Obligations

The AI Act application timeline

The Act entered into force in August 2024, but its obligations phase in over years. The dates that actually put duties on your systems — and why a static report goes stale.

Updated 3 July 2026 · Reference material, not legal advice

The AI Act entered into force on 1 August 2024, but almost nothing applied that day. The Regulation phases in over several years, and the dates that matter are the ones that switch on obligations for your systems.

The dates that bind

2 February 2025 — Prohibited practices (Article 5) and the AI-literacy duty (Article 4) apply. In force.
2 August 2025 — Obligations for general-purpose AI models, the governance framework, notified bodies and the penalty regime. Member States designate their national authorities.
2 August 2026 — The transparency duties of Article 50 apply (chatbots, synthetic content, deepfakes); national regulatory sandboxes become operational. Marking of generative systems placed on the market before this date applies from 2 December 2026.
2 December 2027 — High-risk systems under Annex III must comply: technical documentation, risk management, logging, human oversight, conformity assessment and registration. Deferred from 2 August 2026 by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 (the Digital Omnibus).
2 August 2027 — The compliance deadline for GPAI models already on the market before August 2025.
2 August 2028 — High-risk systems under Annex I (AI as a safety component of regulated products). Deferred from 2 August 2027 by the Digital Omnibus.
2 August 2030 / 31 December 2030 — Long-tail deadlines for legacy public-sector systems and large-scale IT systems.

How your “compliant-by” date is set

Each system is measured against a specific date:

an Annex III high-risk system → 2 December 2027;
an Annex I product-based high-risk system → 2 August 2028;
a GPAI model placed before August 2025 → a grace window to 2 August 2027;
a legacy public-sector system → 2 August 2030.

Why a static report goes stale

A compliance document exported today is blind to these dates. The moment 2 December 2027 arrives, an Annex III system that was “upcoming” becomes “binding” — and nothing in a static PDF tells you that. This is precisely why compliance needs to be a live register with a clock, not a snapshot: it should tell you which systems are affected, and by when, at any moment.

Honest urgency, not fear

The deadlines are real and create genuine pressure — but they are facts, not a scare tactic. Knowing exactly which of your systems is affected, and by which date, is far more useful than any warning about maximum fines.

What this means in practice

Euridium stamps each classified system with its own application date and counts down to it, so the timeline becomes an operational plan rather than a source of anxiety.

See where your own AI systems stand.

Run a guided assessment and get the obligations that apply to your role.

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This guide is a plain-language summary for orientation. The authoritative text is Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 as published in the Official Journal of the European Union (12 July 2024). It does not constitute legal advice.