Ferry delay compensation, band by band

A late ferry pays on a fixed table, in the same shape as train Delay Repay: a share of the fare, set by how long the crossing was meant to take and how late you arrived. It is a formula rather than a favour, and almost nobody publishes it in a form you can use. Here it is.

By Andrey · Updated August 2026 · 6 min read

What the ferry rules cover

Ferry passengers have a compensation right that works like Delay Repay on the railway: a fixed share of the fare, set by two things only. How long the crossing was scheduled to take, and how late you arrived.

The rules cover scheduled passenger services leaving a UK port, on any operator, and services arriving at a UK port where a UK operator runs them.

A few things sit outside. Very small vessels certified to carry up to 12 passengers, ships with a crew of three or fewer, crossings of under 500 metres one way, and sightseeing or excursion trips are all excluded. Cruises leaving a UK port keep the assistance rights but not the compensation.

At a glance

Worth: 25% or 50% of the fare
Starts at: 1 hour late on a crossing under 4 hours
Meals and hotel from: 90 minutes of departure delay
Accommodation cap: £70 a night, up to 3 nights
Deadline to complain: 2 months from the sailing
Paid within: 1 month of your request

What a delay pays

The table below is the whole scheme. The 50% column is simply double the delay in the 25% column, which is why the two move together as crossings get longer.

UK ferry delay compensation: the arrival delay that triggers 25% and 50% of the ticket price, by scheduled crossing length
Scheduled crossing length	25% of the fare from	50% of the fare from
Up to 4 hours	1 hour late	More than 2 hours late
More than 4, up to 8 hours	2 hours late	More than 4 hours late
More than 8, up to 24 hours	3 hours late	More than 6 hours late
More than 24 hours	6 hours late	More than 12 hours late

Lateness is measured on arrival at your destination, not on departure. The 25% band starts at the stated delay; the 50% band starts once the delay passes double it. An operator may set a minimum of £5 and refuse to pay below that. Payment is due within one month of your request, in money rather than vouchers unless you agree otherwise.

The percentage does not move with the cause. Unlike a flight claim, where most of the argument is about whether the airline is off the hook, a ferry operator has one narrow escape route, covered further down.

Work out your own crossing

Pick the scheduled length, put in how late you arrived and what you paid.

Work it out

What your crossing is worth

Three inputs, no email needed. The percentages and the thresholds come straight from the ferry rules, not from operator policy.

How long was the crossing scheduled to take?

Scheduled time, not actual. A crossing of exactly four hours sits in the first band; each band after that starts above its lower figure.

How late did you arrive?

Measured on arrival at your destination, not on departure.

hoursminutes

What did the ticket cost?

Result

£22.50, which is 25% of the fare

A crossing scheduled to take up to 4 hours pays 25% from 1 hour late, and 50% once the delay passes 2 hours. You arrived 2 hours late. Another 1 minute and it would have doubled.

Estimate only. The operator can refuse compensation where it proves the delay was caused by weather endangering safe operation, or by extraordinary circumstances it could not have avoided.

Returns are worked out on half the fare

This is where the arithmetic catches people out. Where the ticket is a return, compensation for a delay on either direction is calculated against half the price paid.

So a £90 return on a three-hour crossing that arrives 70 minutes late pays a quarter of £45, which is £11.25. Not a quarter of £90.

What else you are owed

Money is only part of it, and the rest is triggered earlier. Once departure is delayed or cancelled by more than 90 minutes, two further duties apply, whatever happens to your arrival time.

Food. Free snacks, meals or refreshments in reasonable relation to how long you are waiting, where they can reasonably be supplied.

A bed, if it comes to that. Where the delay forces an overnight stay, the operator must provide accommodation on board or ashore, plus transport to and from it. It may cap the accommodation at £70 a night for up to three nights. Transport to the hotel does not count against that cap.

A refund or a rerouting. At the same 90 minute mark you get a choice: travel to your destination at no extra cost at the earliest opportunity, or take the fare back plus a free trip to where you started. Refunds are due within seven days.

When weather lets the operator off

Weather is the one defence that works on a ferry, and it is narrower than it sounds. Where the operator proves the delay or cancellation was caused by weather endangering the safe operation of the ship, it does not have to pay the 25% or 50%, and it does not have to pay for your hotel.

It still has to feed you. And the refund-or-rerouting choice is not weather-exempt at all.

So a storm-cancelled sailing looks like this: no compensation, no hotel bill, but food while you wait and either your money back or a place on the next crossing. Compensation is also excused by extraordinary circumstances the operator could not have avoided even with all reasonable measures.

How to claim, and the deadlines

Claim with the operator. There is no central portal, and no regulator that will hand you the money.

You have two months from the date of the sailing to put the complaint in. The operator then has one month to tell you whether it is upheld, rejected or still being looked at, and two months from receiving it to give you a final answer. Compensation itself is payable within one month of your request.

