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EU261 and UK261 Delay Compensation: What You're Owed

How EU261 and UK261 compensation works: €250-€600 or £220-£520, the three-hour arrival rule, cancellations, how to claim, and the EU reform due in 2027.

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If your flight reaches its final destination three hours or more late, or is cancelled at short notice, the airline may owe you fixed compensation of €250, €400 or €600 under EU Regulation 261/2004, or £220, £350 or £520 under its UK version. The amount depends on flight distance. Ticket price doesn’t matter. No compensation is owed if the airline proves the disruption came from extraordinary circumstances it could not have avoided. A revised EU regulation has been adopted but applies only from 23 October 2027.

This is general information and isn’t legal advice. The regulations and judgments linked below are the authority.

Which flights are covered

Under Article 3 of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, EU261 covers:

  • every passenger departing from an airport in an EU member state, whatever the airline
  • passengers flying from a non-EU airport into the EU, but only if the operating carrier is an EU-licensed airline, and unless they already received benefits or compensation and assistance in that non-EU country

You need a confirmed reservation and must have presented yourself for check-in on time (except for cancellations). Free tickets and fares not available to the public are excluded. Frequent-flyer tickets are covered. Your Europe notes that outermost regions such as the Canary Islands, Madeira and Réunion count as EU territory, but the Faroe Islands do not.

The regulation also applies beyond the EU. EEA Joint Committee Decision No 171/2004 incorporated it into the EEA Agreement, and the Commission’s 2016 Interpretative Guidelines confirm it applies to Iceland and Norway. For Switzerland, it is listed in section 7 of the Annex to the EU–Swiss Air Transport Agreement (as replaced by Decision No 1/2025 of the Joint EU/Switzerland Air Transport Committee, 16 January 2025).

Obligations fall on the operating carrier. That’s the airline that actually flies the plane, which may differ from the one that sold you the ticket.

How much: the three distance bands

Article 7 sets compensation per passenger:

DistanceEU261UK261
1,500 km or less€250£220
Intra-EU over 1,500 km, and other flights of 1,500–3,500 km€400£350 (1,500–3,500 km)
All other flights€600£520

Distance is measured by the great-circle method (Article 7(4)). For a connecting journey, the 2016 Guidelines say to use the great-circle distance from the first departure point to the final destination. You don’t add up the legs.

Under Article 7(2), the airline may halve the amount if it reroutes you and you arrive no more than two, three or four hours late (for the three bands respectively). The Court has applied the same 50% reduction to delays on flights over 3,500 km that arrive at least three but less than four hours late (Folkerts, paragraph 45).

Delays: the three-hour arrival rule

The 2004 text gives delayed passengers care and, after five hours, a refund option (Article 6), but no compensation. The right to compensation for delay comes from the Court of Justice:

  • Sturgeon (joined cases C-402/07 and C-432/07, 19 November 2009) held that passengers who reach their final destination three hours or more after the scheduled arrival time can claim Article 7 compensation, as cancelled passengers can.
  • Nelson (joined cases C-581/10 and C-629/10, 23 October 2012) confirmed Sturgeon and found nothing affecting the validity of Articles 5 to 7.
  • Germanwings (C-452/13, 4 September 2014) defined “arrival time” as the moment at least one aircraft door opens, on the assumption that passengers may then leave. Touchdown or reaching the stand is not enough.
  • Folkerts (C-11/11, 26 February 2013) held that on directly connecting flights the delay is judged at the final destination, even if the departure delay was below the Article 6 thresholds.

Cancellations and denied boarding

Under Article 5, a cancelled passenger is offered a refund or rerouting, plus care, and is owed compensation unless they were told:

  • at least two weeks before scheduled departure, or
  • between two weeks and seven days before, and offered rerouting that departs no more than two hours early and arrives less than four hours late, or
  • less than seven days before, and offered rerouting that departs no more than one hour early and arrives less than two hours late.

The airline carries the burden of proving whether and when it told you (Article 5(4)).

Under Article 4, an overbooked airline must first ask for volunteers. Anyone then denied boarding against their will must be compensated immediately under Article 7 and offered refund or rerouting and care.

