This article applies to England, Wales and Scotland.

Is Stress, Anxiety or Depression a Disability at an Employment Tribunal?

In brief: Stress, anxiety or depression can be a disability under section 6 of the Equality Act 2010, but only where the condition has a substantial, long-term adverse effect on normal day-to-day activities. No clinical diagnosis is required, a label alone is not enough, and tribunals decide on what the condition does to you, not on the word used for it.

Last updated: September 2026

By Yerty | Reviewed against the Equality Act 2010, four appeal and tribunal decisions on stress and anxiety, and Yerty's analysis of published tribunal decisions.

You have been signed off with stress, or you are being treated for anxiety or depression, and something has happened at work that you believe is connected. If the employer denies that you are disabled, one of the first questions in the claim is whether your condition meets the Equality Act definition. For these conditions the answer is less settled than for a physical diagnosis, and it turns on evidence of effect rather than on the name on the fit note.

This guide sets out what the Act requires, what the appeal tribunal has said about stress and anxiety in particular, what you will be asked to show, and how these conditions appear in published judgments. Yerty's broader guide to mental health as a disability under the Equality Act covers the employer's duties and the wider set of conditions.

Is stress a disability under the Equality Act?

It can be, but stress is the condition most often found not to be. The test is in section 6(1) of the Equality Act 2010:

"A person (P) has a disability if (a) P has a physical or mental impairment, and (b) the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on P's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities."

Three points carry the weight for stress, anxiety and depression:

"Impairment." Since 2005 the Act has not required a mental impairment to be a clinically well-recognised illness. The government guidance on the definition of disability says it is not necessary to consider the cause of an impairment, and that the focus is on its effect.
"Substantial" means more than minor or trivial (section 212(1)).
"Long-term" means the effect has lasted twelve months, is likely to, or is likely to recur (Schedule 1, paragraph 2). Paragraph 2(2) covers conditions that come and go: an effect that has ceased is treated as continuing if it is likely to recur. This is the paragraph on which episodic anxiety and depression cases often turn.

Where an impairment is treated, the effect is judged as it would be without the treatment (Schedule 1, paragraph 5), so antidepressants or therapy that control the symptoms do not by themselves take you outside the definition.

Why is stress treated differently from a diagnosed condition?

Because of a line the Employment Appeal Tribunal drew in 2010 and confirmed in 2016.

In J v DLA Piper UK LLP [2010] IRLR 936, as summarised by Employment Cases Update, the EAT distinguished clinical depression, which is a mental impairment, from "a reaction to adverse circumstances", which is not, while accepting that the boundary "is bound often to be very blurred in practice". Its practical answer was that a tribunal may start with the effects: if day-to-day activities have been substantially affected over the long term, the tribunal can infer an impairment from that, without first settling what the impairment is called.

In Herry v Dudley Metropolitan Council UKEAT/0100/16, as summarised by Employment Cases Update and Chambers and Partners, the EAT applied that distinction to a design and technology teacher whose sick notes from 2013 onwards said work-related stress, or stress and anxiety, during a long-running dispute with his employer. It held that "unhappiness with a decision or a colleague, a tendency to nurse grievances, or a refusal to compromise" are not of themselves mental impairments: "they may simply reflect a person's character or personality". A long absence certified as stress did not prove an impairment where there was little evidence of any effect on day-to-day activities: the tribunal "was entitled to conclude that his stress was a reaction to life events, and was not bound to find that he was disabled", and "there can be cases where a reaction to circumstances becomes entrenched without amounting to a mental impairment".

So the difficulty with stress is not the word. It is that stress described only as a reaction to work, with no evidence of what it does to ordinary life, gives the tribunal nothing to find an impairment from.

Can work-related stress or anxiety still count?

Yes, and two 2023 decisions show how.

In Phillips v Aneurin Bevan University Local Health Board (case 1601375/2022, written reasons on GOV.UK), the claimant's fit notes said she was unfit for work as a result of work-related stress, and there was no diagnosis of a specific mental illness. The tribunal found she was disabled from February 2021 to November 2022. It held, at paragraph 57, that "there is no requirement for there to be a formal diagnosis of a mental illness in order for the Tribunal to be satisfied that there is a mental impairment", applied J v DLA Piper, and found substantial adverse effects in her being unable at times to leave the house or socialise, disturbed sleep and difficulty concentrating. Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer summarise the decision the same way. It is a first-instance decision, so it binds no other tribunal.

