EU261 compensation calculator: what you are owed after a delay
The calculator takes your departure and arrival airports, measures the great circle distance and checks Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 to see whether compensation is due and how much. Out comes an amount per person, the reasoning behind it and a list of what to do next. Three things are regularly misunderstood. What counts is the delay on ARRIVAL, not at departure. The distance is the straight line between the airports, not the route flown. And a technical fault is not an extraordinary circumstance, however often airlines write that it is.
The flight
Circumstances
Your claim
What to do now
The basis is Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 as interpreted by the Court of Justice of the European Union, as of September 2026. The result is an estimate and not legal advice. Whether an extraordinary circumstance applied in a specific case is decided by a court, not by a calculator.
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How much the claim is worth
Article 7 of the regulation sets three bands. Up to 1500 kilometres it is 250 euro, between 1500 and 3500 kilometres 400 euro, and above that 600 euro. The amount applies per person on the booking, children with their own seat included. One exception matters enough that the calculator flags it separately: flights that stay entirely within the Union are always 400 euro, no matter how long the route is. Frankfurt to Gran Canaria is a good 3100 kilometres, Frankfurt to Tenerife a little more, and it still stays at 400. On the top band there is a halving. For flights over 3500 kilometres outside the Union the amount drops to 300 euro as long as the arrival delay stays under four hours. From four hours it is the full 600. The difference between 3 hours 55 and 4 hours 05 is therefore 300 euro, which is why the exact time on the boarding pass is worth having. The regulation applies to every departure from inside its scope, whatever the airline. On a flight into that scope it applies only if the operating carrier is based there. New York to Frankfurt on a European airline is covered; on an American one it is not.
Delay, cancellation, denied boarding
For a delay the claim arises from three hours at the final destination. That is not in the text of the regulation but comes from the Court of Justice ruling in Sturgeon, and it has been settled law ever since. Final destination means the last airport of the through booking, not the connecting point. For a cancellation everything hangs on the notice period. More than 14 days before means no payment. Between 7 and 14 days it falls away if the replacement flight departs at most two hours earlier and arrives less than four hours later. Under 7 days the limits are tighter: one hour earlier, two hours later. Break one of those limits and the claim stands. For denied boarding, meaning you are not carried despite a valid booking and turning up on time, the claim arises immediately and regardless of any delay. Anyone who gives up their seat voluntarily in exchange for a voucher is negotiating freely and loses the statutory claim. Extraordinary circumstances remove the payment. They cover severe weather, air traffic control strikes, bird strikes, security incidents and official orders. They expressly do not cover technical faults on the aircraft or strikes by the airline own staff. The burden of proof is on the airline, not on you.
What applies whatever the money
The right to care in article 9 applies even when no compensation is due. It depends only on the waiting time, not on the cause. In bad weather, where the payment falls away, the airline must still provide food and a hotel. The thresholds follow route length and delay; in practice two hours is treated as the floor. Care covers drinks and meals in reasonable relation to the wait, two phone calls or emails, and, where an overnight stay is needed, a hotel plus transfer. If the airline offers nothing, buy it yourself and keep the receipts. Reasonable means airport prices yes, champagne no. Someone who waits six hours and pays for dinner is, as a rule, reimbursed. From five hours of delay a further right appears: you may withdraw from the flight and get the full ticket price back, including for segments you no longer wish to take. That is separate from the compensation and often overlooked.
What this calculator is not
It is not legal advice. It applies the rules of the regulation to what you enter and explains how it reaches the result. Whether an extraordinary circumstance truly applied in a specific case is decided by a court. It does not know your flight. The delay, the notice period and the details of the replacement flight are entered by you. Estimate them and you get an estimated result. It covers 83 airports with coordinates to two decimals. That is far more than enough for the band boundaries, because 1500 and 3500 kilometres rarely fall close to a real route. If your airport is missing, take the nearest one in the same region. And it ignores time limits. In Germany the claim expires at the end of the third year after the year of the flight; other countries set shorter or longer periods. If you are checking an old case, settle that question first.