Delay Repay rules
Train delay compensation in Great Britain
Independent site, not a train company or claims service. You claim only through your operator’s own form.
Pick the company that ran the late train, your ticket and the minutes late at your destination: the amount, the band and the last day to claim appear at once.
Avanti West Coast would pay
£32
50% of the single fare paid
| Scheme | Delay Repay 15, from 15 min |
| Band applied | 30–59 min |
| From 60 min late | £64 |
| Claim by | 23 November 2026 (28 days left) |
Estimate from the scheme Avanti West Coast publishes, read on 26 October 2026. The operator checks the train you were on and decides the claim.
Train delay compensation in Great Britain is paid by the train company whose service made you late, under a scheme called Delay Repay that almost every operator now runs. It does not depend on the cause: a signal failure, bad weather or a trespasser on the line all count, because the scheme pays for the delay, not for a fault. The amount is a share of the price you paid, set by bands of minutes late at your destination: with most operators a single ticket earns 25% from 15 minutes, 50% from 30 minutes and the full fare from 60 minutes. Underneath every scheme sits the National Rail Conditions of Travel, version 8, in force since 30 July 2026: from 60 minutes late, you are owed at least 50% of the price of the delayed journey, whoever caused it. You claim from the operator, usually online, within 28 days of the journey. The calculator above applies each operator's published bands to your fare.
National minimum against the operator’s scheme
Avanti West Coast pays
£50
| Conditions of Travel minimum | £25 |
| Minimum applies from | 60 min |
| Operator scheme starts at | 15 min |
Schemes and rules read by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method
The three layers of protection
Passengers on the national network are covered by three sets of rules stacked on top of each other. Read from the bottom up, they explain why two people on the same late train can be offered different amounts.
- Your consumer rights. A train ticket is a contract for a service. Under section 49 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the service must be performed with reasonable care and skill. The Conditions of Travel point to this right and say compensation under it is assessed case by case.
- The national minimum. The National Rail Conditions of Travel set a floor in condition 33: from 60 minutes late, at least 50% of the price of a single, or of the return portion that was late. It applies on every operator whatever the cause.
- The operator's own scheme. Each company publishes its Delay Repay terms in its Passenger's Charter. They pay more than the minimum and start earlier, at 15 or 30 minutes.
How the amount is set
Three things decide the figure: the price you paid, the type of ticket, and the band your delay falls in. For a single, the share applies to the fare. For a return, it applies to the whole return fare but each leg counts for half, so a late outward leg alone pays half the single-ticket share. For a season ticket, the operator first divides the season price by a fixed number of journeys to get the value of one trip. The table shows the most common bands on a single fare of £40.
| Minutes late | Share of a single | On a £40 single | Share of a return, per late leg |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 to 29 | 25% | £10 | 12.5% |
| 30 to 59 | 50% | £20 | 25% |
| 60 to 119 | 100% | £40 | 50% |
| 120 or more | 100% | £40 | 100% |
The 120-minute band matters mostly for returns: a two-hour delay on one leg gives back the whole return fare with most companies. Operators that start at 30 minutes, such as CrossCountry, use their own steps, which the calculator reads from their terms.
What does not count
Compensation is about the arrival time of a journey you made. A few cases fall outside it. If you chose to travel earlier to avoid announced disruption, there is no delay to measure. When a strike or engineering work changed the timetable in advance, condition 32 measures the delay against the timetable in force on the day of travel, not against the usual one; our page on strikes and planned disruption works through it. Delays under the threshold of the operator, 15 or 30 minutes, pay nothing, and the national minimum only starts at 60 minutes.
Delay counted on the timetable of the day
Delay that counts
45 min
| Compensation | £9 |
| Late against the normal timetable | 75 min |
| Not counted | 30 min already in the day’s timetable |
From delay to money in four steps
- Note your scheduled and actual arrival times at your destination, and keep the ticket or a photo of it.
- Claim on the website or app of the operator that made you late, within 28 days of the journey. Our time limit page gives the exact date.
- Choose how to be paid. The Conditions of Travel require at least one money option, such as a bank transfer or a refund to the card used, so you never have to accept vouchers.
- If the answer is a refusal or a figure that looks wrong, ask the operator to review it, then take it to the Rail Ombudsman, which is free.
The Office of Rail and Road publishes how operators handle claims. Across Great Britain in April 2025 to March 2026, 80.5% of closed claims were approved and 99.4% were closed within 20 working days (ORR Table 4410).
Costs beyond the ticket
Delay Repay gives back part or all of the fare and nothing more. A missed flight, a lost hour of paid work or a taxi home are separate claims: the operator may pay some as a goodwill gesture, and the Consumer Rights Act lets you claim losses that were foreseeable, up to the courts if needed. Our consequential losses page explains what to keep and how to ask.