There is no EU-wide deadline for an EU261 claim. The Court of Justice held in Cuadrench Moré (C-139/11) that each member state’s own limitation rules decide. England and Wales give six years, Scotland five, Germany three counted from the end of the year. Baggage claims run on a much shorter Montreal clock.
Why there is no single European deadline
KLM argued that the two-year limit in the Montreal Convention should apply to a compensation claim under Regulation 261/2004. The Court disagreed in Cuadrench Moré (C-139/11, 22 November 2012): the fixed sum under Articles 5 and 7 sits outside the Warsaw and Montreal systems, so the time limit is “determined in accordance with the rules of each Member State on the limitation of actions”, subject to the general EU principles of equivalence and effectiveness.
That has two consequences. Your deadline depends on where you would sue, not on where you flew. And an airline that tells you a claim is “out of time after two years” is quoting the wrong instrument unless the claim is a Montreal one.
What we could verify
Each row below links to the statute we read on 6 September 2026. A country appears here only if we could open its statute; everything else is in the next section, unverified and marked as such.
| Where you would sue | Period | The rule |
|---|---|---|
| England and Wales | 6 years from the date the cause of action accrued | Limitation Act 1980, s. 9 — an action to recover a sum recoverable by virtue of any enactment |
| Scotland | 5 years from the appropriate date, after which the obligation is extinguished | Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, s. 6 |
| Germany | 3 years, running from the end of the calendar year in which the claim arose and you knew the facts | BGB § 195 with § 199 |
The German rule is the one people get wrong. A flight on 4 March 2026 does not expire on 4 March 2029: the three years start on 31 December 2026, so the claim runs to the end of 2029. That is generous, and it is also why German-seated carriers see claims arriving years later.
A letter to the airline does not stop the clock anywhere. Complaining, chasing, or waiting on an ADR scheme does not suspend a limitation period in England, Scotland or Germany. Only issuing proceedings does — and in Scotland the obligation is extinguished, not merely unenforceable, once the five years pass.
Run your own flight date through the deadlines tool rather than counting the years by hand, especially for the German rule above, where the clock starts at the end of the year, not on the flight date.
What we could not verify
We could not open a primary statute for the countries below today, so we are not going to print a number for them. Ireland’s statute book and the French Legifrance article both refused or returned the wrong document, and we did not attempt the others.
- Ireland — not verified by us. Ask the national enforcement body or check the Statute of Limitations before you rely on a date.
- France, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Poland and the rest of the EU — not verified by us. Each has an ordinary civil limitation period, and they differ by years. Ask the enforcement body for the country of departure, or a lawyer there, before you assume a claim is dead.
That is the honest position. A wrong number here costs a reader their whole claim, and the internet is full of confident tables that nobody sourced.
Baggage runs on different, much shorter clocks
The Montreal Convention deadlines are not limitation periods in the usual sense — miss the first two and the airline can refuse to look at the claim at all. The notice that EU air carriers must give passengers, set out in the Annex to Regulation (EC) No 2027/97, states them plainly:
| Baggage event | Deadline | From |
|---|---|---|
| Damaged checked baggage — written complaint | 7 days | the date the baggage was placed at your disposal |
| Delayed baggage — written complaint | 21 days | the date the baggage was placed at your disposal |
| Any court action for damages | 2 years | the date of arrival, or the date the aircraft ought to have arrived |
Details and the letters are in Montreal Convention baggage claims.
Scheme and regulator deadlines
These are not limitation periods either — they are the rules of the body you are complaining to, and they are usually much shorter than the courts’.
- UK ADR: a CAA-approved scheme accepts a complaint up to 12 months after the airline’s final response. AviationADR and CEDR are the two approved providers; their decisions bind the airline, and you may still reject the outcome and go to court.
- Canada, APPR: you have one year to make a compensation claim with the airline that operated the disrupted flight, and the airline then has 30 days to pay or explain why it says nothing is owed.
- Chargebacks are card-scheme rules rather than law, and the window is set by Visa or Mastercard, not by a statute. See chargeback refunds.
A nine-month EU deadline is coming
The revision of Regulation 261/2004 adopted in July 2026 introduces something the current regulation does not have: a fixed window to ask. The new Article 7(9) requires a request for compensation to be submitted “within nine months of the actual date of departure indicated on the passenger’s ticket”, and the new Article 15a gives 12 months to complain to the carrier. Neither applies yet — the act takes effect 12 months after it enters into force, and no publication date had been set on 6 September 2026. See what the 2026 EU261 reform changes, and do not start behaving as though nine months is the rule.
Is there a two-year limit on EU261 claims?
No, unless you are suing under the Montreal Convention for baggage or proven loss. Cuadrench Moré rejected exactly that argument for compensation under Articles 5 and 7. Airlines still raise it; the case number is the answer.
Which country’s deadline applies to my flight?
The one where you would bring the claim, which for a passenger is usually the courts of the airline’s seat, or of the place of departure or arrival, depending on the rules on jurisdiction. If two options are open to you and one has a longer period, that is a real choice worth making before you file.
Should I wait for the ADR scheme before going to court?
Usually yes, because it is free and binding on the airline — but note the clock does not pause while you wait. If your limitation period is close, get advice about issuing first. In England and Wales six years leaves plenty of room; a German three-year period counted from the end of the year does too; a Scottish five-year prescription is the one to watch, because the right disappears rather than merely becoming unenforceable.