In Williams v Newport City Council [2023] EAT 136 (GOV.UK; summarised by BDBF), a senior social worker developed severe anxiety about attending court after a hearing in 2016 in which she was heavily criticised, and was off sick for eighteen months from 2017 when her employer said she would have to attend court and would not remove that duty. The tribunal found that attending court was not a normal day-to-day activity and that by the time of her dismissal her anxiety had no more than a minor effect. The EAT allowed the appeal and substituted its own finding that she was disabled throughout: because of the anxiety she "remained unfit to return to the job at all", which was a substantial adverse effect on normal day-to-day activities, and the tribunal's conclusion that court attendance was a specialised activity was one it could not reasonably have reached.

Read together with Herry, the four cases point the same way. What decides these claims is evidence of effect on ordinary activities over time, not whether the fit note says stress, anxiety or depression.

What will I have to show?

Evidence of the impairment and evidence of its effect, and for these conditions the second matters more.

The impairment is usually shown by medical evidence: GP records, fit notes, any referral for counselling or to a mental health service, and any diagnosis. A formal diagnosis is not required, but the tribunal will look for something beyond your own description of feeling stressed. Fit notes that say only "stress" are the starting point Herry found insufficient on its own; records that describe symptoms, treatment and duration carry more.

The effect is what the cases turn on. Where disability is disputed the tribunal may require an impact statement: your written account of what the condition affects, in what situations, for how long, with what treatment and coping strategies. For stress, anxiety and depression the activities that commonly appear are:

sleep, and the concentration and memory that depend on it;
leaving the house, travelling, and using shops or public transport;
social interaction, including with family and friends outside work;
ordinary tasks such as shopping, cooking, managing money and correspondence;
the ability to work at all, as distinct from difficulty with one duty.

The last point is the one Williams settles: being unable to work because of the condition is an effect on day-to-day activities, even where the trigger was one part of the job.

The guidance says account should be taken of how far a person can reasonably be expected to modify their behaviour, for example by a coping or avoidance strategy, but also that where a strategy may break down so that the effects sometimes still occur, that possibility must be taken into account. Describing what happens when a strategy fails is part of the evidence of effect.

What does the employer have to have known?

For discrimination arising from disability under section 15 and for reasonable adjustments under sections 20 and 21, the employer is not liable if it did not know, and could not reasonably have been expected to know, of the disability (Schedule 8, paragraph 20; section 15(2)). For stress and anxiety this is often contested, because what the employer had was a series of fit notes rather than a diagnosis. "Ought reasonably to have known" can be met by what the employer saw and was told: the length of absence, the content of the fit notes, an occupational health referral, and any request for changes to your work.

Evidence of what the employer knew, and when, goes to the heart of it:

the fit notes and what they said;
any occupational health referral or report;
sickness absence records and return-to-work notes;
any request for adjustments and the reply.

How do these conditions appear in tribunal judgments?

Often. In Yerty's analysis of mental health in tribunal judgments, the phrase "mental health" appears in 27% of published merits judgments in 2023–25, against 14% in 2017–19, and the rise holds after allowing for judgments getting longer. Stress, anxiety, depression or PTSD is named in nearly half of judgments and in four disability discrimination judgments out of five (stress 72%, anxiety 62%, depression 48%, PTSD 11%). Depression is the term that marks a disability claim: 48% of judgments with one, 6.5% of those without. That analysis counts what judgments mention, not how often a claimant was found to be disabled.

Evidence mentioned in disability discrimination judgments, 2017–19 against 2023–25 · share of judgments, ■ 2017–19 (n 319) → ■ 2023–25 (n 375) · ○ all cases 2023–25

Sorted by change. Rows under 3% in both periods are omitted; the full figures are in the table below. A mention is not reliance.

The evidence that travels with a disability claim is distinctive. In Yerty's analysis of evidence in disability discrimination judgments, occupational health is mentioned in 53% of substantial disability judgments against 7 to 17% in every other claim type, fit notes in 23%, and the claimant's impact statement in 19%. Since 2017–19 medical reports have fallen from 19% to 7% of those judgments while fit notes and impact statements rose, which is consistent with tribunals deciding the disability question on routine medical paperwork and the claimant's own account rather than on commissioned expert reports.