If the operator refuses and you think it is wrong, the next step for England and Wales is ABTA, which the Department for Transport has appointed as a voluntary complaint-handling body for ferries. The address is ferry@abta.co.uk. Cruise complaints go to the cruise line association instead, and Northern Ireland has its own Consumer Council. These bodies negotiate with the operator. They cannot order it to pay.

Behind them sits the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which enforces the rules against operators. It does not decide individual claims or act as an appeal body for your money, so treat it as the backstop rather than the route.

Where each operator takes claims

Checked in August 2026. Forms move, so if a link is dead, the operator's customer service page is the fallback.

Where UK ferry operators take delay and cancellation claims, and what each states about its own process
Operator	Where to claim	Worth knowing
Stena Line	Contact form, query type "Claim"	Accepts claims up to 12 months after the intended departure, which is far longer than the two month complaint window in the rules.
DFDS	Customer request form	Asks for claims within two months of the scheduled departure. Their passenger rights overview sets out the same duties described above.
Condor Ferries	Disrupted service claim form (PDF)	Condor states its accommodation cap as €80 per person per night. The UK figure in the rules is £70 per night. Worth asking which they apply before you count on a number.
Wightlink	Compensation form	You need to have checked in at least 30 minutes before the sailing, or 15 minutes as a foot passenger. Their published 25% and 50% bands match the rules rather than beating them.
Red Funnel	Service disruption claims	Aims to respond within five working days and pay within 30 days. Unresolved cases go to ABTA, which is their nominated complaint-handling body.
Caledonian MacBrayne	Passenger rights and claim form	Two months to submit. Their own page states that commercial vehicle and coach tickets fall outside these protections.
Brittany Ferries	General ferry terms	We could not find a dedicated delay or cancellation claim form. Their terms carry a rerouting and reimbursement clause mirroring the rules, and contact runs through their existing bookings mailbox.
Irish Ferries	Terms and conditions	No dedicated claim form found for UK-departing sailings. For sailings leaving Ireland, the Irish transport authority runs its own maritime complaints form.
P&O Ferries	Ask customer service for the complaints policy	Their complaints page exists and refers to the ferry rules, but we could not open it to check what it says, so we are not linking a page we have not read.

Where an operator's own window is longer than the rules require, use theirs. Where it is shorter, the two month complaint window in the rules is the one that binds them.

If the same trip involved a train or a flight, both of those schemes are more generous than this one and both pay on the delay alone. The Delay Repay guide has the thresholds for all 24 train operators, and the UK261 guide has the flight amounts. If you travelled on by coach, read the coach guide before you spend an evening on a claim: most UK coach routes fall outside the equivalent rules entirely.

Sources

The rules described here are the retained Regulation (EU) No 1177/2010 as amended for the UK. The specific provisions: Article 2 for scope, Article 17 for meals and accommodation, Article 18 for rerouting and reimbursement, Article 19 for the compensation table, Article 20 for the weather and open-ticket exemptions, and Article 24 for the complaint deadlines. Enforcement and the complaint-handling bodies come from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency's MGN 504 and the gov.uk maritime passenger rights collection.

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Questions readers ask

The ship left two hours late but tied up on time. Anything?

Not from the compensation table, which is measured on arrival at your destination. The other duties are measured on departure, so a delay of more than 90 minutes leaving port still owed you food while you waited, and still gave you the choice between a refund and a place on a later sailing.

My sailing was cancelled rather than delayed. Which rules apply?

The refund-or-rerouting choice and the food duty both cover cancellations at the same 90 minute mark. The compensation table is written around arriving late at your destination, so it bites where a cancellation still leaves you arriving late on a later crossing.

Can the operator pay me in vouchers?

Only if you agree to that form. You are entitled to ask for money, and the payment is due within one month of your request.

I hold an open ticket with no fixed sailing. Am I covered?

No, unless you hold a travel pass or a season ticket. Open tickets with no specified departure time sit outside the compensation, the assistance and the refund-or-rerouting rules. The same applies where you were told about the delay before you bought the ticket, or where the delay was your own fault.

The operator says the payout is too small to bother with.

There is a floor. An operator is allowed to set a minimum of £5 and refuse anything below it. On a cheap foot-passenger fare, a quarter of the ticket price can land under that.

Does this apply to a cruise?

Partly. A cruise leaving a UK port keeps the assistance rights, so the meals and the accommodation duty still apply. It does not get the delay compensation or the refund-or-rerouting choice. A delayed cruise departure is a different question from a delayed ferry.

See what else you are owed

See what applies to you

Free with a sign-in, and we never take a percentage. We do not file claims for you either. That part stays yours.

This guide is general information, not legal or financial advice. Read the scheme's own rules before sending a claim. If a number here looks wrong, tell us and we will correct it: how we handle corrections.