Audited 17 July 2026 · By Richard J. · Fees taken from each company's published price list or fee documentation and independent 2026 fee tests, as cited · Worked example: the €600 long-haul EU261 maximum · Fee schedules change — verify at signup
Travel Intelligence · Original Audit · The Ledger
The EU261 Fee Ledger: What Every Claim Company Actually Takes From Your €600
"No win, no fee" is true everywhere and tells you nothing. The fee itself runs from 25% to 44% depending on the company — and that headline number is not the one that matters. When an airline digs in and the claim goes to court, nearly every service adds a legal surcharge that converges the all-in deduction at roughly 50%. This ledger shows what actually lands in your account from a €600 claim, service by service, in both scenarios — settled and litigated — with the verdict on each row.
The ledger
Worked on the €600 long-haul maximum under EU261. "Settled" = the airline pays after the service's demand, no court. "Litigated" = legal proceedings were required. All services below are no-win-no-fee: recover nothing, pay nothing. Gold-edged cards are the routes we recommend; the tick marks the untouched €600.
Claim it yourselfDirect to the airline — free
Always first
Headline fee0%
Keep — settled€600
Keep — litigated€600minus your court costs, time and risk
If the airline pays, nothing beats free. Our step-by-step claim guide takes about twenty minutes. Escalate to a service only if the airline stalls or refuses.
AirHelp35% incl. VAT · +15% if legal action
Best for contested claims
Headline fee35%
Keep — settled€390
Keep — litigated€300
Not the cheapest headline — but the litigated all-in (50%) matches or beats most “cheaper” rivals once their surcharges land, and AirHelp’s court infrastructure across 30+ countries is what a resisting airline actually respects. Fees per its published price list.
Check your flight on AirHelp — free →
AirHelp+ membershipAnnual subscription · 0% fees for members
Best for frequent flyers
Headline fee0% + sub
Keep — settled€600
Keep — litigated€600
Members keep 100% of any compensation — one successful €600 claim saves €210 in fees, several times the membership cost. Code AHTPO11 takes 11% off Smart and Pro tiers until 31 August 2026.
See AirHelp+ tiers →
FlightrightAdvertised 20–30% + 19% VAT · + court surcharge
Cheapest if it settles
Headline fee20–30% + VAT
Keep — settled~€421–€457
Keep — litigated~€302~50% all-in
The best settled-case payout of the full-service agencies — but the advertised band excludes German VAT, and with the court surcharge the litigated all-in reaches ~50% (ClaimFlights’ 2026 fee test computes ~€302 kept of €600). Strong German-court pedigree.
flightright.com →
Compensair~25–30% · +10% if legal action
Lowest litigated cap
Headline fee~25–30%
Keep — settled~€420–€450
Keep — litigated~€360~40% all-in
The one service whose court-case total (~40%) stays clearly under the 50% pack. The trade-off is reach: lighter legal infrastructure than the big two, best suited to straightforward claims on major EU routes.
compensair.com →
ClaimCompass~35%
Simple claims only
Headline fee~35%
Keep — settled~€390
Keep — litigatedvaries
AirHelp’s headline fee without AirHelp’s litigation muscle — reasonable for uncomplicated claims, less suited to airlines that fight. Full head-to-head in our four-way comparison.
AirAdvisor~30% · rises to ~50% with court proceedings
Middle of the pack
Headline fee~30%
Keep — settled~€420
Keep — litigated~€300
A fair settled rate that converges with everyone else at ~50% in court — and 2026 fee tests note its legal-case rate can be quoted excluding VAT, so confirm the all-in before signing.
SkycopFixed-fee schedule ≈ 40–44% incl. VAT · up to ~50% with legal
Priciest settled case
Headline fee~40–44%
Keep — settled~€336–€360
Keep — litigated~€300
The fixed-euro fee model reads as clarity but works out as the highest settled-case deduction in the audit on typical EU261 amounts. Strongest presence on Eastern European routes.
Fee bases: AirHelp per its published price list (35% incl. VAT; 15% legal action fee; AirHelp+ 0%). Flightright, Skycop, AirAdvisor, ClaimCompass and Compensair per their published schedules as computed in independent 2026 fee tests (ClaimFlights test, March 2026; FlightOwed fee comparison, updated March 2026; The Miles Market, June 2026). Approximate figures marked ~; schedules change — verify the all-in at signup.
The finding: headline fees diverge, court fees converge
The market advertises a 25-to-44-point spread and delivers, in the cases that actually need a service, near-uniformity: AirHelp litigated, 50%. Flightright litigated with VAT and surcharge, ~50%. AirAdvisor, ~50%. Skycop, up to ~50%. Only Compensair's ~40% cap clearly undercuts the pack in court. The advertised fee is a marketing number for the easy cases — the ones you could largely have handled yourself for free. The litigated column is the price of the thing you are genuinely buying: someone else's lawyers, someone else's court fees, someone else's patience.
What that implies
Choose a service the way you'd choose a litigator, not a discount code: on enforcement infrastructure in the jurisdiction of your airline, not on three points of headline fee that evaporate the moment the airline says no. And if the airline was never going to say no — claim it yourself and keep all €600.
The rational claiming sequence
1. Check eligibility — two minutes, free
Confirm the disruption qualifies: our EU261 compensation calculator gives the amount, and the extraordinary circumstances guide covers the airline's escape hatches. AirHelp's eligibility checker is free and commits you to nothing.
