EU261 €Complaining to a national enforcement body under EU261

Checked 15 Sep 2026·12 min read · 6 steps

Every EU country names one body to enforce Regulation 261/2004, and the European Commission keeps the register of them. What those bodies do with an individual claim is where most guides go wrong. They can have an airline sanctioned. Ordering it to pay you is a separate power, few of them hold it, and the ones that do owe it to their own national law rather than to the Regulation.

#1Which country’s enforcement body takes your complaint?

Article 16(1) answers this in one sentence, and it names two categories: flights from airports on that country’s territory, and flights from a third country to those airports. Departure decides it for a flight leaving the EU. Arrival decides it for a flight coming in from outside.

Source: Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, art. 16(1)-(2) — eur-lex.europa.eu; European Commission, National Enforcement Bodies list (updated 27 August 2026) — transport.ec.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-20.

Each Member State designates a body “responsible for the enforcement of this Regulation as regards flights from airports situated on its territory and flights from a third country to such airports”. A Madrid departure is Spain’s, whoever flew it and wherever it landed.

Article 16(2) is a second rule, and it is the one mistaken for the first. It lets a passenger complain to any designated body about an infringement at any EU airport. Complaining is open everywhere. Competence is not. Sending one file to two bodies over an intra-EU flight gains nothing, because only one of them holds the article 16(1) competence. The Commission’s 2024 guidelines say the same in the form of advice: the departure country’s body for a flight inside or out of the EU, the arrival country’s for a flight from outside it.

One flight really does reach two bodies, and it is a British one. A departure from a UK airport into the EU on an EU-licensed airline falls under UK261 because it left the UK, and under EU261 because it reached a Member State on a Community carrier. The CAA holds the first competence, the arrival country’s body the second. Flown by a UK airline, the same route reaches the CAA alone.

The register is the Commission’s own list, last updated on 27 August 2026. It covers the 27 Member States, Iceland and Norway through the EEA Agreement, and Switzerland under its separate air transport agreement. Liechtenstein is not on it, so find your departure country there before you look for a form.

#2What can a national enforcement body actually make an airline do?

Article 16(3) asks Member States for sanctions that are effective, proportionate and dissuasive. Sanctions run against the airline and none of them is a payment to you. The Court of Justice has held that a body is not obliged to force an airline to pay compensation in any one passenger’s case.

Source: Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, recital 22, arts. 14(2) and 16(3) — eur-lex.europa.eu; Commission interpretative guidelines C/2024/5687 (OJ C, 25.9.2024), section 8.1 — eur-lex.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-20.

Recital 22 drew the line at the start. Supervision of the airlines, it says, “should not affect the rights of passengers and air carriers to seek legal redress from courts under procedures of national law”. The body supervises. The court decides your claim.

The Commission’s 2024 guidelines put the Court’s position in the Commission’s own words: a national enforcement body “is not required to take enforcement action against air carriers with a view to compelling them to pay the compensation provided for in Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 in individual cases”. Its sanctioning role under article 16(3) means measures against the infringements it finds through the general monitoring that article 16(1) gives it.

Two things the body does owe you: an informed answer, as a matter of good administration, and, as good practice, some idea of what to do next.

A third duty sits on the airline, and hardly anyone uses it. Article 14(2) requires the carrier that cancels your flight, denies you boarding or delays you by at least two hours to hand you a written notice of the compensation and assistance rules, and adds that “the contact details of the national designated body referred to in Article 16 shall also be given to the passenger in written form”. No such notice, and that omission is itself a breach worth naming in the complaint.

#3Do you have to complain to the airline first?

Yes, in practice everywhere, and in writing in several countries. The Commission recommends giving the airline 2 months to answer before escalating. France will not open a file until that same 2 months has passed. Portugal and Denmark ask 6 weeks, Croatia 30 days, Cyprus 8 weeks.

Source: Commission interpretative guidelines C/2024/5687, section 8.1 — eur-lex.europa.eu; DGAC — droits-passagers-aeriens.aviation-civile.gouv.fr; ANAC — anac.pt; flypassager.dk; CCAA — ccaa.hr, checked 2026-09-20.

Those waiting periods are the bodies' own entry conditions, not preconditions to suing. Nothing in Regulation 261/2004 makes a complaint a step you have to take before a court will hear you: a French signalement is not one, and neither is an AESA file in Spain.

The order matters for a different reason. Two clocks start when your flight goes wrong, they run at different speeds, and only one of them can end the claim. Poland’s passenger ombudsman refuses a request once a year has passed since the flight, and Poland’s court deadline also falls at one year, by an unrelated rule. The Netherlands is the clearer warning: the ILT takes complaints only about flights under a year old, while a Dutch court claim stays alive for two. A passenger turned away by the ILT at fourteen months still has ten months of claim left.

