EU AI Act Timeline and Phasing Roadmap

A date is useful only when the team knows what created it. Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 and its amending Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 are binding law. An amendment changes that baseline only after the legislative act is completed, published, and in force. A political agreement records negotiated text but is not the final legal stage. Commission guidelines explain the Commission's interpretation but are not legislation. Consultations and drafts may change. Codes of practice are voluntary tools even when the underlying AI Act duty is binding.

The Act was adopted on 13 June 2024, published in the Official Journal on 12 July 2024, and entered into force on 1 August 2024, the twentieth day after publication. Most operator duties remained subject to the staged application dates in Article 113.

Keep both the adopted-law baseline and any later development in the register. Do not silently replace one with the other, and do not present a draft, consultation closing date, standards target, or political agreement as if it were an enacted operator deadline.

Since 2 February 2025, Chapters I and II apply. Providers and deployers should therefore have an AI-literacy approach suited to the people operating or using their AI systems, and product or deployment review should stop or redesign uses that fall within Article 5 prohibited practices.

Since 2 August 2025, obligations for providers of general-purpose AI models have applied. A provider placing a model on the market after that date should already have the Article 53 documentation, downstream information, copyright policy, and public training-content summary workstream. Providers of models with systemic risk also need the Article 55 safety, evaluation, incident, and cybersecurity workstream.

Article 113 sets 2 August 2026 as the Regulation's general application date for provisions not assigned another date. Article 50 transparency obligations also apply from that date. They can require an AI-interaction notice, machine-readable marking of synthetic output, notices for emotion recognition or biometric categorisation, and disclosures for deepfakes or certain public-interest text, depending on the actor and use. A limited transition applies to Article 50(2): providers of systems placed on the market before 2 August 2026 have until 2 December 2026 to implement marking and detection. The Commission published final Article 50 guidelines on 20 July 2026, after the final voluntary transparency code was published on 10 June 2026.

The Commission's enforcement powers for GPAI provider obligations also enter into application on 2 August 2026. Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 amended Article 57 to require Member States to make at least one AI regulatory sandbox operational, individually or jointly, by 2 August 2027. A sandbox supports supervised development and testing; it does not waive prohibited-practice rules or automatically prove conformity.

Article 111 gives providers of GPAI models placed on the market before 2 August 2025 until 2 August 2027 to comply.

Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 amended Article 113 so Chapter III, Sections 1, 2, and 3 apply from 2 December 2027 for Annex III high-risk systems and 2 August 2028 for Article 6(1) and Annex I high-risk systems, except that Article 6(5) is not covered by those deferred dates. The amending Regulation was published on 24 July 2026 and entered into force on 27 July 2026.

One row should let a reviewer understand the date without opening every linked document. Store the legal status and affected actor beside the action and evidence, then give one person responsibility for monitoring changes.

Review the row whenever a system changes intended purpose, model, market, operator role, affected group, integration, or risk classification, and whenever the controlling legal or guidance source changes status.

Keep chronology and applicability separate. A milestone can occur on a known date without creating an operator deadline, while one legal application date can create different work for providers, deployers, importers, distributors, product manufacturers, GPAI model providers, public authorities, and Member States.