Extraordinary circumstances

Article 5(3) frees the airline from paying compensation if it proves the disruption was caused by extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. In Wallentin-Hermann (C-549/07, 22 December 2008), the Court held that a technical problem is not extraordinary unless it stems from events that are not inherent in the normal exercise of the carrier’s activity and are beyond its actual control. It also held that meeting minimum maintenance rules does not in itself prove the carrier took all reasonable measures. Our extraordinary circumstances guide covers weather, air traffic control and other common defences.

UK261 after Brexit

The UK kept the regulation as domestic law, amended by The Air Passenger Rights and Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (SI 2019/278). The UK text of Article 7 sets £220, £350 and £520, with the same great-circle measurement and 50% rerouting reduction.

UK Article 3 covers flights departing a UK airport, flights into the UK from abroad on a UK or EU carrier, and flights into the EU from outside the UK on a UK carrier. Since 14 December 2023, a multi-leg flight booked as a single unit is treated as a whole, departing from its first leg. A flight from the UK to the EU on an EU airline can fall under both regimes.

The CAA’s delay guidance says compensation applies when you reach your destination airport more than three hours late. On flights over 3,500 km it is £260 for an arrival between three and four hours late, and £520 beyond four hours.

How to claim

EU. Your Europe says to claim from the airline first, using its complaint form. If there is no reply within two months, or the reply is unsatisfactory, you can complain to the national enforcement body in the country where the incident took place. It gives a non-binding opinion. Alternative dispute resolution (open to EU residents) and the European Small Claims procedure are further routes.

UK. The CAA says to claim from the airline first. If you are unhappy with its final response, or it takes more than eight weeks, escalate to the approved ADR body the airline has signed up to, or to the CAA’s Passenger Advice and Complaints Team if it has none.

Time limits. The regulation sets none. In Moré (C-139/11, 22 November 2012), the Court held that limits come from each member state’s national law. The Montreal Convention’s two years don’t apply. In the UK, Article 3(9) applies section 9 of the Limitation Act 1980, which in England and Wales allows six years from when the cause of action accrued. Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate limitation law.

The EU reform: adopted, applies from 2027

The revision of 261/2004 (procedure 2013/0072(COD)) took over 13 years:

  • 13 March 2013. The Commission’s proposal would have raised the delay threshold to five hours within the EU, and to nine or twelve hours for longer non-EU journeys.
  • 5 June 2025. The Council reached political agreement on its position, which it adopted on 29 September 2025. According to the Commission’s communication COM(2025) 630, it proposed thresholds of four hours (up to 3,500 km) and six hours (beyond), with €300 and €500. That position was never adopted as law.
  • 21 January 2026. Parliament adopted its second-reading position. The Council rejected Parliament’s amendments on 24 March 2026, which sent the file to conciliation.
  • 15 June 2026. The Conciliation Committee agreed a joint text. Parliament’s press release that day said it kept compensation for delays of more than three hours.
  • 7 and 13 July 2026. Parliament and then the Council approved it at third reading.
  • 16 September 2026. It was signed as Regulation (EU) 2026/2202, published in the Official Journal on 2 October 2026.

Regulation 2026/2202 entered into force twenty days after publication but applies from 23 October 2027. Under the adopted text:

  • compensation stays at €250, €400 and €600, due for arrival delays exceeding three hours
  • the optional 50% reduction applies only to the longest band, where arrival is within four hours of schedule
  • the seven-day notice tier disappears: no compensation if told at least 14 days ahead, or later but offered rerouting departing no more than one hour early and arriving less than two hours late
  • claims must be filed within nine months, and airlines must pay or justify refusal within 30 days
  • when a tarmac delay reaches two hours, the aircraft must go to a gate or other point where passengers can disembark, unless safety, security, immigration or air traffic control reasons prevent it (Article 6a)

None of this changes UK261.

Check what actually happened

A claim often turns on the actual arrival time. GADUIN’s flight status pages show scheduled, estimated and recorded actual times. The methodology page explains that an estimate can change, while an actual time is a recorded event. GADUIN counts an arrival as “late” when it is more than 15 minutes after schedule. That’s a punctuality measure and has nothing to do with the EU261 three-hour threshold. The legal test is door opening (Germanwings), which a recorded arrival time may not capture to the minute.

Sources

Checking a flight?

Look up flight status by flight number. The methodology explains scheduled, estimated and actual times.

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