What no source consulted for this page says, in any country, is that a complaint to the body pauses or extends the court deadline. Treat the two as independent until something official tells you otherwise, and read flight compensation time limits for the period that actually governs your case.

Write to the airline, date your copy, and start the body’s clock only once its own waiting period has run.

#4Which bodies can order payment, and which only give an opinion?

2 answers exist in EU law, and which one applies depends on the country. The Court of Justice ruled in 2022 that a Member State may let its body order an airline to pay. Nothing in the Regulation requires that, so most bodies stop at investigating.

Source: Commission interpretative guidelines C/2024/5687, section 8.1 — eur-lex.europa.eu; ENAC — enac.gov.it; ANAC — anac.pt; ILT — ilent.nl; AESA — seguridadaerea.gob.es; LBA — lba.de, checked 2026-09-20.

The 2022 ruling came out of Budapest. Hungary’s consumer protection inspectorate had ordered an airline to pay the passengers on a long-delayed flight from New York the compensation article 7 sets out, and the airline argued the inspectorate held no such power. The Court disagreed: article 16 lets a Member State authorise its enforcement body to compel payment on an individual complaint, provided passenger and airline can still take the dispute to a court.

The default runs the other way, and this site’s country pages met it every time. Italy’s ENAC sanctions airlines and does not award compensation. Portugal’s ANAC behaves the same way, leaving collection to a Portuguese court or an ADR body. The Netherlands' ILT does not handle individual compensation requests at all. France’s DGAC, Spain’s AESA and Germany’s LBA each investigate and press the airline without ever paying you.

National enforcement bodies and what each can do

Source: Commission NEB list (updated 27 August 2026) — transport.ec.europa.eu; each body’s own published complaint page, checked 2026-09-20.

Two cells are blank on purpose. Poland’s Rzecznik and Greece’s HCAA say nothing on their own pages about ordering a payment, and no statute consulted here settles it, so neither is guessed at.

Twelve more countries, each with its own page

• Austria — apf, once the airline has had 6 weeks
• Belgium — SPF Mobilité & Transport, through the civil aviation passenger rights cell
• Croatia — Civil Aviation Agency (CCAA), after 30 days without an airline reply
• Cyprus — Department of Civil Aviation, after an 8-week airline wait
• Czechia — Civil Aviation Authority
• Denmark — Trafikstyrelsen, through the flypassager portal
• Finland — Consumer Disputes Board for consumers, Traficom for everyone else
• Hungary — Government Office of the Capital City Budapest, Consumer Protection Department
• Iceland — Samgöngustofa, only after the airline’s written rejection
• Malta — Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority
• Norway — Transportklagenemnda, after 4 weeks (8 with an interim answer)
• Sweden — Konsumentverket, which routes compensation disputes to ARN
• Switzerland — FOCA, the Federal Office of Civil Aviation

Read the third column before you decide how much of your remaining time the complaint deserves.

#5What does a complaint need to contain?

1 file serves both routes, so assemble it once. A body and a court want the same material: the flight number and date, the booking, the scheduled and actual arrival times, and what you asked the airline for alongside whatever it sent back.

Source: Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, arts. 5(3), 5(4) and 14(2) — eur-lex.europa.eu; Germanwings, C-452/13 (2014), operative part — eur-lex.europa.eu; Commission interpretative guidelines C/2024/5687, sections 3.3 and 5.4 — eur-lex.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-20.

Arrival time is the figure the whole claim turns on, and it has a legal definition rather than an operational one. In Germanwings (C-452/13, 2014) the Court of Justice held that arrival time is the moment at least one aircraft door opens and passengers are permitted to leave. Not touchdown. Not the on-block time in the airline’s file. The Commission’s guidelines add that the carrier should supply that time free of charge, on request, to the enforcement body and to the passenger.

Two questions are the airline’s to answer, not yours. Article 5(4) puts the burden of proving whether and when it told you about a cancellation squarely on the carrier. Article 5(3) frees it from compensation only where it proves extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. Where it leans on that defence in a reply to you or to the body, the guidelines say the supporting proof should arrive with it, free of charge.

Ask for the article 14(2) notice if you never received one, and say in the complaint that you did not. What to do when an airline refuses compensation sets out the letter that comes before any of this.

#6When should you skip the body and go straight to court?

1 year is all Poland allows, and the Netherlands allows 2. Against deadlines that short, a complaint that cannot end in a payment is time you may not be able to spare. EU261 fixes no period of its own; each country’s law supplies one.

