Three of the busiest air travel markets in the Americas and Europe each answer the same question differently: what does an airline owe you when your flight lands hours late? Canada measures how late you arrive, the European Union measures how far you were flying, and Brazil pays no cash for a delay at all. Two of the three rulebooks are being rewritten right now.
The comparison matters because the money is close and the logic is not. Canada’s top payment for a delay is C$1,000. The EU’s top payment is 600 euros. Converted at the Bank of Canada’s daily average rate for August 21, 2026, of C$1.6075 to the euro, that 600 euros is C$964.50, which lands within four percent of the Canadian figure. A traveller could be forgiven for assuming the two systems work the same way. They do not agree on a single thing except roughly how much to pay.
Canada pays for lost hours, and only in one of three situations
Canada’s rules sit in the Air Passenger Protection Regulations, SOR/2019-150. Section 19 sets the amounts, and they are keyed entirely to how late you reach your destination. A large carrier owes C$400 for an arrival delay of three to six hours, C$700 for six to nine hours, and C$1,000 for nine hours or more. A small carrier owes C$125, C$250 and C$500 across the same brackets.
The definition of a large carrier is worth knowing before you calculate anything: a carrier that has flown a worldwide total of two million passengers or more in each of the two preceding calendar years. Everyone else is a small carrier, and the passenger receives roughly a third as much at the bottom of the scale.
The bigger condition is the reason for the delay. The regulations sort every disruption into three buckets: outside the carrier’s control, within the carrier’s control but required for safety, and within the carrier’s control. Compensation under section 19 is owed only in the third case. Weather and air traffic control instructions sit in the first bucket and pay nothing.
Separately from any cash, section 14 sets standards of treatment. Once a passenger has waited two hours past the departure time on the original ticket, the carrier must provide food and drink in reasonable quantities and access to a means of communication, free of charge, and must offer hotel accommodation and transport to it where an overnight stay becomes necessary.
The EU pays for distance flown, and the three hour rule just moved into the law
Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 works from a different premise. Article 7 sets compensation at 250 euros for journeys of 1,500 kilometres or less, 400 euros for intra-Union journeys over 1,500 kilometres and other journeys between 1,500 and 3,500 kilometres, and 600 euros for everything longer. How late you arrive does not change the amount. Only the distance does.
For delays specifically, the three hour trigger was not in the original text at all. It came from the Court of Justice in the joined Sturgeon cases, decided in November 2009, which held that passengers reaching their final destination three hours or more behind schedule may rely on the Article 7 compensation.
That is the part that has now changed, and it is the reason this piece was worth checking twice. The joint text amending Regulation 261/2004, approved by the Conciliation Committee on June 16, 2026, and cleared by the Council in July 2026, replaces Article 6 with a version whose paragraph 4 states the right to compensation applies when passengers “reach their final destination with a delay at arrival exceeding three hours”. The case law becomes statute. The three amounts stay exactly as they were: 250, 400 and 600 euros appear in the new Article 7 unchanged.
Several other things are new. A departure delay reaching five hours triggers an offer of reimbursement. A tarmac delay reaching two hours at an EU airport requires the aircraft to return to a disembarkation point. Airlines must contact passengers electronically within 96 hours of the end of the journey explaining their compensation rights, must acknowledge a claim immediately, and must either pay or justify a refusal within 30 calendar days. Passengers get nine months from the departure date to submit the request.
None of this is in force yet. The text states that the regulation enters into force twenty days after publication in the Official Journal and applies twelve months after that. Until then, the rules described above as current are the ones that govern.
Brazil owes you dinner, a bed and a way out, but not a cheque
Brazil’s rules are in ANAC Resolution 400 of December 13, 2016, whose consolidated text on the agency’s own site carries amendments through Resolution 800 of March 9, 2026. For delay, there is no fixed cash payment anywhere in it.
What there is instead is a ladder of material assistance in Article 27, owed free of charge according to how long you have waited, and owed even if passengers are already aboard with the doors open. Past one hour, communication facilities. Past two hours, food, by meal or individual voucher. Past four hours, accommodation where an overnight stay is involved, plus transport there and back.
Article 21 adds the exit. Once a delay passes four hours, the airline must offer three options and the passenger chooses: rebooking, a full refund, or completion of the trip by another mode of transport. If the airline knows in advance that the flight will run more than four hours late, it must offer those options immediately rather than waiting.
Cash does appear in Resolution 400, but for a different failure. Article 24 requires immediate financial compensation when a passenger is denied boarding, set at 250 Special Drawing Rights for a domestic flight and 500 for an international one. Those are International Monetary Fund units of account, not reais, and their value against any currency moves daily, which means the Brazilian figure is the only one of the three that is not a fixed number in the rulebook.
The three regimes side by side
| Canada (APPR) | European Union (261/2004) | Brazil (ANAC 400) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What sets the amount | Hours late on arrival, and carrier size | Distance of the journey | No cash amount for delay |
| Cash for a delay | C$400 / C$700 / C$1,000 (large carrier) | 250 / 400 / 600 euros | None |
| Delay that triggers it | 3 hours late on arrival | 3 hours late on arrival | Not applicable |
| Food and drink owed after | 2 hours past scheduled departure | 2 to 4 hours, by distance band | 2 hours waiting |
| Right to a refund or rerouting | Yes, under the treatment and alternate arrangement rules | Yes, and a 5 hour departure delay will trigger it under the new text | Yes, passenger’s choice, after 4 hours |
| Cause matters | Yes, three categories, cash only for one | Yes, extraordinary circumstances defence | Assistance owed regardless |
What the numbers show once you do the arithmetic
Three things stand out, none of which appears in any of the three rulebooks.
