The EU 261 reform of 2026 — formally Regulation (EU) 2026/261 — is the long-promised successor to Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 . After more than two decades of EU air passenger rights resting partly on judge-made case law and partly on text, the EU institutions have agreed a revised regulation that pulls the most important CJEU rulings into the operative provisions and tightens the parts that airlines have been stretching the hardest. The compensation amounts stay at €250, €400 and €600 — that point has never been seriously in play. What changes is the language that decides when the amounts are triggered and what an airline may legitimately call an extraordinary circumstance. For passengers flying from Warsaw, Kraków, Gdańsk, Wrocław, Katowice, Poznań, Łódź or Rzeszów the procedural route remains unchanged: a written claim to the airline first, a free complaint to the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów (RPP) at the Urząd Lotnictwa Cywilnego (ULC) if the airline refuses, and a civil suit before the Sąd Rejonowy under the ten-year prescription period of Article 118 of the Polish Civil Code (Kodeks cywilny).
A polska wersja tego przewodnika is available as reforma EU 261 w 2026 roku — the substance is identical, only the language differs.
What the reform is — and what it is not
Three quick disambiguations save a lot of confusion later.
First, Regulation (EU) 2026/261 is not a brand-new regulation built from a blank page. It is a recast of 261/2004, which means the structure stays: a regulation directly applicable in every Member State, three compensation bands by distance, a defined right to care, a defined right to re-routing or refund, and the extraordinary-circumstances exception. What the recast does is rewrite the most-contested definitions and add procedural duties on carriers that have been missing.
Second, the reform is the air-passenger instrument, not the parallel package on rail passenger rights that travelled through the institutions at the same time. Headlines in Polish and English press conflated the two repeatedly. They are separate legal acts.
Third, the reform does not abolish 261/2004 retroactively. The rules that decide your claim are the rules in force on the date the disruption happened. For any cancellation or three-hour-plus delay in 2026 — and likely the majority of disruptions in 2027 — the governing text is still 261/2004. The transitional provisions of 2026/261 set out when each substantive provision starts to apply, and the final consolidated text in EUR-Lex is the document to check before you write the first paragraph of a claim.
The three definitions that are actually rewritten
If you read only one section of this guide, read this one. Almost every dispute between a passenger and an airline turns on one of three definitions, and the 2026 reform tightens all three.
The delay threshold. Under 261/2004 the three-hour rule does not appear in the text of the regulation. It comes from the CJEU's reading in Sturgeon and Others (joined cases C-402/07 and C-432/07, 2009), which held that a passenger whose flight arrives at the final destination three hours or more late is in a comparable position to a passenger whose flight was cancelled, and is therefore entitled to compensation. The rule has worked, but it has rested on a judgment rather than the text — which has made it easier to attack in lower courts and easier to dismiss in a customer-service email. The 2026 reform writes the threshold into the operative text. Where the threshold lands in the final consolidated EUR-Lex text is the one point on which honest reporting still diverges, and we will not paper over it: the June 2025 Council position floated four hours for shorter flights, while later industry statements point at three hours holding regardless of distance. Until EUR-Lex is unambiguous we treat the threshold as not yet finalised and continue to advise filing on the existing three-hour line — see our delayed flight compensation guide for the practical filing route.
Connecting flights. Under 261/2004 the assessment of connecting flights produced years of litigation. The CJEU answered the question repeatedly in favour of passengers: in Wegener (C-537/17, 2018) the Court held that a single booking with a connection is a single transport operation, and the right to compensation is assessed by reference to the arrival time at the final destination — not the magnitude of any delay on an intermediate leg. The 2026 reform writes this principle into the operative text. The practical consequence for a Polish passenger flying Warsaw – Frankfurt – New York on one ticket: a short delay on the WAW–FRA leg that causes a missed connection and a six-hour delay at JFK is claimable, because what counts is the arrival at JFK. If the legs were booked separately with different carriers, each leg is still assessed on its own and a missed connection between two separate tickets is not claimable. Our missed connection compensation guide walks through the documentation you need on either side of that line.
Extraordinary circumstances. This is the clause airlines stretch hardest and the one the reform tightens hardest. 261/2004 created the defence but did not exhaustively define what counts. The CJEU filled the gap from one direction with Wallentin-Hermann (C-549/07, 2008), which held that routine technical defects discovered during ordinary maintenance are not extraordinary, and from another with Krüsemann and Others (C-195/17, 2018), which held that a wildcat strike by the carrier's own crew is not extraordinary either. The 2026 reform tightens the door further. The clearest concrete signal so far is that purely commercial reasons — rising fuel prices, low load factors, internal cost pressure — are expressly out. An airline cannot cancel a route on commercial grounds and then call it a circumstance outside its control. Severe weather, air traffic control strikes outside the carrier's structure, security threats and certain bird strikes can remain extraordinary in substance, but the airline must be able to document the cause with real evidence — METAR or TAF for weather, NOTAM for airspace, Eurocontrol slot record for ATC restrictions, formal strike notice for an external strike. A generic phrase in an email will no longer discharge the burden in front of the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów or the Sąd Rejonowy.
What stays exactly the same in Poland
If you read only the EU-level headlines you might assume everything around an EU 261 claim is changing. In Poland the procedural picture stays essentially the same, and that is a useful anchor when the substantive picture is still in flux.
- The supervisor. The Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów at the ULC remains the body to which a Polish passenger files an administrative complaint when the airline refuses or ignores the claim. The procedure is free, the form is online, and the RPP decision is non-binding but heavily persuasive in subsequent court proceedings.
