EU261 Flight Compensation, Explained Simply

EU Regulation 261/2004 — almost everyone calls it EU261 — is the most generous air-passenger law in the world. It gives you a fixed cash payment when your flight is badly delayed, cancelled at short notice, or oversold, on top of your right to a refund or a replacement flight. Here's exactly how it works.

Who is covered

EU261 applies in two situations:

• Any flight departing from an airport in the EU (plus Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland), on any airline in the world.
• Any flight arriving in the EU from outside it, but only if the operating airline is an EU/EEA carrier.

So a Madrid → New York flight is covered whoever operates it, and a New York → Madrid flight is covered only if you fly an EU airline like Iberia — not if you fly a U.S. carrier.

How much you get

The amount is fixed by the great-circle distance of your flight, not by your ticket price:

• €250 for flights of 1,500 km or less
• €400 for flights between 1,500 km and 3,500 km (and all flights within the EU over 1,500 km)
• €600 for flights over 3,500 km

There's one wrinkle: for a long-haul flight over 3,500 km that arrives only 3 to 4 hours late, the airline can halve the amount to €300. Our payout calculator handles this automatically.

What triggers a payment

You're owed compensation when:

• You reach your final destination 3 or more hours late (the delay is measured at arrival, not departure);
• Your flight is cancelled and you were told less than 14 days before departure;
• You're involuntarily denied boarding because the flight was oversold.

In every case, the airline can escape the payment only by proving the disruption was an "extraordinary circumstance" — which is far narrower than airlines pretend. See our guide to extraordinary circumstances.

Your right to care and a refund

Separate from compensation, a long delay or cancellation gives you the right to care — meals, refreshments, communication, and a hotel for overnight delays — and the right to choose between a full refund of your unused ticket and re-routing to your destination. These apply even when the cash compensation doesn't, such as in genuinely bad weather. Keep every receipt.

How to claim

Check that you qualify with our free compensation checker, then send the airline a written claim citing the regulation — our claim-letter generator writes it for you. Most straightforward claims can be done yourself for free; for a stubborn airline, a no-win-no-fee firm will chase it for a cut. The full walkthrough is in how to claim flight compensation.