Train companies
Merseyrail delay compensation: a scheme of its own
Independent site, not a train company or claims service. You claim only through your operator’s own form.
The calculator above applies Merseyrail’s own rule to a ticket bought for its Northern and Wirral lines: enter the fare and the minutes late.
Merseyrail would pay
£5.10
100% of the single fare paid
| Scheme | Own scheme, 30 minutes, from 30 min |
| Band applied | 30+ min |
| Claim by | 23 November 2026 (28 days left) |
Estimate from the scheme Merseyrail publishes, read on 26 October 2026. The operator checks the train you were on and decides the claim.
Merseyrail, the electric network of Liverpool and the Wirral, does not use the Delay Repay bands of most train companies. Its own scheme has a single step: if your ticket is for a trip that never leaves the Merseyrail Northern or Wirral line and you arrive 30 minutes or more late, you get 100% of a single back, or 50% of a return. A £5.10 single that is 34 minutes late is therefore refunded in full, £5.10, while a delay of 29 minutes pays nothing at all. Tickets that also cover other lines get a smaller fixed share, and season tickets and Railpasses work on a different principle altogether, a payment after expiry linked to how punctual the network was over their validity. Payment goes back to the method you used to buy the ticket unless you agree another. The pages read give no time limit, so the calculator assumes the national 28 days. The ORR recorded 2,712 claims to Merseyrail in April 2025 to March 2026, 81.4% of those closed being approved.
How an operator handles Delay Repay claims
Claims approved
81.4%
| Closed within 20 working days | 99.5% |
| Claims closed | 2,736 |
| Period | April 2025 to March 2026 |
Office of Rail and Road, Table 4410 (OGL v3.0). Where the ORR reports a group, the figure covers all its brands.
Schemes and rules read by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method
One threshold instead of four bands
Most operators pay a quarter, a half or the whole fare depending on how late you are. Merseyrail has one line in the sand: 30 minutes. Below it, nothing; from it, the full single or 50% of a return. Because Merseyrail fares are short-distance and modest, the amounts are small, but the rule is generous for those who cross the threshold.
| Ticket | Delay | Share | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single, Merseyrail only | 30 min or more | 100% | £5.10 |
| Return, one leg late | 30 min or more | 50% | £3.70 |
| Return, both legs late | 30 min or more each | 100% | £7.40 |
| Any ticket | under 30 min | 0% | £0 |
Delay Repay on a return ticket
You would get
£3.70
| Share of the return fare | 50% |
| Outward band | 30 min and over |
| Return band | none |
| Capped at | £7.40 |
Tickets that go beyond the Merseyrail network
A through ticket bought for a journey that continues beyond the Northern and Wirral lines is not covered by the full-refund rule. When you are delayed on Merseyrail with such a ticket, the scheme pays a smaller fixed share of the price. As recorded in our data, Merseyrail pays the full single, or half a return, when a Merseyrail-only ticket arrives more than 30 minutes late; tickets including other lines get 20% of the price. The calculator applies the Merseyrail-only rule, so it overstates through tickets. The calculator does not apply that reduced share, so for these tickets the figure it shows is an upper bound.
Seasons and Railpasses: paid on punctuality
Commuters on monthly or longer tickets are not compensated delay by delay. Instead, once the ticket has expired, Merseyrail looks at its average performance against the targets in its charter over the validity of the ticket. The rule in our data reads: seasons and Railpasses of a month or more: 5% or 10% of the price after expiry, depending on punctuality over their validity. The current figures are published at stations and online, and the claim is made with a form, attaching proof of purchase or quoting the MetroCard number for a ticket bought at a station. Because no per-journey value exists, the season tools on this site do not cover Merseyrail.
Timetable of the day and replacement buses
Delays are measured on the timetable in force on the day you travel. When a replacement timetable is in place, it becomes the reference, and a journey on a rail replacement bus is measured the same way: actual arrival against the arrival in that day's timetable. Claims for other costs caused by a delay are limited to the price of the ticket, although Merseyrail may consider exceptional cases at its discretion if you write with receipts.
Limits of what we read, and who runs it
Merseyrail's help pages refused automated reading, so its rules come from archived copies of its single and return page and season and Railpass page. Time limit not stated on the pages read: the national 28 days is used here. The single and return page speaks both of 30 minutes or more and of more than half an hour; the calculator counts a delay of exactly 30 minutes as eligible. The network is a concession of the Liverpool City Region, separate from the public ownership programme for English franchises. On the ORR figures for April 2026 to March 2027 so far, Merseyrail received 821 claims and approved 87.1%, with 100.0% closed within 20 working days (ORR Table 4410). For the wider region, the Northern page covers the regional trains that run beyond the Merseyrail network.