Ryanair flight delay compensation

Ryanair owes €250, €400 or €600 per passenger when a flight arrives three or more hours late, is cancelled at short notice, or you are denied boarding. The amount depends on distance, not ticket price, and Ryanair pays it directly through its own EU261 form at no charge.

What Ryanair owes, by distance

When it applies: Arrival 3+ hours late, cancellation notified less than 14 days ahead, or denied boarding. The figures come from EU Regulation 261/2004 and are per passenger, including children on their own ticket.

How to claim, in four steps

1. Work out what Ryanair owes. Enter the route, the date and how late you arrived. A flight from Dublin is often covered by two statutes at once, and the calculator shows which of them pays more.
2. Write the demand. The letter is dated, cites EU Regulation 261/2004 by article, and is addressed to Ryanair DAC. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
3. Send it to Ryanair. Use “EU261 compensation and expense claim form (the form Ryanair actually pays from)” below, and keep a copy of what you submitted. A claim that exists only in a phone call cannot be proved afterwards.
4. Escalate to Ireland's Commission for Aviation Regulation. If Ryanair refuses or says nothing, the calculator writes the chaser and then the escalation letter, naming that regulator and citing the article the airline ignored.

Where to send it — Ryanair's own claim pages

• EU261 compensation and expense claim form (the form Ryanair actually pays from)
• Regulation EU261 — Ryanair Help Centre
• Submit a claim — Ryanair Help Centre

Ryanair's own form accepts flights from the last six months only. Older claims still exist in law — Ireland allows six years — but you will have to make them in writing rather than through the form.

The refusals Ryanair sends, and what answers them

Each of these has a settled answer in case law — the EU261 page sets out the judgments, names the cases, and quotes what the airline has to prove instead.

Ryanair disruptions we are tracking

• Charleroi airport strike — suspended after 322 cancellations — 16–23 September 2026 — suspended

Other things that go wrong on a Ryanair flight

• When the airline blames a technical fault — when Ryanair blames a technical fault
• Airline strike compensation — when Ryanair cancels because of a strike
• Your flight was cancelled — when Ryanair offers a voucher instead of money
• Should you use a claim company? — when Ryanair ignores you — and why you still do not need a claim company
• You missed your connection — a missed connection on a Ryanair itinerary
• Denied boarding and overbooking — being bumped from an overbooked flight by Ryanair
• They moved you to a lower class — being moved to a lower class by Ryanair
• Your bag did not arrive — a bag Ryanair delayed or lost
• Stuck at the airport: what the airline owes you now — meals and a hotel while Ryanair leaves you waiting

Questions

Open the calculator with Ryanair selected →

Claiming from Ryanair in practice

Which band your route falls into, from DUB

Distance decides the amount, and it is measured as the great-circle distance between the two airports — not the miles flown. These are real distances from Ryanair's main base, so you can see where the thresholds sit before you measure your own route.

If Ryanair refuses or says nothing

The regulator for Ryanair is Ireland's Commission for Aviation Regulation (CAR) (aviationreg.ie). Take the claim there once the airline has had its chance to answer and has either refused or gone silent — bring the dated letter, the airline's reply, and your booking reference. Stage 3 of the calculator writes the escalation letter that names this body.

How long you have: Six years in Ireland, where Ryanair is established — the longest window in the EU.

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