EU261 reform: what the adopted revision would change
10 September 2026 is the date on the final draft act (00039/2026/LEX) for the EU261 revision — adopted by Parliament and Council, but not yet published in the Official Journal, so it is not yet law. Today’s amounts, EUR 250, EUR 400 and EUR 600, still apply unchanged to every flight the 2004 Regulation covers. This page tracks what the adopted text would change, once it takes effect, and keeps every figure from the adopted text in the conditional tense until that day arrives.
#Where is the EU261 reform in the legislative process?
Awaiting signature of act is the current stage of procedure 2013/0072(COD), on the European Parliament’s own Legislative Observatory. Parliament adopted its third-reading position on 7 July 2026, the Council followed on 13 July 2026, and a draft final act, 00039/2026/LEX, is dated 10 September 2026 — but it has not reached the Official Journal.
Source: EP Legislative Observatory, procedure file 2013/0072(COD) — oeil.europarl.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-15.
Publication in the Official Journal is the step still missing. Until it happens, the adopted text has no legal effect at all. It has also not been through the EU’s legal-linguistic revision, so the article numbers quoted on this page are the ones the adopted version carries and can be renumbered before publication. The regulation actually in force is the original 2004 text, unamended, exactly as it read before this revision existed. The stage recorded here comes from that procedure file, not from a press release. The joint text itself carries a caution: it has not yet undergone legal-linguistic revision, so article numbers and wording could still shift before an Official Journal version is final. Parliament’s own third-reading decision sits on the file as T10-0238/2026; the Council’s came six days later, and the draft final act followed in September.
EU’s legal-linguistic revision, so the article numbers quoted on this page are the ones the adopted version carries and can be renumbered before publication. The regulation actually in force is the original 2004 text, unamended, exactly as it read before this revision existed. The stage recorded here comes from that procedure file, not from a press release. The joint text itself carries a caution: it has not yet undergone legal-linguistic revision, so article numbers and wording could still shift before an Official Journal version is final. Parliament’s own third-reading decision sits on the file as T10-0238/2026; the Council’s came six days later, and the draft final act followed in September.Nothing here changes what you are owed for a flight disrupted before publication. Check the EU261 hub for the rules that actually govern your flight today.
#When would the revised rules start to apply?
20 days after Official Journal publication is when the revised regulation would formally enter into force. That is not the same as when it would apply to your flight: the adopted text sets a further 12-month delay, so the earliest a passenger could rely on the new rules sits roughly a year past that publication date.
Source: Joint text PE-CONS 39/26, art. 3 — data.consilium.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-15.
Two separate clocks would run here. Entry into force is the formal legal step, 20 days after the Official Journal prints the text. Application is the date these rules would actually start deciding real claims, 12 months after entry into force. A flight disrupted the day after entry into force would still be judged under today’s 2004 text, because application would not have started yet.
No Official Journal date exists yet, so no application date can be calculated from it. Example: if the Official Journal published this text on 1 January 2027, entry into force would fall around 21 January 2027, and the rules would only start deciding claims from around 21 January 2028, a full year later. Do not treat any claim, refusal or booking decision as governed by an assumed date — the rule-changes tracker updates once a real date is confirmed.
#Would compensation amounts or thresholds change?
EUR 250, EUR 400 and EUR 600 would stay exactly as they are today — the adopted text, still unpublished, raises no compensation band. What it would add is a specific delay threshold, arrival delay exceeding three hours, written into the regulation’s own article text instead of resting on interpretation of it.
Element | Current text (2026-09-15, in force) | Adopted text (not yet in force) |
|---|---|---|
Compensation amounts | EUR 250 / 400 / 600, per flight | EUR 250 / 400 / 600, unchanged, per journey |
Delay compensation | Not written into the articles; reached by interpreting the Regulation | Written into new article 6(4): delay at arrival exceeding 3 hours |
50% reduction | On re-routing, all three bands (arrival 2, 3 or 4 hours late by band); on a plain delay, the longest band only | The longest band only, on re-routing or delay, arrival within 4 hours |
Source: Joint text PE-CONS 39/26, new arts. 6(4), 7(1)-(3) — data.consilium.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-15.
