How long you have to claim compensation for a flight in Belgium
2 years is Belgium’s limitation period for an EU261 claim, and it is a recent number. Before 21 December 2023, the same provision gave only one year. A ten-year figure circulates too, borrowed from Belgium’s general civil code, but it does not govern a flight claim. Three numbers, one correct answer. Below: which law actually sets the two years, which flights it covers, who takes a complaint, and what to do before time runs out.
Belgium’s limitation period for an #How long do you have to bring an EU261 claim in Belgium?
2 years is Belgium’s current limitation period for an EU261 claim. It has applied only since 21 December 2023, when an amending law replaced the one year that used to apply. How the change treats a flight before that date is not something we can answer from the text.
The rule sits in the Code de droit économique, Book X, article X.49, third paragraph, which reads: actions arising from a passenger transport contract are barred after two years. That wording was itself amended by the law of 5 November 2023, and the amendment took effect on 21 December 2023. Guides that still say “one year” are quoting the provision as it stood before that date. Whether the new two years reach a flight from before 21 December 2023, and in particular one whose old one-year period had already run out, is a transitional question the sources we hold do not settle.
Source: Code de droit économique, Livre X, art. X.49, as amended by L 2023-11-05/07 art. 25 — ejustice.just.fgov.be, checked 2026-09-18.
Check the date your flight fell on against 21 December 2023 first. If it falls before that date, treat the claim as urgent and write to the airline this week.
#Why is it two years and not ten, and why not one any more?
Two years wins over both rival figures for a distinct reason each. The one-year period stopped applying on 21 December 2023, when the amending law took effect. The ten-year period never applied to a flight claim at all: a 2021 ruling settled that a different, shorter provision governs it.
EU261 sets no deadline of its own: the CJEU held in Cuadrench Moré (C-139/11, 2012) that a compensation claim’s time limit is a matter for each Member State’s own rules on limitation of actions, so Belgium’s own provisions are what decide it. On 11 June 2021, Belgium’s Cour de cassation (case C.20.0185.N) held that an EU261 article 7 compensation claim arises from the contract of passenger transport, and so falls under the transport-specific limitation period, not the general ten-year period in the old Code civil article 2262bis. That old general period, “toutes les actions personnelles sont prescrites par dix ans”, stays real for other kinds of personal claims. The Cour de cassation has placed flight compensation outside it. The same ruling recognised one narrow exception: where an airline’s unjustified refusal of a timely compensation request is itself a criminal offence under article 32 of the 1937 aviation law, a five-year criminal-law period applies instead of the transport-contract period. That test was not met on the facts of the 2021 case, and it is not something a passenger can assume applies to theirs.
Source: CJEU C-139/11, Cuadrench Moré — eur-lex.europa.eu; Cour de cassation, 11 June 2021, C.20.0185.N — juportal.be; Code civil (ancien) art. 2262bis Section 1er — ejustice.just.fgov.be, checked 2026-09-18.
Rely on the two-year transport-contract period as your planning figure, not the five-year exception and not the ten-year general rule.
#Which flights does Belgium’s deadline govern?
Every flight leaving a Belgian airport falls under article 3(1)(a) of EU261, whichever airline operates it. A flight arriving in Belgium from outside the EU is covered only if the operating carrier is a Community carrier. Outside that condition, EU261, and Belgium’s two-year deadline, simply do not reach the flight.
EU is covered only if the operating carrier is a Community carrier. Outside that condition, EU261, and Enforcement tracks the same scope under article 16. Belgium’s regulator is competent for a flight leaving a Belgian airport, on any carrier, and for a qualifying arrival from a third country. A flight arriving in Belgium from elsewhere in the EU is a different country’s job: article 16(1) gives scope to the departure state, so a Brussels-bound flight that started in Rome falls to Italy’s enforcement body under article 16(1), not Belgium’s.
Italy’s enforcement body under article 16(1), not Source: EU261 art. 3(1)(a)-(b), art. 16(1)-(2) — eur-lex.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-15.
Confirm the operating carrier and the departure airport before assuming Belgium’s rules, rather than another state’s, govern your flight.
#Who handles a complaint in Belgium?
SPF Mobilité & Transport (FOD Mobiliteit en Vervoer), through the Belgian Civil Aviation Authority’s passenger rights cell, is Belgium’s National Enforcement Body for EU261. It takes complaints about flights leaving a Belgian airport and qualifying arrivals, but a complaint to it is a different act from suing in court.
Civil Aviation Authority’s passenger rights cell, is A complaint to SPF Mobilité runs on its own track, separate from the two-year court deadline set by article X.49, and no source we hold says it pauses that deadline. The sources we read describe no mandatory pre-complaint step and no fixed airline response window for this route, unlike Austria’s six weeks or Croatia’s 30 days, so writing to the airline first is sensible practice rather than a stated requirement. The page names the body and stops there, because nothing more about its process is on the record. The Commission’s own list names an enforcement body for every EU country, not only Belgium’s.
Austria’s six weeks or 
Croatia’s 30 daysSource: SPF Mobilité & Transport, Passenger Rights — mobilit.belgium.be, checked 2026-09-18.
Send the airline a written claim first, then escalate an unresolved one to SPF Mobilité, keeping both dated.
#What to do before the deadline runs out
2 years, counted from your flight date as the safe reading, is Belgium’s working deadline for an EU261 claim on a flight after 21 December 2023. Confirm which side of that date your flight falls on first; a flight before it needs urgent action.
Check your flight date against 21 December 2023 before anything else, because the transition is the one point the page cannot answer for you. Write to the airline naming the flight, the date, what happened and the amount you are claiming under EU261, and keep the letter’s own date as your record. If the airline refuses or does not reply, SPF Mobilité’s complaint route is open, and a straightforward claim may also fit the small claims routes used across Europe; every country’s own limitation period is listed together on flight compensation time limits. Do not wait on the five-year criminal-law exception. The 2021 case itself did not meet it, and the two-year figure is the one to act on.
General information about EU261 claims in Belgium, not legal advice. For your specific case: SPF Mobilité or a lawyer in Belgium.
Confirm your flight’s date against 21 December 2023 today, and send the written claim now rather than waiting on which figure applies.
#Sources
- Code de droit économique, Livre X, art. X.49, as amended - ejustice.just.fgov.be, checked 2026-09-18.
- Cour de cassation, 11 June 2021, C.20.0185.N - juportal.be, checked 2026-09-18.
- SPF Mobilité & Transport, Passenger Rights - mobilit.belgium.be, checked 2026-09-18.
- Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, arts. 3, 16 - eur-lex.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-15.
- CJEU C-139/11, Cuadrench Moré - eur-lex.europa.eu.
- European Commission, National Enforcement Bodies — Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 (updated 27 August 2026) - transport.ec.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-15.
European Commission, National Enforcement Bodies — Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 (updated 27 August 2026) -