Source: Cuadrench Moré, C-139/11 (2012), operative part — eur-lex.europa.eu; Kodeks cywilny art. 778 — isap.sejm.gov.pl; Burgerlijk Wetboek art. 8:1835 — wetten.overheid.nl, checked 2026-09-20.

Cuadrench Moré (C-139/11, 2012) is why the periods differ at all: the CJEU held that the Regulation sets no limitation period, so each Member State’s own rules on limitation of actions decide. The spread is wide enough to change what you should do. Poland gives one year, the Netherlands two, Germany three, France and Spain five each.

Three situations make the body the wrong first stop. Your country’s period is short and the body’s queue would eat most of it. The body cannot order payment anyway, which the table above will usually tell you. Or its intake rule already shuts you out, as the ILT’s one-year window and the Polish ombudsman’s do, while a court would still hear you.

Going to court does not close the complaint route, and a complaint does not close the court route. Both stay open, and only one ends in money. A flight that left a British airport is in a different system, with its own fees and forms, set out at small claims court for flight compensation.

Rather not run a complaint and a court deadline at the same time? AirHelp (third-party claim service) takes on refused or ignored EU261 claims, no win no fee, and keeps a fee from any payout. Writing to the airline and complaining to the body both stay open to you either way.

Do it yourself · freeClaim with the airline, then the regulator

• Write to the airline and keep the reference
• Refused: the enforcement body of the country you left, free
• You keep all of the compensation

Use the claim letter template →

Hand it overAirHelp takes the claim, no win no fee

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General information about EU261 complaints, not legal advice. For your own case: the enforcement body named in your departure country’s row, a national consumer body, or a lawyer. If your flight is approaching your country’s deadline, get advice now rather than wait for a body to answer.

#Sources

• Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, recital 22, arts. 3, 5(3)-(4), 7, 14(2) and 16 - eur-lex.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-20.
• European Commission, interpretative guidelines on Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, C/2024/5687 (OJ C, 25.9.2024), section 8.1 - eur-lex.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-20.
• European Commission, National Enforcement Bodies — Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 (updated 27 August 2026) - transport.ec.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-15.
• Germanwings GmbH v Ronny Henning, C-452/13 (2014), CJEU, operative part - eur-lex.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-20.
• Cuadrench Moré, C-139/11 (2012), CJEU, operative part - eur-lex.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-20.
• UK 261 (Regulation 261/2004 as retained), art. 3(1)(a) and art. 16(1) - legislation.gov.uk, checked 2026-09-15.
• DGAC, Mission du droit des passagers - droits-passagers-aeriens.aviation-civile.gouv.fr, checked 2026-09-18.
• AESA, claims procedure - seguridadaerea.gob.es, checked 2026-09-18.
• Luftfahrt-Bundesamt, Fluggastrechte - lba.de, checked 2026-09-18.
• ENAC, modalità di reclamo - enac.gov.it, checked 2026-09-18.
• ANAC, como apresentar uma reclamação - anac.pt, checked 2026-09-18.
• Inspectie Leefomgeving en Transport, passagiersklachten - ilent.nl, checked 2026-09-18.
• Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów, złóż wniosek - pasazerlotniczy.ulc.gov.pl, checked 2026-09-18.
• Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority, passenger rights - hcaa.gov.gr, checked 2026-09-18.
• Croatian Civil Aviation Agency, submitting a complaint - ccaa.hr, checked 2026-09-18.
• Trafikstyrelsen, din guide til at klage - flypassager.dk, checked 2026-09-18.
• Samgöngustofa, complain about air travel - island.is, checked 2026-09-18.
• Irish Aviation Authority, air passenger rights - iaa.ie, checked 2026-09-15.

#FAQ

Which country do I complain to if my flight was from Spain to the UK?

Spain's, because the flight left a Spanish airport. Article 16(1) hands enforcement to the country a flight departs from, so AESA takes it even though you landed in Britain and live there. The arrival side of that rule only applies to flights coming into the EU from outside it.

Can a national enforcement body force the airline to pay me?

Usually not. The Regulation obliges no body to compel payment in one passenger's case, and most treat their job as fining the airline instead. A Member State may grant that power in its own law, and Hungary has. Everywhere else, a court is what turns a refusal into money.

Do I have to complain to the airline first?

For the body, yes, almost everywhere. France wants two months to have passed since your own written complaint, Portugal and Denmark six weeks, Croatia thirty days, Spain a prior written claim. For a court, no such step is required by the Regulation itself in any of those countries.

How long does a national enforcement body take?

No EU rule sets a limit, and few bodies publish one. Iceland's transport authority states three to six months for its own decisions. Treat any figure as an estimate, and remember that the national deadline for suing keeps running throughout, whatever stage your complaint has reached.