EU AI Act timeline: every date that matters to UK firms

Written by Alex Vakhitov, founder of Comonad Limited. Last reviewed: 14 October 2026.

On this page

The dates

Ordered by date. The 27 July 2026 Omnibus sits before the 2 August 2026 general application date.

EU AI Act dates for UK firms
Date	What applies	What a UK firm does before it
1 August 2024	The Act enters into force	Nothing due
2 February 2025	Prohibitions; AI literacy (Article 4)	Check no system is a prohibited practice; put literacy measures in place
2 August 2025	General-purpose AI model duties; governance; penalties	If you provide a model, meet Chapter V and appoint an EU representative
27 July 2026	Digital Omnibus (Regulation (EU) 2026/1744) in force	Re-plan against the new dates
2 August 2026	General application, including most Article 50 transparency duties	Tell people when they deal with AI; label deepfakes
2 December 2026	Article 50(2) marking for generative systems placed on the market before 2 August 2026; new prohibition on non-consensual intimate imagery and child sexual abuse material	Machine-readable marking on generative output
2 December 2027	High-risk duties, Annex III	Risk management, logging, oversight, evaluation and documentation in place
2 August 2028	High-risk duties, Annex I products	As above, with the product conformity route
2 August 2030	Providers and deployers of high-risk AI systems intended to be used by public authorities	Those providers and deployers plan compliance

The Omnibus fixed these dates in the Regulation. They do not depend on standards being published. The wider test of who is in scope is in Does the EU AI Act apply to UK companies?. The control set sits with our AI governance consultancy.

If a date applies to you, our EU AI Act compliance service plans the work back from it. The wider control set sits with our AI governance consultancy.

Sources