Train companies
Southern Delay Repay: what a late train is worth
Independent site, not a train company or claims service. You claim only through your operator’s own form.
The calculator above is set to Southern: change the fare, the ticket and the minutes late at your destination to see the amount its bands give.
Southern would pay
£7
25% of the single fare paid
| Scheme | Delay Repay 15, from 15 min |
| Band applied | 15–29 min |
| From 30 min late | £14 |
| Claim by | 23 November 2026 (28 days left) |
Estimate from the scheme Southern publishes, read on 26 October 2026. The operator checks the train you were on and decides the claim.
Southern Delay Repay starts paying when you reach your destination 15 minutes or more behind the timetable, whatever caused the delay. A single ticket earns 25% of its price from 15 minutes, 50% from 30 minutes and the whole fare from 60 minutes, so a £28 single that arrives 22 minutes late is worth £7 and the same trip 64 minutes late is worth £28. On a return, each late leg counts for half the fare, and a delay of 120 minutes or more gives the whole return back. Season tickets are valued per journey: Southern divides an annual season by 464 and a weekly one by 10. Claims must reach Southern within 28 days of the journey. Southern has been in public ownership since 31 May 2026, inside Govia Thameslink Railway, and the ORR reports that group as one: 80.6% of its closed claims were approved in April 2025 to March 2026.
One journey on your season, by operator
Value used per journey
£10
| Divisor at Southern | 40 |
| 30 to 59 min late pays | £5 |
| 60 to 119 min late pays | £10 |
Schemes and rules read by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method
Four bands, priced on a Southern single
Southern runs the commuter and coastal services south of London, to Brighton, the Sussex coast and Gatwick Airport, and it uses the Delay Repay 15 scheme shared by its sister brands. The minutes that count are those at the station printed on your ticket, not at the end of the train's route. The table applies Southern's bands to a £28 single.
| Minutes late | Share of a single | On £28 | Share of a return, per leg |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 to 29 | 25% | £7 | 12.5% |
| 30 to 59 | 50% | £14 | 25% |
| 60 to 119 | 100% | £28 | 50% |
| 120 or more | 100% | £28 | 100% |
The top band is where a return changes most. Below two hours, a late outward leg pays at most 50% of the return fare; from 120 minutes, the whole ticket comes back. Southern's own wording says the share for a return applies to "the affected portion", which this site reads as half of the return fare.
Every band for your fare
Southern, from
15 min
| 15–29 min | £7 |
| 30–59 min | £14 |
| 60–119 min | £28 |
| 120+ min | £28 |
Single tickets. Return: 12.5% / 25% / 50% / 100% of the return fare per late leg.
Season tickets: the 464 rule and the daily cap
For a season, Southern does not use the price of a day ticket. It works out what one single journey on your season is worth by dividing the price: an annual season covers 464 journeys, a monthly one 40 and a weekly one 10, and a Flexi Season is divided by 16. Its page adds six-monthly and quarterly figures on the same basis. An annual season of £4,200 is therefore worth £9.05 a journey, and a 35-minute delay on it pays £4.53.
From 120 minutes, a season holder gets two journeys, the value of a full day of travel: £18.10 on that annual season. That is also the most Southern pays for one day, so a second long delay on the way home adds nothing. Commuters who are often late should claim each journey on its own, since each one has its own 28-day limit.
How the money reaches you
The online form lists bank transfer, PayPal, e-voucher, rail travel vouchers and charity donation. A few details from Southern's page are worth knowing before you choose:
- A PayPal payment must be collected within 30 days, and the email address given must be the one linked to your PayPal account.
- National Rail vouchers and e-vouchers are valid for 12 months; e-vouchers sit in your online account and cannot be exchanged.
- Claims by post are accepted, but bank details cannot be sent by post, so the payment choice is narrower.
- The form takes one image per claim, so scan several documents into a single file.
Southern says it replies within 20 working days and usually much sooner outside periods of disruption. It also asks you to claim only once you have arrived, so that the delay you enter matches the real arrival time.
Automatic claims with the Key
Southern's automatic route is open to key Smartcard holders who sign up in their account. Other tickets, paper or e-ticket, go through the form with the ticket number or a photo of the ticket. Pay as you go journeys on Oyster or contactless need a print-out of the journey history from the TfL account, showing where you touched in and out and the fare charged.
One group, four brands, one set of figures
Southern, Thameslink, Great Northern and Gatwick Express are run by Govia Thameslink Railway, now under public ownership. The Office of Rail and Road reports the group, not each brand, so the figures below cover all four. In April 2025 to March 2026, the group received 1,049,559 claims, approved 80.6% of those closed and closed 99.9% within 20 working days. For April 2026 to March 2027, the provisional figures for the first 4 periods show 80.1% approved (ORR Table 4410).
If your journey used more than one operator, claim only from the one that caused the delay; Southern's page says you cannot claim from every company on the route. A missed connection is covered when you held a through ticket and left the connection time the timetable allows. The 15-minute threshold page compares Southern with operators that only pay from 30 minutes.