- The civil court. A civil suit against the airline goes to the Sąd Rejonowy — the District Court — for small-claim values typical of EU 261 cases. The choice of competent court was clarified in Rehder (C-204/08, 2009): a passenger may bring the case either at the court of departure or at the court of destination, in addition to the airline's registered office.
- The prescription period. Article 118 of the Polish Civil Code gives a non-commercial passenger ten years to file a civil EU 261 claim. The CJEU confirmed in Cuadrench Moré (C-139/11, 2013) that national prescription periods govern EU 261 claims, and the reform does not interfere with national prescription. A passenger whose flight from Warsaw was cancelled in June 2026 has until June 2036 to sue.
- The duty of care. Article 9 of the regulation — meals and drinks proportionate to the wait, two phone calls or equivalent communication, and a hotel where an overnight wait is needed — applies regardless of cause. The Court made the duty effectively indestructible in McDonagh (C-12/11, 2013) during the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic-ash crisis: extraordinary or not, the airline must look after the passenger.
For the detail of when meals, water and a hotel are due — and what to do if the airline refuses on the spot — see our guide on the right to care: meals, drinks and a hotel .
CJEU case law that survives the reform — and a few that become text
A useful way to read the reform is to ask, for each old CJEU ruling, whether the principle survives — and, if so, whether it is now text rather than judgment.
- Sturgeon (C-402/07, 2009) — the three-hour rule. Survives as text in 2026/261. The legal weight of the rule is upgraded from interpretation to the operative provision.
- Wegener (C-537/17, 2018) — single booking as one journey for connecting flights. Survives as text. The principle stops being a CJEU reading and becomes the rule.
- Wallentin-Hermann (C-549/07, 2008) — routine technical defects are not extraordinary. Survives in spirit. The tighter operative definition makes refusal letters citing routine technical issues even weaker.
- Krüsemann (C-195/17, 2018) — a wildcat strike by the carrier's own crew is not extraordinary. Survives. The reform's explicit exclusion of commercial reasons sits alongside the Krüsemann line on internal organisation.
- Cuadrench Moré (C-139/11, 2013) — national prescription periods govern. Untouched. Poland keeps the ten-year period from Article 118 of the Civil Code.
- McDonagh (C-12/11, 2013) — the duty of care stays even when the event is extraordinary. Untouched and preserved as text.
Polish judges read EU 261 in the light of CJEU rulings, and that habit will not change in 2026. What changes is that several rulings stop being citations a passenger has to produce — they are the rule.
How to file a claim in Poland under the current rules
For any disruption today, file under 261/2004. The route has four steps and the discipline is what makes the difference.
Step 1 — Written claim to the airline. Use the carrier's claim form (most airlines have one online for EU 261) or write a clear letter that cites Regulation 261/2004 by name, gives the flight number, date, departure and arrival airports, your booking reference and the bank details for payment. Quote the amount you are claiming in euros (€250, €400 or €600 by distance) and ask for a written response within 14 days.
Step 2 — Escalate to the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów. If the airline refuses, takes longer than 30 days or sends a generic "force majeure" rejection, file an administrative complaint with the RPP at the ULC. The complaint is free and uses the online form. Attach your booking confirmation, the airline's response (or proof of silence) and any evidence about the cause of the disruption. RPP decisions are non-binding on the airline but are taken seriously by Polish courts.
Step 3 — Civil suit before the Sąd Rejonowy. If the airline still refuses after a favourable RPP decision — or simply ignores it — bring a civil claim before the District Court. The choice of court is explained in our guide to suing the airline in Polish court . Court fees for an EU 261 claim are modest (typically PLN 30–200 by claim value), and the case is usually heard on documents without an in-person hearing.
Step 4 — Use the ten-year prescription period as breathing room. You do not need to file in 30 days, or in a year, or even in five years. Article 118 of the Polish Civil Code gives you ten years from the date of the disruption to file a civil claim, and the CJEU confirmed in Cuadrench Moré that the EU does not shorten it. Do not let an airline pretend otherwise.
If you would rather hand the whole pipeline to a specialist on a success-only basis, an established claims handler runs the same procedure against the airline and only deducts a commission if compensation is actually paid. Check your flight in 2 minutes with AirHelp — no win, no fee . For the decision between doing it yourself and using a service, our companion read is claim yourself or use a service? .
What the reform does not fix — and the practical takeaway
Two honest notes before the summary.
First, the reform tightens definitions but does not eliminate disputes. An airline that genuinely wants to refuse will still refuse, and the practical leverage on a Polish passenger is still the same — a clean documentary file, an RPP complaint, then court. What changes is that the airline's job in front of the RPP and the Sąd Rejonowy gets harder, because more rules are now text rather than case law and more documentary evidence is required.
Second, the timing is still being settled. The dates in the final consolidated text in EUR-Lex are the dates that count. Most claims filed in 2026 and many in 2027 will still be governed by 261/2004. That is not a problem — it is a feature of the ten-year prescription period, which gives a Polish passenger years to file regardless of which version of the regulation was in force when the flight ran late.
The practical takeaway for a passenger flying from Poland today is straightforward. File. Document. Escalate if needed. Whether the governing text is 261/2004 or 2026/261, the right to €250, €400 or €600 for a long delay, a cancellation or denied boarding is the same — and the procedural route through the RPP at the ULC and the Sąd Rejonowy is the same. The reform makes the airline's job harder. It does not make yours any harder at all.