EU AI Act Enforcement Timeline: Key Deadlines from February 2025 to August 2028
The EU AI Act enters phased enforcement with prohibited practices taking effect February 2025, followed by GPAI governance rules in August 2025 and high-risk system regulations by December 2027.
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The EU AI Act’s Phased Entry into Force
The EU AI Act entered into force on 1 August 2024, establishing the regulatory framework for artificial intelligence across the bloc. However, enforcement takes place in stages, with different provisions applying on different dates.
February 2025: Prohibited Practices and AI Literacy Obligations
Prohibited AI practices and AI literacy obligations will enter into application from 2 February 2025. This marks the first enforcement milestone, addressing immediate harms and establishing baseline literacy requirements across organisations.
Notably, AI systems that generate non-consensual sexually explicit and intimate content or child sexual abuse material are prohibited under the Act.
August 2025: GPAI Governance Rules
The governance rules and the obligations for GPAI (general-purpose AI) models will become applicable on 2 August 2025. The European AI Office’s powers will be reinforced at this stage, with the office gaining centralised oversight of AI systems built on general-purpose AI models.
December 2027: High-Risk AI Systems
Rules for systems used in certain high-risk areas will apply from 2 December 2027. These high-risk applications include biometrics, critical infrastructure, education, employment, migration, asylum, and border control.
August 2028: Integrated AI Systems
For systems integrated into products such as lifts or toys, the rules will apply from 2 August 2028.
Support for SMEs and Innovation
Simplified technical documentation requirements for SMEs and small mid-cap companies are extended under the regulatory framework. Additionally, more innovators will gain access to regulatory sandboxes, including an EU-level sandbox, to support compliance and innovation.
May 2026: AI Act Amendments
A political agreement on the AI Act amendments was reached on 7 May 2026, known as the Digital Omnibus on AI, reflecting evolving policy priorities across the EU Parliament, Council, and European Commission.
Ireland’s Implementation Framework
Ireland will adopt a distributed model of competent authorities for the AI Act, as approved by Government Decisions of 4 March 2025 and 22 July 2025.
A new statutory independent body called the AI Office of Ireland will be established under the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment. The AI Office of Ireland will serve as the Single Point of Contact and central coordinating authority for the implementation and enforcement of the EU AI Act in Ireland.
Developments since publication
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The EU AI Act (Regulation EU 2024/1689) enforcement milestone for Chapter V rules governing General Purpose AI (GPAI) models took binding effect on August 2, 2026. Source
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Under the EU AI Act, models classified as presenting systemic risk are defined by a cumulative compute threshold exceeding 10^25 floating-point operations (FLOPs), as defined under Article 51. Source
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Systemic risk model developers under the EU AI Act must perform mandatory adversarial testing (red-teaming), document and report serious incidents to the European AI Office, ensure advanced cybersecur Source
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Article 50 of the EU AI Act began to apply on August 2, 2026. Source
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The EU AI Act became applicable on 2 August 2026, with certain exceptions. Source
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The EU AI Act prohibits nine specific practices, including social scoring, emotion recognition in workplaces and educational institutions, untargeted scraping of internet or CCTV material to build fac Source
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Ireland's Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Bill 2026 provides for penalties reaching 7% of worldwide turnover for the most serious violations of the EU AI Act. Source
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The EU AI Act entered into force on 1 August 2024 and became applicable on 2 August 2026. Source
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EU AI Act prohibitions on harmful AI practices (items 1–8, including social scoring and real-time remote biometric identification) entered into application from 2 February 2025. Source
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Article 50 of the EU AI Act began applying on 2 August 2026, requiring AI systems that interact directly with people to disclose that users are dealing with AI unless the context makes that obvious. Source
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Certain law enforcement activities are exempt from some of the transparency obligations introduced by Article 50 of the EU AI Act. Source
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Annex III of the EU AI Act classifies certain AI systems used in migration, asylum, and border management as 'high risk', covering tools used for assessing risks, assisting decisions on asylum, visa a Source