Great Britain in 2012 was never made there, and the Employment Rights Act 2025 does not reach it either, so the January 2027 reduction to six months does not apply. The compensatory award stays capped, at its own figure of 123,785 pounds from 6 April 2026. An employer applying the Great Britain rules to a Belfast dismissal is working from a qualifying period twice as long as the real one.

What goes in the letter

• The decision, stated plainly, and the employee's name, role, and the date of the letter.
• The reason, in the same words the process used. Do not soften a conduct dismissal into "restructuring" to spare feelings; a reason that does not match the file is the first thing a claim attacks.
• The effective date and whether the employee works the notice, is paid in lieu, or is on garden leave.
• The money. Final salary date, any severance, and how each will be paid. Add accrued and untaken leave where it is genuinely owed, which turns on the state or the contract rather than on a general rule.
• Benefits and cover. The exact date health cover ends, which New York requires you to put in writing, what continuation options exist and what the employee will pay for them, pension or provident fund treatment, and anything vesting or lapsing.
• Company property and access, what to return, by when, and to whom.
• Continuing obligations, such as confidentiality, and where relevant a reminder of any restrictive covenant.
• The appeal route where your procedure or jurisdiction gives one, with the deadline and who to write to.
• A contact for questions about pay and paperwork.

Example: dismissal after a performance process

Example: redundancy or layoff

Where the role goes rather than the person, the letter should say so and avoid any language that reads as performance.

Do not copy that redundancy figure. Statutory redundancy pay is age-banded, at half a week per year of service under 22, a week per year from 22 to 40, and a week and a half per year at 41 and over. It needs two years' service to arise at all, counts a maximum of 20 years, and is calculated on a week's pay capped at 751 pounds for redundancies on or after 6 April 2026, which gives an overall maximum of 22,530 pounds. Northern Ireland runs its own figures. A 45-year-old with the same six years is owed half as much again as the letter above states.

Two more things the single sentence about alternative roles conceals. Where the employee starts a different role within four weeks, they are not treated as dismissed, and a four-week trial period runs in which either side can end it on grounds connected with the new terms without losing the redundancy entitlement. And where the employee unreasonably refuses an offer of suitable alternative employment, the entitlement can be forfeited altogether. Record which of those happened, because the letter is where it will be read back.

The template

Fill the brackets, then read the date line and the final-pay line once more, because those two get quoted back at you. Both letters above and this form are in the .docx.

What to keep out

• A reason that does not match the file. Dressing a conduct dismissal as redundancy creates a false redundancy and hands the employee a case.
• New allegations. The letter confirms what was put to the employee and answered; it is not the place to raise something they never had a chance to respond to.
• Editorialising. "Frankly, this has been a long time coming" is the sentence that gets quoted back. Keep it factual.
• Vague dates. Every date in the letter should be a calendar date, not "shortly" or "in due course".
• Notice below the statutory floor. Work the entitlement out from length of service before you fix the leaving date. Four weeks to someone with six years behind them is a breach on the face of the letter, whatever else the process got right, and it is the easiest error in the document to prove.
• Promises you have not checked, especially about references, severance beyond policy, or what will be said to the team.

Deliver it in a meeting where you can, with the letter handed over or sent the same day, and keep a copy on file with a note of how and when it was given.

Sources

• US federal: WARN Act, 29 USC 2101 (coverage, plant closing, mass layoff, employment loss, part-time definition) and 2102 (60 days, who is served, the faltering company, unforeseeable circumstances and natural disaster exceptions). COBRA, 29 USC 1161 (20-employee floor), 1162 (102 percent premium, 45-day first payment), 1163 (gross misconduct carve-out), 1165 (60-day election from the later of notice or loss of cover), 1166 (30-day and 14-day notices, multiemployer plan extensions). No federal final-pay deadline or vacation-payout requirement under the FLSA.
• US state: Montana Code Annotated 39-2-904 (good cause after probation, 12-month default extendable to 18); Puerto Rico Act 80 of 1976 (just cause, mesada); New York Labor Law section 195(6) (written notice of termination and benefit cancellation dates within five working days); Missouri Revised Statutes 290.140 (service letter, seven or more employees, 90 days' service, 45 days to issue); New York State WARN and New Jersey WARN (90 days, and New Jersey severance of one week per year); California Labor Code 201, 202 and 203 (immediate final pay on discharge, 72 hours on a quit, waiting-time penalty).
• Great Britain: Employment Rights Act 1996 sections 86 (notice ladder, waiver, pay in lieu, summary dismissal), 92 (written reasons within fourteen days), 97 (effective date of termination where statutory notice would expire later), 98 (five potentially fair reasons), 108 and 124 (qualifying period and compensatory award limit), 138 and 141 (trial period and unreasonable refusal of suitable alternative work), 244 (extent: England, Wales and Scotland, not Northern Ireland). Employment Rights Act 2025 sections 25 and 158, commenced for 1 January 2027. TULRCA 1992 sections 188, 193 and 194 (collective consultation, HR1 notification, criminal offence) and 207A (Acas Code uplift up to 25 percent). Employment Relations Act 1999 section 10 (right to be accompanied). Employment Rights (Increase of Limits) Order 2026: week's pay 751 pounds, compensatory award 123,543 pounds, from 6 April 2026.
• Northern Ireland: Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996, Article 118 (notice, identical to the GB ladder) and Article 140 (one-year unfair dismissal qualifying period); Department for the Economy maximum compensatory award 123,785 pounds from 6 April 2026.

This page is general information about termination letters, not legal or employment advice. Dismissal is jurisdiction-specific and mistakes are expensive; take advice before you act.