The counting unit would shift from “flight” to “journey”: distance would run from the initial point of departure to the final destination, great circle, across a whole connecting itinerary rather than one leg. Today’s text already measures distance to the last destination a cancellation or denied boarding delays; the adopted text would write the whole journey, departure to final destination, into the rule itself. The reduction would narrow at the same time: today an airline may halve a re-routed passenger’s payment in any band, and the adopted text would leave that cut in the longest band alone.
The three-hour delay right is not new in substance. It is currently reached by interpreting the existing text, not the text itself. Writing it into a new article 6(4) would remove that interpretive step; it would not create a payout that does not already exist today. The distance bands feeding those three amounts are not shown as changing either: up to 1,500 km, then 1,500 to 3,500 km plus every intra-EU flight over 1,500 km, then everything else.
None of this applies to a flight disrupted before the adopted text takes effect. If your flight was disrupted today, the current EUR 250/400/600 table on the EU261 hub is what governs your claim.
#What new claim and refund deadlines would apply?
9 months from the actual date of departure is the claim deadline the adopted text would introduce — a deadline the current 2004 Regulation does not set at all. The carrier would then have to acknowledge the claim immediately, and pay it or justify a refusal within 30 calendar days.
Source: Joint text PE-CONS 39/26, new arts. 7(4a), 7(5), 8(1)(a) — data.consilium.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-15.
Today, the Regulation itself sets no deadline for submitting a compensation claim to the airline; only each country’s own limitation law decides how long you have to sue. The adopted text would add a Regulation-level submission window on top of that. How that window would sit next to the national limitation period is not settled by the adopted text as it stands. Example: a flight departing on 10 March of whatever year these deadlines first apply would need its claim with the airline by 10 December that year, nine months later.
Payment form would also narrow. Today, compensation can be paid in cash, bank transfer, bank order, cheque, or, with your signed agreement, vouchers. The adopted text would default to electronic bank transfer, unless you explicitly agree otherwise on a durable medium.
Reimbursement timing would barely move: seven calendar days from your request, the same as today, except an airport contingency plan could stretch that to 30 days.
None of these deadlines apply yet. A claim filed today still runs on national limitation law alone; see flight compensation time limits for the period that actually governs your country.
#What would change for tarmac delays and extraordinary circumstances?
2 hours on the tarmac at an EU airport is the point at which the adopted text would require the airline to let you disembark — a right the current 2004 Regulation does not contain in any form. Safety, security, air traffic control and immigration reasons are the exceptions the text states.
Source: Joint text PE-CONS 39/26, new arts. 6a(3), 6c — data.consilium.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-15.
Today’s Regulation has no tarmac-delay disembarkation rule of its own. If the adopted text takes effect, this would be an entirely new right, not a change to an existing one.
Extraordinary circumstances would also move from an undefined term to a written, non-exhaustive Annex listing qualifying events, alongside an explicit requirement that the carrier prove both a direct causal link to your disruption and that it took all reasonable measures. Today, the term carries no definition in the Regulation’s operative text; case-by-case interpretation fills that gap instead. A tarmac delay long enough to trigger this future disembarkation right could separately run into the existing three-hour delay-compensation threshold once its own clock starts — two different rules, on two different timelines, and only one of them applies today.
Neither change is in effect for a flight disrupted now. The undefined text, as currently interpreted, is the test that applies to your claim today, covered on the EU261 hub.
General information, not legal advice. For your specific case: your national enforcement body or your national European Consumer Centre.
#Sources
- European Parliament Legislative Observatory, procedure file 2013/0072(COD) - oeil.europarl.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-15.
- Council of the EU, joint text PE-CONS 39/26 (16 June 2026) - data.consilium.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-15.
- Council of the EU, information note ST-11801-2026-INIT (10 July 2026) - data.consilium.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-15.
- Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, arts. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 - eur-lex.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-15.