EU Data Act B2G Compensation and Costs FAQ

For a public-emergency request under Article 15(1)(a), data holders other than microenterprises and small enterprises must make the necessary data available free of charge. If the data holder asks, the receiving public-sector body, Commission, European Central Bank, or Union body must provide public acknowledgement.

The emergency route is narrow. The requester must show that the requested data is necessary to respond to the public emergency and cannot be obtained by alternative means in a timely and effective manner under equivalent conditions. A data holder should therefore classify the request before discussing any fee.

For non-emergency exceptional-need requests under Article 15(1)(b), a data holder is entitled to fair compensation for making data available. That route applies only to non-personal data and only where the requesting body acts on a legal public-interest task, identifies specific missing data, and has exhausted other means to obtain it. Article 15(2) excludes microenterprises and small enterprises from this route.

The request should not be treated as a shortcut around normal procurement. The Data Act text lists prior market purchase at market rates, existing data-availability obligations, and new legislative measures as examples of means that may need to be exhausted before Article 15(1)(b) is used.

Article 20 says fair compensation covers the technical and organisational costs incurred to comply with the request and a reasonable margin. The text specifically mentions costs of anonymisation, pseudonymisation, aggregation, and technical adaptation where they apply.

The cost file should therefore show the request-specific work needed to make the data available, not a general price list for the value of the dataset. If the public body asks, the data holder must provide information on the basis for the calculation of costs and the reasonable margin.

Yes, for public-emergency requests. Article 20(1) requires data holders other than microenterprises and small enterprises to make public-emergency data available free of charge. Article 20(3) applies the Article 20(2) compensation rule when a microenterprise or small enterprise makes a claim, so the calculation covers the technical and organisational costs incurred to comply plus a reasonable margin. Micro and small enterprises are outside the non-emergency Article 15(1)(b) route.

For non-emergency requests, Article 15(2) removes the Chapter V obligation for microenterprises and small enterprises entirely. A request file should therefore record the holder's size status before any compensation discussion.

Article 20(4) says data holders are not entitled to compensation for an Article 15(1)(b) request where the specific task is producing official statistics and national law does not allow the purchase of the data.

That carveout is narrow. The request file should show both the official-statistics purpose and the national-law position on purchase before the compensation answer is closed.

The request must respect the data holder's legitimate aims, including trade-secret protection and the cost and effort required to make data available. If trade secrets must be disclosed, Article 19 limits disclosure to what is strictly necessary and requires the data holder or trade-secret holder to identify protected data, including relevant metadata.

Confidentiality and data-protection work can affect the cost calculation when it is needed to comply with a non-emergency request. For example, Article 20 expressly allows costs for anonymisation, pseudonymisation, aggregation, and technical adaptation where applicable. The same controls should also be documented for emergency requests even where the response is free of charge.

Keep a request file that lets a later reviewer reconstruct the classification and calculation. The record should include the written request, the Article 15 route, requester identity, data scope, purpose, duration, erasure expectation, sharing recipients, delivery deadline, the data holder's response, and the compensation calculation or free-of-charge rationale.

Article 18 allows a data holder to decline or seek modification without undue delay, with a five-working-day outside limit for public-emergency requests and a 30-working-day outside limit for other exceptional-need requests. Article 20 also gives the receiving body a complaint route to the competent authority if it disagrees with the compensation level.

A fee quoted before request classification may apply the wrong Article 20 rule. The compensation answer changes depending on whether the request is for public-emergency response, another non-emergency exceptional need, official statistics, or a micro or small enterprise scenario.

A useful response letter should state the request type, the data scope, whether compensation is unavailable or claimed, the cost basis if compensation is claimed, the confidentiality and personal-data safeguards, and the records the data holder will retain.