Delay Repay rules
How much Delay Repay pays, operator by operator
Choose an operator and type the fare: every band of its scheme is turned into pounds, from the first minute that pays to the full refund.
Every band for your fare
LNER, from
30 min
| 30–59 min | £36 |
| 60–119 min | £72 |
| 120+ min | £72 |
Single tickets. Return: 25% / 50% / 100% of the return fare per late leg.
How much Delay Repay pays depends on three facts: the operator that ran the late train, the type of ticket and the band of minutes your arrival falls in. Most companies in Great Britain run Delay Repay 15, which pays 25% of a single fare from 15 minutes late, 50% from 30 minutes and 100% from 60 minutes. On a return, each leg is worth half, so the same delays pay 12.5%, 25% and 50% of the return fare per late leg, and a delay of two hours or more on one leg refunds the whole return. A few operators start at 30 minutes and use their own steps. Whatever the scheme, the National Rail Conditions of Travel guarantee at least 50% of the price of the delayed journey once you are 60 minutes late. The table below sets every operator's bands side by side, read from each company's published terms, and the tool above applies one of them to the fare you type.
What a 15 to 29 minute delay pays
With a Delay Repay 15 operator
£6
| With a Delay Repay 30 operator | £0 |
| Operators paying from 15 min | 17 |
| Operators paying from 30 min or later | 11 |
Schemes and rules read by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method
Every operator, every band
The table gives the share of the price paid on a single ticket at each common delay, for each operator. It is generated from the same data as the calculator. Where a cell shows 0%, that operator pays nothing at that delay under its own scheme.
| Operator | Scheme | 15 min | 30 min | 60 min | 120 min |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avanti West Coast | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| c2c | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| Caledonian Sleeper | Delay Repay 30 | 0% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| Chiltern Railways | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| CrossCountry | Delay Repay 30 | 0% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| East Midlands Railway | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| Elizabeth line | TfL service delay refund, 30 minutes | 0% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Gatwick Express | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| Grand Central | Charter compensation, 60 minutes | 0% | 0% | 50% | 75% |
| Great Northern | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| Great Western Railway | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| Greater Anglia | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| Heathrow Express | Own scheme, 30 minutes | 0% | 25% | 50% | 50% |
| Hull Trains | Delay Repay 30 | 0% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| LNER | Delay Repay 30 | 0% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| London Northwestern Railway | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| London Overground | TfL service delay refund, 30 minutes | 0% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Lumo | Delay Repay 30 | 0% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| Merseyrail | Own scheme, 30 minutes | 0% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Northern | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| ScotRail | Delay Repay 30 | 0% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| South Western Railway | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| Southeastern | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| Southern | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| Thameslink | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| TransPennine Express | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| Transport for Wales | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
| West Midlands Railway | Delay Repay 15 | 25% | 50% | 100% | 100% |
Returns pay per leg
A return ticket covers two journeys, so each journey is valued at half the return price. With a Delay Repay 15 operator, a return bought for £80 pays £10 if the outward train is 20 minutes late, £20 at 45 minutes and £40 at 75 minutes. If both legs are late, the two amounts are added, up to the price of the ticket. The 120-minute band is where returns differ most: one leg two hours late pays £80, the whole fare. Our return ticket page works through two late legs.
Delay Repay on a return ticket
You would get
£22.50
| Share of the return fare | 25% |
| Outward band | 30 min and over |
| Return band | none |
| Capped at | £90 |
Season tickets are valued per journey
A season ticket has no price per journey printed on it, so each operator converts the season price into the value of one journey or one day of travel. It divides the price by a fixed number, called a divisor, then applies the band shares to that value. A monthly season and an annual season on the same route do not give the same amount per delay, because the annual divisor assumes more journeys. The season ticket page lists the divisors.
The national minimum, for operators that pay less
Every scheme in the table pays at least what the National Rail Conditions of Travel require from 60 minutes: 50% of the price of a single, or of the late portion of a return. Before 60 minutes, the operator's scheme alone decides. That is the main difference between operators: with a Delay Repay 15 company, a 20-minute delay on a £30 single pays £7.50; with a company whose scheme starts later, the same delay pays nothing.
Reading your amount
- Use the price paid. With a railcard, the base is the discounted fare.
- Count minutes at your destination. The band uses your arrival at the station on your ticket, against the timetable in force that day.
- Two singles are two tickets. If you bought two singles instead of a return, each is compensated as a single, on its own price.
- Split tickets are compensated on the tickets that covered the late part, which our split ticketing page explains.
An amount that looks low is worth checking against the table before you accept it. A claim decided on the wrong band can be reviewed: write back to the operator with your arrival time and ask which band was used. If it does not answer within 40 working days, the Rail Ombudsman can look at it.