What kind of claim would it be?

Establishing disability is the gateway. The claim is one or more of:

Reasonable adjustments (sections 20 and 21): a provision, criterion or practice, a physical feature, or the absence of an auxiliary aid put you at a substantial disadvantage, and the employer failed to take reasonable steps. For stress and anxiety the adjustments in dispute are often a phased return, changed duties, a different manager or location, and time off for treatment.
Discrimination arising from disability (section 15): unfavourable treatment because of something arising from the disability, such as absence, reduced performance or a reaction under pressure, that the employer cannot justify.
Direct discrimination (section 13) and harassment (section 26), where the treatment or conduct is because of, or related to, the disability itself.

Dismissal after long-term absence is a common fact pattern. If the absence arose from a disability, the dismissal is examined under section 15 as well as under unfair dismissal; the employer's justification, and what adjustments it considered before dismissing, are the centre of the case.

What about the deadline?

The time limit is three months less one day from the act complained of, or from the last act where conduct extends over a period (section 123 of the Equality Act 2010), paused during ACAS early conciliation. The Employment Rights Act 2025 extends that to six months for acts on or after 1 October 2026; for a series of acts, the date of the last act decides which limit applies. Being unwell does not extend the deadline by itself, although a tribunal can extend time where it is just and equitable to do so. Employment tribunal claims: what you need to know covers the steps and dates.

Where to go from here

If the employer disputes disability, the tribunal may decide that issue at a preliminary hearing, and the evidence of effect will be yours to give. Keeping what you already have in one place helps every version of this claim:

the fit notes, GP records and any referral or diagnosis;
a note of what the condition affects, started now rather than reconstructed later;
anything you told the employer, and when;
any occupational health report, and any request for adjustments and the reply.

Yerty's Case Hub organises a disability claim around the section 6 questions and the type of claim. Where the medical picture is thin or the employer denies knowledge, a solicitor or your union can advise on whether further evidence is worth the cost.

Frequently asked questions

Is stress a disability under the Equality Act 2010?

It can be, but only where it has a substantial, long-term adverse effect on normal day-to-day activities. In Herry v Dudley the EAT held that stress which is a reaction to a workplace dispute, with little evidence of effect on ordinary life, is not an impairment; in Phillips work-related stress was a disability on evidence of its effects.

Is anxiety a disability at an employment tribunal?

Often, where the effect on day-to-day activities is substantial and long-term. In Williams v Newport City Council [2023] EAT 136 the EAT substituted a finding that a social worker was disabled: anxiety that left her unfit to return to her job at all was a substantial effect on day-to-day activities, even though the trigger was one part of the role.

Is depression a disability?

Clinical depression is a mental impairment, and the question is usually whether its effect is substantial and long-term. Under Schedule 1, paragraph 2(2), an effect that has ceased counts as continuing if it is likely to recur, and under paragraph 5 the effect is judged as it would be without medication or treatment.

Do I need a diagnosis to be disabled?

No. The Act has not required a clinically well-recognised condition since 2005, and J v DLA Piper allows a tribunal to infer an impairment from long-term substantial effects. In practice a contested case with fit notes saying only "stress" is harder; records describing symptoms, treatment and duration carry more weight.

Does being signed off for a long time prove I am disabled?

Not on its own. In Herry v Dudley the claimant had been off for years with certificates saying stress, and the EAT upheld the finding that he was not disabled: the tribunal was entitled to treat his stress as a reaction to life events, with little evidence of effect on day-to-day activities. Evidence of effect matters, not length of absence.

What is an impact statement?

Your written account of what the condition affects, in what situations, for how long, with what treatment and coping strategies. Where disability is disputed the tribunal may require one. It is your evidence of effect, and it sits alongside the medical records, documents from the time and any witness evidence.

Does my employer have to know I have anxiety or depression?

For reasonable adjustments and discrimination arising from disability, the employer is not liable if it did not know, and could not reasonably have been expected to know, of the disability. Fit notes, the length of absence, an occupational health referral and requests for changes at work can all be enough to put the employer on notice.