EU261 Compensation Explained: Who Gets €250, €400 or €600

Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 is the main source of air passenger rights in Europe. It has applied since 2005 and covers hundreds of millions of journeys a year. For travellers, its most valuable feature is a fixed cash payment when a flight goes badly wrong — an amount that does not depend on the ticket price and does not require you to prove any loss. This guide explains how it works from start to finish.

Three different kinds of rights

People often talk about "EU261 compensation" as if it were one thing, but the regulation gives three separate sets of rights that overlap:

• Compensation (Article 7): a fixed sum of €250, €400 or €600 per passenger.
• Reimbursement or re-routing (Article 8): the choice between getting the ticket price back and being flown to your destination another way.
• Care (Article 9): meals, refreshments, communication and, if needed, a hotel and transfers while you wait.

Compensation can be excluded by extraordinary circumstances. Care and the choice of refund or re-routing cannot. Keeping the three apart avoids the common mistake of giving up on everything after an airline blames the weather.

Which flights are covered

The regulation applies to passengers departing from an airport in an EU member state, and to passengers flying into the EU from a third country on an airline licensed in the EU — unless they already received benefits or compensation under the other country's law. It applies only if you have a confirmed reservation and, except for cancellations, presented yourself for check-in on time. Free or reduced fares not available to the public are excluded, but tickets bought with frequent-flyer miles and tickets issued under tour operator programmes are covered. Iceland, Norway and Switzerland also apply the rules.

The amounts and how distance decides them

Article 7 sets three tiers. Flights of 1,500 km or less earn €250. Flights within the EU of more than 1,500 km, and all other flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km, earn €400. All other flights — mainly long-haul trips over 3,500 km to or from outside the EU — earn €600. Distance is the great-circle distance between the departure airport and the final destination; our distance calculator works it out from airport coordinates.

Article 7(2) allows the airline to halve the payment when it re-routes you and your arrival is not more than two, three or four hours behind the original schedule, for the three distance tiers respectively. Applied to long delays, this means a long-haul flight that arrives between three and four hours late pays €300 rather than €600.

Delays: the three-hour rule

Read literally, the regulation only gives a right to care for delays, not compensation. In 2009 the Court of Justice changed that. In Sturgeon (C-402/07) it held that passengers whose flights are delayed so that they reach their final destination three hours or more after the scheduled arrival time suffer a loss comparable to a cancellation and are entitled to the same compensation. That interpretation has been confirmed repeatedly and is applied by airlines, enforcement bodies and courts across Europe.

Two details matter. First, it is the arrival delay that counts, not the departure delay: a flight that leaves four hours late but makes up time and arrives two hours fifty late gets nothing. Second, arrival is the moment at least one aircraft door opens and passengers may leave, not touchdown or the moment the plane reaches the gate (Germanwings, C-452/13).

Cancellations

Compensation for a cancellation depends on how much warning the airline gave and what alternative it offered. With at least two weeks' notice, there is no compensation. With one to two weeks' notice, compensation is excluded if the replacement flight leaves no more than two hours earlier and arrives less than four hours later than the original. With less than a week, the margins shrink to one hour earlier and two hours later. The airline bears the burden of proving when and how it told you. See our cancellation guide for the refund and re-routing choice.

Denied boarding

When a flight is overbooked, the airline must first ask for volunteers to give up their seats in exchange for benefits agreed between the passenger and the airline. If not enough people volunteer, it may deny boarding against passengers' will, but then must pay the Article 7 compensation immediately, plus care and the refund or re-routing choice. Volunteers get what they agreed, plus refund or re-routing, but not the fixed sum. Denial for legitimate reasons — inadequate travel documents, health, safety or security — is not "denied boarding" in the regulation's sense.

Extraordinary circumstances

An airline does not owe compensation for a cancellation or long delay if it proves the cause was extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken. The phrase is narrower than many airlines suggest. The Court has held that technical problems arising from normal operation of the aircraft are generally not extraordinary (Wallentin-Hermann, C-549/07), while a bird strike is (Pešková, C-315/15). We cover the case law in our extraordinary circumstances guide.

Downgrades

If you are moved to a lower class than the one you paid for, Article 10 requires the airline to reimburse 30%, 50% or 75% of the price of that flight, depending on distance. Upgrades cannot be charged.

Who pays

Claims go to the operating air carrier — the airline that operated or intended to operate the flight — even if you booked with another airline or a travel agent. On a codeshare, that is the airline on the "operated by" line. Package holiday travellers claim from the airline, not the tour operator, although package travel law may provide extra rights.

Waiving your rights

Article 15 says obligations to passengers cannot be limited or waived, notably by a clause in the contract of carriage. If an airline persuades you to accept a voucher, read the terms carefully: accepting a voucher in place of compensation is possible only with your signed agreement, and accepting a refund does not by itself waive compensation.

What it is not

EU261 does not cover lost or delayed baggage, which falls under the Montreal Convention. It does not cover consequential losses like a missed hotel night or a cruise departure, although you may claim those separately under national law or the Montreal Convention where you can prove them. And the regulation sets minimums: an airline may always offer more.

Changes ahead

EU passenger rights are being revised. Regulation (EU) 2026/2202 amends the framework from 23 October 2027. Until then, Regulation 261/2004 as interpreted by the Court applies unchanged, and we will update the calculators and this guide when the new rules take effect.

Next steps

Check coverage with the rules checker, estimate the amount with the compensation calculator, then claim using the free letter generator.