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The EU AI Act.

Reviewed

Short answer

The EU AI Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, is the EU’s law on artificial intelligence: it bans a short list of AI practices, sets strict rules for high-risk AI, imposes transparency duties such as labelling deepfakes, and regulates general-purpose AI models. It entered into force on 1 August 2024 and applies in stages: prohibitions from 2 February 2025, general-purpose AI rules from 2 August 2025, most other rules from 2 August 2026, and high-risk rules from 2 December 2027 or 2 August 2028 after the 2026 Digital Omnibus.

Official sources: AI Act, Article 113 (consolidated) · Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 (EUR-Lex)

The AI Act at a glance

What the AI Act regulates and when each part applies
PartWhat it doesApplies fromGuide
Prohibited practices (Article 5)Bans manipulative AI, social scoring, untargeted face scraping, emotion recognition at work and school, and more2 February 2025; two new bans from 2 December 2026Article 5
AI literacy (Article 4)Providers and deployers support the AI literacy of their staff2 February 2025 (reworded 27 July 2026)Article 4
General-purpose AI models (Articles 51–55)Documentation, copyright policy, training-data summary; more for systemic-risk models2 August 2025; earlier models by 2 August 2027GPAI
Transparency (Article 50)Tell people they talk to an AI, mark AI output, disclose deepfakes and certain AI text2 August 2026; marking for systems already on the market by 2 December 2026Article 50
High-risk AI, Annex III areasRisk management, documentation, human oversight, registration, conformity assessment2 December 2027High-risk AI
High-risk AI in regulated products (Annex I)The same requirements, through product safety law2 August 2028High-risk AI
Penalties (Articles 99–101)Fines up to €35 million or 7% of worldwide turnoverPenalty chapter 2 August 2025; Commission fines on GPAI providers 2 August 2026Fines

Who it applies to

Providers that place AI systems or general-purpose AI models on the EU market, deployers that use AI systems in the EU, importers, distributors and authorised representatives, and providers and deployers anywhere in the world when the output of their AI system is used in the EU (Article 2(1)). It does not apply to purely personal, non-professional use, to research before a system is placed on the market, or to military, defence and national security uses. Details: who must comply.

Who enforces it

Each member state designates market surveillance authorities that supervise AI systems. The European Commission’s AI Office supervises general-purpose AI models and, since the Digital Omnibus, has exclusive competence for AI systems built on a general-purpose AI model by the same provider and for AI systems in very large online platforms and search engines (Article 75(1), as amended by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744). The European Data Protection Supervisor covers EU institutions. The country table below lists what we found for each member state.

Where to read the law

The AI Act by country

The AI Act applies directly in every member state; each designates its own authorities and may pass an implementing law. National authorities, implementing laws and drafts, and official guidance relevant to the AI Act’s transparency rules, one page per country, each item quoted from an official source.

Countries and the official AI Act items found for each
GermanyKI-MIG: market surveillance authority; KI-MIG: enactment and entry into force; Bundesnetzagentur guide on Article 503
FinlandTraficom: supervision of transparency obligations; Traficom guidance: what the obligations require1
PolandThe Act: title and status; The Act: provisions entering into force later; Market surveillance authority2
ItalyDesignation of authorities; No new obligations2
DenmarkAct no. 467: scope; National competent authorities1
SpainAESIA: Article 50 Code of Practice FAQs; Draft organic law, May 2026; Earlier draft, March 2025: labelling4
NetherlandsDraft act: supervisory model; RDI as single point of contact2
IrelandGeneral Scheme: distributed model; General Scheme: AI Office of Ireland1
SwedenSOU 2025:101: PTS as main authority; SOU 2025:101: proposed system1
FranceDraft designation of authorities2

Also: Austria and Switzerland

  • AI Act in Austria: the RTR AI Service Desk and authorities: The AI Act applies in Austria directly; the RTR’s AI Service Desk is the national information point, and the Commission’s list showed no Austrian market surveillance contact on 7 September 2026.
  • The EU AI Act and Switzerland: Switzerland is outside the EU and has no overarching AI law yet; the EU AI Act still reaches Swiss companies that place AI systems on the EU market or whose AI output is used in the EU.

How countries are chosen

  • An entry exists only if we found the statement on the vendor’s, platform’s or regulator’s own page and quoted it. Entries we could not confirm that way are left out rather than guessed.
  • Every quoted sentence was re-checked against the live page on 6 October 2026 by script. Pages that block scripted fetches were read from an Internet Archive snapshot of the same page, and the entry says so.
  • We report what a source says, nothing more. “Not documented” means we did not find it in the pages we read; it is not a statement that something is absent.
  • A country gets a page only if we found country-specific, official content: a designated authority, an implementing law or draft, or official guidance. Countries where we found none are not listed.
  • Several items are drafts or were true on the date of the source. Each page says which, and we did not follow later steps.

Questions

Is the EU AI Act in force?
Yes. It entered into force on 1 August 2024, and most of it applies from 2 August 2026. The prohibitions and AI literacy have applied since 2 February 2025, the rules for general-purpose AI models since 2 August 2025, and the high-risk rules apply from 2 December 2027 or 2 August 2028.
Does the AI Act apply to companies outside the EU?
Yes, in two cases: when they place AI systems or general-purpose AI models on the EU market, and when the output of their AI system is used in the EU (Article 2(1)(a) and (c)). Providers of high-risk systems and of general-purpose AI models established outside the EU must appoint an authorised representative in the EU.

Sources

Last reviewed by Volkan Çatak, Founder, Proofcan.

Not legal advice. This page explains official texts in plain words and links each one; check the sources, or a lawyer, before relying on it for a decision.