# How Long You Have to Claim Flight Compensation

EU261 itself sets no deadline — each country's own civil law does, and they range from one year to ten.

The EU261 regulation doesn't set a claim deadline; each country's national law does, through whatever general limitation period applies to a consumer contract claim there. Commonly cited figures range from 1 year (Poland, Belgium) to 6 years (UK, Ireland) to 10 years (Switzerland, Luxembourg) — always confirm the current figure before assuming you've run out of time.

Work out your own number with the free [Flight delay compensation calculator](https://rulecost.com/travel/flight-delay-compensation-calculator/).

Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 is silent on how long you have to bring a claim. The Court of Justice of
the EU settled, in *Cuadrench Moré v KLM* (C-139/11), that this is left entirely to each member
state's own national law — specifically, whatever limitation period that country applies to an
ordinary claim of this kind (usually treated as a contract claim). That's why the deadline for the
same delayed flight can be one year in one country and ten in another.

## Commonly cited limitation periods

These are general civil-law limitation periods reported by specialist claims services, not figures
from a single EU source — unlike the compensation amounts themselves, there's no EUR-Lex regulation
to check them against, and a specific case can turn on which country's courts actually have
jurisdiction. Treat this as a starting point, not a verified deadline for your own claim.

| Time limit | Countries |
|---|---|
| 1 year | Poland, Belgium, Canada |
| 2 years | Italy (international flights; 1 year for domestic), Netherlands, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia |
| 3 years | Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, Czech Republic (with a 6-month airline-notification rule), Norway |
| 4 years | Iceland |
| 5 years | France, Spain, Greece, Hungary (2 years specifically against Wizz Air), Scotland |
| 6 years | UK (England, Wales, Northern Ireland), Ireland, Cyprus |
| 10 years | Switzerland, Luxembourg |

Sweden is a partial exception: the general limitation period runs longer, but airlines there
generally expect to be notified of a claim within about 2 months of the flight.

## Which country's deadline actually applies to you

This is the part that's genuinely unsettled and fact-specific, not something a table can resolve:

- It's usually the country where you'd bring the claim — often where you live, where the airline is
  based, or where the disruption happened — under EU rules on jurisdiction for consumer contracts.
- An airline may argue for whichever country's limitation period is shortest; a passenger generally
  wants whichever is longest and legitimately available to them.
- Some airlines' own conditions of carriage try to impose the 2-year deadline from the Montreal
  Convention (which governs baggage and injury claims, not EU261 compensation) — courts have
  generally rejected this for EU261 specifically, but it still gets cited.

## The practical takeaway

If your flight was disrupted within the last year, the country-specific deadline almost never
matters yet — file the claim with the airline directly, in writing, as soon as you can. If you want
the amount to put in that claim, the [flight compensation calculator](/travel/flight-delay-compensation-calculator/)
works it out from your route and fills in a complaint letter you can download and send. If it's been
several years, the question of which country's limitation period applies and whether it's already
run out is worth a specific answer from a national enforcement body or a consumer-rights
organisation in the relevant country, not a general table like this one.