EU261 Claims Face Nine-Month Deadline From October 2027

Passengers will have nine months from the date of departure to file an EU261 compensation claim under Regulation (EU) 2026/2202, published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 2 October 2026 and applying from 23 October 2027. For travellers in jurisdictions with long national limitation periods, the change cuts the filing window by years.

The rule ends a legislative process that ran for thirteen years. The European Commission first proposed revising the air passenger rights framework in March 2013, and the European Parliament adopted its first-reading position in February 2014. The file then stalled in the Council for eleven years. A Conciliation Committee approved a joint text on 15 June 2026, and both institutions formally adopted the regulation on 16 September 2026.

What does the nine-month rule actually change?

The mechanism sits in a new Article 7(9). Passengers must submit a compensation request to the airline within nine months of the actual departure date, according to EUR-Lex and reporting by EU261Rights.com. If they miss the window, the right to EU261 compensation expires, regardless of how much time national law might otherwise allow.

The clock starts at departure, not at the moment a passenger learns of the entitlement. That distinction will hit two groups hardest: passengers who discover a disruption was actionable only after contacting a claims-management firm, and those who filed the matter away and returned to it later.

The regulation also imposes new obligations on carriers once a claim arrives:

• Airlines must acknowledge a compensation request immediately, in a durable form such as an email, TravelFree.info reports.
• They then have 30 calendar days from receipt to pay or provide a reasoned refusal.
• Airlines must notify passengers of their compensation rights electronically within 96 hours of a disruption.

The 96-hour notification carries practical weight. If carriers comply, most passengers will know their rights well inside the nine-month window.

Who loses the most?

Impact varies sharply by jurisdiction. Under the current framework, national limitation periods govern when a claim becomes time-barred, and those periods differ widely: six years in England, one year in Poland and Belgium, according to EU261Rights.com. The legal basis for that variation traces to the Court of Justice ruling in Moré v KLM (C-139/11, 22 November 2012), which held that national limitation periods, not the Montreal Convention's two-year limit, apply to EU261 compensation.

For passengers in England, the shift is dramatic: a six-year window becomes nine months. For those in Poland or Belgium, the new deadline is actually more generous than the existing one-year national limit. The regulation levels the field, but it levels it downwards for passengers who previously enjoyed the longest protections.

What stayed the same?

Compensation amounts are unchanged. The thresholds remain €250, €400 and €600 per the Official Journal, and the three-hour delay trigger has been preserved, confirmed by EUR-Lex and TravelFree.info. The Council had proposed raising the delay trigger to four hours, but the European Parliament rejected that at its second-reading position on 21 January 2026, insisting on the existing three-hour threshold.

Two other changes matter. Airlines are now banned from denying boarding or levying a fee against a passenger who missed an outbound leg but still wishes to travel on the return — closing a gap that caught many passengers out when carriers cancelled return bookings. Separately, the definition of extraordinary circumstances, which airlines invoke to escape liability, is now written into the regulation itself with a non-exhaustive list of qualifying events. Codification should reduce disputes, though a non-exhaustive list still leaves room for interpretation.

How does the UK fit in?

The United Kingdom is not bound by Regulation (EU) 2026/2202. UK261, the domestic equivalent retained after Brexit, continues under separate national rules, and the limitation period in England currently stands at six years, EU261Rights.com reports. With no obligation to align, the UK retains that longer window.

The divergence will become commercially visible. Passengers flying on EU-registered carriers from UK airports will face the nine-month clock on the EU leg of an itinerary, while the same journey operated by a UK carrier under UK261 will not. Travellers booking across jurisdictions need to check which regime governs which flight.

What comes next?

The regulation reshapes the claims framework rather than amending it lightly. From 23 October 2027, disrupted travellers must treat the nine-month window as a hard deadline and act on the mandatory 96-hour notification. The open questions are operational: how national enforcement bodies across EU member states implement the acknowledgement and 30-day response requirements, and whether the UK government opens a formal consultation on aligning any part of UK261 with the revised framework.