EU AI Act Timeline: All Deadlines You Need to Know
The EU AI Act is being implemented in phases from February 2025 through August 2027. Here is every deadline and what it means for your organization.
Last updated: March 2026
Prohibited AI Practices + AI Literacy
- Ban on social scoring systems by public authorities
- Ban on real-time remote biometric identification in public spaces (with exceptions)
- Ban on emotion recognition in workplaces and educational institutions
- Ban on AI systems that manipulate human behavior to circumvent free will
- Ban on AI systems that exploit vulnerabilities of specific groups
- AI literacy obligations for all providers and deployers (Article 4)
Impact: All organizations using AI must ensure staff have sufficient AI literacy. Prohibited practices carry fines up to EUR 35 million or 7% of global turnover.
General-Purpose AI (GPAI) Obligations
- Transparency obligations for all GPAI models
- Technical documentation requirements for GPAI providers
- Copyright law compliance and training data summaries
- Additional obligations for GPAI models with systemic risk
- Codes of practice for GPAI providers
- EU AI Office oversight of GPAI models
Impact: Providers of foundation models and large language models must comply with transparency and documentation requirements. Systemic risk models face additional obligations.
High-Risk AI Systems (Main Deadline)
- Full compliance required for high-risk AI systems listed in Annex III
- Risk management systems must be established (Article 9)
- Data governance requirements for training data (Article 10)
- Technical documentation must be complete (Article 11)
- Record-keeping and logging obligations (Article 12)
- Transparency and information to deployers (Article 13)
- Human oversight measures must be in place (Article 14)
- Accuracy, robustness, and cybersecurity requirements (Article 15)
- Quality management system required for providers
- Conformity assessment procedures must be completed
- EU database registration for high-risk AI systems
- Post-market monitoring systems operational
- Fundamental rights impact assessments by deployers
Impact: This is the critical deadline. Organizations deploying high-risk AI in areas like HR, healthcare, financial services, education, and critical infrastructure must have full compliance frameworks in place. Fines up to EUR 15 million or 3% of global turnover.
High-Risk AI in Regulated Products
- High-risk AI systems that are safety components of products covered by EU harmonization legislation (Annex I)
- Includes AI in medical devices, machinery, toys, lifts, radio equipment, civil aviation, vehicles, and more
- These systems must comply with both the AI Act and existing product safety regulations
Impact: Extended timeline for AI systems embedded in products already regulated under existing EU legislation. These require both AI Act compliance and product-specific conformity assessment.
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