The two cash systems nearly converge by accident. Converted at the Bank of Canada rate for August 21, 2026, the EU’s three tiers are C$401.88, C$643.00 and C$964.50. Canada’s are C$400, C$700 and C$1,000. The bottom rungs are eleven cents apart. Yet a passenger flying Toronto to Vancouver nine hours late collects the Canadian maximum, while the same nine hour delay on a short European hop pays the European minimum.
Canada’s scale pays less for each additional hour. Taken at the bottom of each bracket, C$400 over three hours is C$133.33 an hour, C$700 over six hours is C$116.67, and C$1,000 over nine hours is C$111.11. The compensation rises with the delay, but the rate per hour falls.
The penalty for flying a small carrier shrinks as the delay grows. A small carrier’s payment is 31.2 percent of a large carrier’s in the three to six hour band, 35.7 percent in the six to nine band, and exactly 50 percent above nine hours.
Both northern rulebooks are moving in the same direction
Canada’s regulations are also mid-reform, which is easy to miss because nothing has changed on paper. The consolidated text on the Justice Laws site is current to June 21, 2026, and was last amended on September 8, 2022. The amounts above are what applies today.
But Parliament passed legislation in June 2023 amending the Canada Transportation Act, and the Canadian Transportation Agency’s own forward regulatory plan describes what it requires: eliminating the three categories of disruption and requiring airlines to compensate for inconvenience any time a flight is disrupted, unless they can show clearly defined exceptional circumstances. The agency has to rewrite the regulations to match, and that rewrite is not yet in force.
Put beside the European reform, the direction is the same on both sides of the Atlantic: less argument about which bucket a delay belongs in, more obligation on the airline to pay or to explain itself on a clock. Whether the rewrites deliver that is a question for the texts when they land, not for this article.
If you are planning the trip rather than recovering from one, our guide to finding cheap flights across Canada and our explainer on free stopover programmes on flights from Canada both sit inside the Canada travel guide. We have also covered the transit changes at Canadian airports.
Frequently asked questions
How much is a delayed flight worth in Canada?
Under section 19 of the Air Passenger Protection Regulations, a large carrier owes C$400 for an arrival delay of three to six hours, C$700 for six to nine hours and C$1,000 for nine hours or more. A small carrier owes C$125, C$250 and C$500. Compensation is only owed when the disruption was within the carrier’s control and not required for safety.
Does the EU pay more than Canada for a delayed flight?
It depends on the flight, not the delay. The EU pays 250, 400 or 600 euros according to distance. Converted at the Bank of Canada rate for August 21, 2026, that is C$401.88, C$643.00 and C$964.50, against Canada’s C$400, C$700 and C$1,000. The lowest tiers are almost identical and the top tiers are within four percent.
Is the EU changing its three hour delay rule?
No. The joint text approved on June 16, 2026 keeps the three hour arrival delay trigger and the amounts of 250, 400 and 600 euros. What changes is where the rule lives: the three hour threshold came from a 2009 court ruling and is now written into Article 6 of the regulation itself. The new text applies twelve months after it enters into force, which is twenty days after publication in the Official Journal.
What does a Brazilian airline owe for a delayed flight?
Material assistance rather than cash. ANAC Resolution 400 requires communication facilities past one hour, food past two hours, and accommodation with transport past four hours where an overnight stay is involved. Past four hours the passenger also chooses between rebooking, a full refund, or completing the trip by another mode of transport.
Why is Brazil’s denied boarding payment quoted in Special Drawing Rights?
Article 24 of Resolution 400 sets it at 250 SDR for a domestic flight and 500 SDR for an international one. Special Drawing Rights are an International Monetary Fund unit of account based on a basket of currencies, and their value changes daily, so unlike the Canadian and European figures the Brazilian amount is not a fixed sum in the currency you will be paid in.
Sources and method
From the sources. Canadian figures come from the Air Passenger Protection Regulations, section 19, with the standards of treatment and carrier definitions from the same consolidated regulation on the Justice Laws website, current to June 21, 2026 and last amended September 8, 2022. The pending Canadian reform is described in the Canadian Transportation Agency’s forward regulatory plan. European figures come from Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 on EUR-Lex and from the joint text PE-CONS 39/26 published by the Council of the European Union, which notes it has not yet undergone legal-linguistic revision. The three hour delay rule originates in the Sturgeon judgment in joined cases C-402/07 and C-432/07. Brazilian figures come from the consolidated text of ANAC Resolution 400 of 2016 published by the agency, articles 21, 24, 26 and 27.
Raw POV’s own analysis. The side by side table, the currency conversions, the per hour figures and the small carrier percentages are ours. Euro and US dollar amounts were converted using the Bank of Canada daily average rates for August 21, 2026, of C$1.6075 to the euro, published through the Bank of Canada Valet service. Exchange rates move, so treat the Canadian dollar equivalents as of that date.
How we checked it. Because two of these three regimes are being rewritten, we verified each rule against the current consolidated text rather than against summaries. The Brazilian articles were read in ANAC’s consolidated version, which carries amendment markings through Resolution 800 of March 9, 2026, and none of articles 21, 24, 26 or 27 has been amended. The European amounts and the three hour threshold were read in the adopted joint text itself, not in press summaries, several of which disagreed with each other on whether the threshold had changed.
What we did not do. We did not assess any individual claim, and nothing here is legal advice. Rules turn on facts we cannot see, including the cause of a specific delay and which country’s rules apply to a specific itinerary. Reforms in Canada and the European Union will change parts of this. Check the regulator before you rely on any figure: the Canadian Transportation Agency, the national enforcement body in the relevant EU member state, or ANAC.