2. Claim direct — keep 100%
Twenty minutes with our step-by-step template. Give the airline its statutory chance to simply pay. Many do.
3. Escalate on resistance — and pick for the courtroom
Ignored for six weeks, fobbed off with vouchers, or refused on a thin "extraordinary circumstances" claim? That is the moment the 35–50% earns itself. Pick the service with real legal reach against your airline — the full personality comparison is in claims companies vs DIY — and accept that the all-in will be about half, which is still €300 more than an unanswered email.
The 25–44% headline spread is noise. The two numbers that matter: €600 if you claim it yourself and the airline behaves; roughly €300 from almost anyone if it doesn't. Everything between is marketing.
Method and caveats
Worked example uses the €600 EU261 long-haul band (3,500km+, 4-hour+ delay at arrival); the same percentages apply proportionally to the €250 and €400 bands. Fee figures were taken on 17 July 2026 from each company's published price list or fee documentation where available (AirHelp publishes a full price list) and from three independent 2026 fee tests where schedules required computation (ClaimFlights' five-company test, FlightOwed's fee comparison, The Miles Market's June 2026 round-up), which do not agree in every particular — where sources conflicted, we present the range and mark figures approximate. VAT treatment differs by company domicile and claimant residence. No-win-no-fee applies throughout: a failed claim costs nothing anywhere in this table. Fee schedules are commercial decisions and change without notice; the ledger is a dated snapshot, and the signup page is the only binding number.
Frequently asked questions
How much do flight compensation companies charge in 2026?
Headline success fees in 2026 range from roughly 25% to 44% of the compensation recovered. AirHelp and ClaimCompass charge around 35% including VAT; Flightright advertises 20–30% before German VAT; Compensair sits around 25–30%; AirAdvisor around 30%; and Skycop's fixed-fee schedule works out at roughly 40–44% of typical EU261 amounts. The figure that matters more is the court-case total: when a claim requires legal action, most services add a legal surcharge that takes the all-in deduction to approximately 50% — AirHelp reaches 50%, Flightright approximately 50% with VAT and court surcharge, AirAdvisor 50%, and Skycop up to 50%. All operate no-win-no-fee: if nothing is recovered, you pay nothing.
How much of a €600 claim do I keep with AirHelp?
On AirHelp's standard model you keep €390 of a €600 claim if the airline pays without court proceedings — the service fee is 35% of the compensation including VAT, per AirHelp's published price list. If the claim requires legal action, a further 15% legal action fee applies, taking the total deduction to 50% and your payout to €300. AirHelp covers the legal expenses and court fees itself in either outcome. AirHelp+ subscribers are the exception: members pay no service fee and no legal action fee, keeping 100% of the compensation, in exchange for an annual membership fee.
Is it cheaper to claim EU261 compensation myself?
Always — if the airline pays. Claiming directly costs nothing and you keep the full €250, €400 or €600, and for a clearly valid claim against an airline that responds properly, the DIY route is the right first move. The economics change when the airline ignores, stalls or refuses: pursuing the claim then means legal action, and taking an airline to court yourself involves fees, time and procedural risk that most passengers reasonably decline. That is the genuine service the claim companies sell — you are not paying 35% for form-filling, you are paying for their willingness and infrastructure to litigate. The rational sequence: claim direct first, escalate to a service only if the airline resists.
Which flight compensation company has the lowest fees?
On headline rates, the lower-fee tier in 2026 is Compensair at roughly 25–30% and Flightright's advertised 20–30% band — against AirHelp and ClaimCompass at about 35% and Skycop's fixed fees equating to roughly 40–44%. The comparison inverts once legal action enters: Flightright's total with VAT and court surcharge reaches approximately 50%, AirAdvisor and Skycop reach about 50%, and AirHelp reaches exactly 50%. Because contested claims are precisely the cases where a service earns its keep, the court-case column is the honest basis for comparison — and on that column the market has converged near half your compensation almost everywhere.
Do compensation companies charge anything if the claim fails?
No. Every major service in this audit — AirHelp, Flightright, Skycop, ClaimCompass, Compensair and AirAdvisor — operates on a no-win-no-fee basis: if no compensation is recovered, you owe nothing, and the service absorbs its own costs including any court fees it advanced. The commercial consequence is worth understanding: because the services only earn on wins, they screen claims at intake and may decline cases they judge weak or uneconomic to pursue. A rejection by a claim company is a probability judgement about their economics, not a legal ruling that you are owed nothing.
Is AirHelp Plus worth it to avoid the 35% fee?
It is a frequency bet. AirHelp+ members pay no service fee and no legal action fee — they keep 100% of any compensation recovered — in exchange for an annual subscription. On a single successful €600 claim the standard fee would cost €210, several times the membership price, so one qualifying disruption per year makes the subscription profitable. For travellers taking one or two trips a year, the probability-weighted value is thinner, and paying the one-off 35% only when something actually goes wrong is cheaper on expectation. Frequent flyers with tight connections are the profile the membership genuinely favours.
Some links on this page are affiliate links, including links to AirHelp — if you claim through them we may earn a commission at no cost to you. The fee figures and verdicts are independent of that: the ledger's first row tells you to claim for free, where we earn nothing. Fees audited 17 July 2026 against published schedules and cited independent tests; verify at signup.