EU261 Is Changing: What the 2027 Air Passenger Rights Reform Means for You (2026)

After 13 years of failed attempts, the EU has rewritten its air passenger rights regulation (EC 261/2004). The new text was published in the Official Journal in October 2026, but it only starts to apply about a year later. Until then the current rules apply in full — and that is exactly the window in which most passengers do not know what they are owed, what is about to change, and what they should file before the switch. This article is a timeline, not a table of amounts: the amounts and the step-by-step claim process are in our full compensation guide.

First: what covers you today

• Regulation EU261 covers every flight departing from an EU airport (any airline) and flights arriving in the EU on an EU carrier. An arrival delay of 3 hours or more, a short-notice cancellation or denied boarding entitles you to a fixed amount by distance: €250 up to 1,500 km · €400 up to 3,500 km · €600 beyond that.
• Flights to and from Israel are covered by Israel's Aviation Services Law, with index-linked amounts of ₪1,530 / ₪2,450 / ₪3,670 by distance. Where both laws apply to the same flight you can choose the better route, but not collect twice for the same event.
• The Montreal Convention covers lost, delayed or damaged baggage, up to roughly 1,519 SDR. It is a separate track with its own deadlines, and the reform does not touch it. Baggage rights guide ←

The reform timeline

Sources: the text on EUR-Lex (Regulation 2026/2202) · Council and Parliament press releases · legal commentaries published June–October 2026. Dates reflect publications as of October 2026; before relying on a date for a claim, check the official text.

What did not change (the part that matters)

• The 3-hour threshold stays. Airlines and the Council tried to raise it to 4 hours on short flights and 6 on long ones. That was rejected. An arrival delay of 3 hours or more still qualifies — and it is now written into the regulation itself, not only in case law.
• The amounts stay — €250 / €400 / €600, with no indexation and no cut.
• "Extraordinary circumstances" still exempt the airline — but, as you will see, hiding behind them gets harder.

What changes from October 2027

Listed from the published text and the legal commentaries. Where sources differ on a detail, we wrote the common ground.

1. Rights notice within 96 hours. When a delay or cancellation qualifies for compensation, the airline must inform you of the right and give simple claim instructions within 96 hours of arrival. Today that depends on you knowing to ask.
2. Handling deadlines for the airline. The airline must acknowledge a claim and give a substantive reply within 30 days. For the first time there is also a time limit for passengers to file with the airline — according to the commentaries, months rather than years. That is the main reason not to sit on a claim for an old flight.
3. Rerouting — or book it yourself. After a cancellation or denied boarding the airline must offer the quickest alternative, including other airlines, rail or bus. No option offered within 3 hours? You may book your own and claim reimbursement, up to 400% of the original ticket price.
4. Tarmac delays. An aircraft that sits with doors closed for more than two hours must return to the gate and let you off, unless safety, border control or air traffic control prevent it. During any such wait you are owed water, toilets and climate control.
5. End of the no-show clause. Skipped the outbound leg? The airline may not cancel your return or charge extra for using it. Some airlines do exactly that today.
6. Hand luggage in the displayed fare. The price shown at booking must include a cabin bag, and a small personal item that fits under the seat is free. Airlines may charge for a larger bag, but dimensions and fees must be shown at the moment of booking.
7. A written list of extraordinary circumstances. Natural disasters, war, cross-border health threats, unruly passengers — and on the other side, crew shortage is not extraordinary. The burden is on the airline to prove a direct causal link to the disruption and that it took reasonable measures.
8. Small things that cost money. No fee for correcting a spelling mistake on a boarding pass or for printing one; a child under 14 sits next to the accompanying adult at no charge; priority assistance for passengers with reduced mobility, children and pregnant women; and large airports (over 4 million passengers a year) must keep contingency plans for mass disruption.

What it means for you

For the money — almost nothing. Amounts and threshold stay, so a claim for a flight delayed today and one delayed in 2028 are worth the same. The change is in the process: the airline will have to notify you, reply on time and prove its exemption — but you will also have to file on time.

Scope stays the same. Departures from EU airports on any airline, arrivals into the EU on EU carriers. Flights to the United States, Asia or the Gulf on a non-EU carrier are not covered by EU261 — not today and not after the reform. Flights to and from Israel keep their own law regardless.

Flights already disrupted: the reform is not retroactive. A flight delayed this year is judged under the current rules, and you can claim for it now.

What to do until October 2027

• Claim now, not "when there is time". Today the time limit follows the law of the country where you claim, and in some countries it is years; after the reform a much shorter limit comes in. Past flight — file before.
• Keep everything. A photo of the departures board with the delay, your boarding pass, the booking confirmation, receipts for food and hotels, and every message from the airline. Ask for the reason of the delay in writing.
• Do not accept "extraordinary circumstances" verbally. A routine technical fault and a crew shortage are not extraordinary — today, and explicitly in the new text.
• Return trip on two separate bookings? Self-connecting flights do not oblige the airline to connect them — not today and not under the reform. If the connection is critical, book it as one ticket.
• Check which law covers you before you give up: "you are not entitled" from the agent at the gate is not a legal answer.

How the amounts on this page stay correct

The amounts in our articles come from a single facts engine that is updated when the authority or the law changes — they are not copied by hand into each article. When the reform applies, a change in one source updates every article at once. That is also why other sites show several versions of "the 2026 amounts", and why you will always see the update date and the source here.