Delay Repay, operator by operator

Delay Repay is the reason most people eventually get money back from a UK train operator. The rules are fair, the forms are shorter than you think, and the window to claim is generous. Here is the plain version.

By Andrey · Updated August 2026 · 6 min read

What Delay Repay is

Delay Repay is a compensation scheme that pays you when a UK train arrives late. It sits on top of the rights every ticket already gives you and is run by each train operator separately. It pays out regardless of why the train was late. Signal failure, staff shortage, a swan on the line: it all counts.

The scheme is much more generous than the older Passenger's Charter it replaced. The Office of Rail and Road publishes quarterly figures on complaint handling and compensation volumes. Billions of pounds of fares move through the network every year, and a small but meaningful slice of that is refundable when trains run late.

The 15-minute threshold (and why it matters)

Most UK operators now pay from 15 minutes of delay. This is a change from the original 30-minute floor, and it is the single biggest reason ordinary commutes now qualify. A Tuesday where your 18:32 arrives at 18:49 instead of 18:34 is a claim.

Six still sit on the older 30-minute floor, and they are not the ones you would guess: LNER and CrossCountry are on the 30-minute scheme while Chiltern and Northern pay from 15. Checked against each operator's own page on 20 August 2026:

15 minutes: Avanti West Coast, c2c, Chiltern Railways, East Midlands Railway, Gatwick Express, Great Northern, Great Western Railway, Greater Anglia, London Northwestern Railway, Northern, South Western Railway, Southeastern, Southern, Thameslink, TransPennine Express, Transport for Wales, West Midlands Railway.
30 minutes: Caledonian Sleeper, CrossCountry, Hull Trains, LNER, Lumo, ScotRail.

Operators publish their own schedules on their websites. If you travel regularly on the same line, it is worth looking yours up once and writing the threshold down.

Which operators run it

Every UK passenger operator is required to run some form of Delay Repay, and they all take claims through their own website. There is no central portal. You claim from whoever issued the ticket, not whoever ran the late train (although in practice, on a single-operator journey, they are the same).

On a split-operator journey (say, a ticket routed LNER then TransPennine), you claim from the operator named on the ticket, and they handle the rest. If you bought through Trainline or a similar retailer, you still claim through the operator, not the retailer.

Every operator, what they pay from, and where to claim

Most of the network pays from 15 minutes. A handful pay only from 30, which is the single most common reason a claim gets refused.

Operator	Pays from	Deadline	Automatic?	Claim
Avanti West Coast	15 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form
c2c	15 min	28 days	Paid automatically	Claim form
Caledonian Sleeper	30 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form
Chiltern Railways	15 min	28 days	Check when you claim	Claim form
CrossCountry	30 min	28 days	Manual claim only	Claim form
East Midlands Railway	15 min	28 days	Manual claim only	Claim form
Gatwick Express	15 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form
Great Northern	15 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form
Great Western Railway	15 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form
Greater Anglia	15 min	28 days	Manual claim only	Claim form
Hull Trains	30 min	28 days	Manual claim only	Claim form
LNER	30 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form
London Northwestern Railway	15 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form
Lumo	30 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form
Northern Trains	15 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form
ScotRail	30 min	28 days	Manual claim only	Claim form
South Western Railway	15 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form
Southeastern	15 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form
Southern	15 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form
Thameslink	15 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form
TransPennine Express	15 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form
Transport for Wales	15 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form
West Midlands Railway	15 min	28 days	Detected, you confirm	Claim form

"Automatic" almost never means automatic. Only c2c pays without you doing anything, and only on their own smartcard. The Department for Transport puts it plainly: a completely automatic process is "so far only available on c2c Smartcards only". Everywhere else the operator spots the delay and pre-fills the form, but you still have to confirm it, and the email is easy to miss. Nothing arrives if you ignore it.

Tickets bought through Trainline or another retailer are usually outside these schemes even where the operator has one, so those claims stay manual. You still claim from the operator, not the retailer.

We checked every operator directly. The government's own table of who runs what has not been updated since 2023 and is now wrong for six operators: it credits East Midlands Railway and Chiltern with schemes their websites do not describe, and shows nothing for Transport for Wales, West Midlands Railway, London Northwestern, Lumo or Caledonian Sleeper, all of which now run one.

Sources: each operator's published Delay Repay terms; Department for Transport, Rail Delays and Compensation 2025, pages 13 and 25. Checked July 2026. Operators change these, so the claim form is always the final word.

How Delay Repay is calculated

The calculation is the same everywhere, and only two things go into it: how late you arrived at your destination, and the single fare for the journey that was delayed. Not how late the train left, and not what your whole booking cost.

How Delay Repay is calculated: what each band of lateness pays as a share of the single fare
How late you arrived	What you get	On a £30 single	On a £30 return
15 to 29 minutesOnly on operators running the 15 minute scheme	A quarter of the single fare	£7.50	£3.75
30 to 59 minutes	Half the single fare	£15	£7.50
60 to 119 minutes	The whole single fare	£30	£15
120 minutes or moreOperators vary most here	At least the whole single fare. Some operators pay the full return where you held one, so check yours	£30	£15 or more

On a return, the single fare is treated as half the return, which is why the return column is half the single column. The top band is the one operators word differently, so we quote the floor rather than the best case: you will not get less than this, and you may get more.

A worked example, because the halving is where people get it wrong. You paid £30 for a return, so each leg counts as £15. Your outbound arrived 35 minutes late. That is the 30 to 59 band, which pays half the single fare, so half of £15. You are owed £7.50.

Season-ticket holders are calculated differently again: you get a pro-rated daily value of the ticket rather than a share of a fare, worked out with a published formula. Per claim the numbers are small. They add up if you commute.

Open returns and flexible tickets

An open return is still a return, so the same halving applies and the delayed leg is assessed on half the total. The wrinkle is proof: with an open return there is no booked train, so the operator works from the service you actually travelled on. Keep the ticket and note the departure you took.

Flexible season tickets and carnets sit between the two. Operators generally divide the cost by the number of journeys the ticket allows and treat that as the single fare.

The time limit

28 days from the date of the journey is the standard across the national scheme, and it is the deadline most people miss because nothing reminds you.

A handful of operators allow longer, and a few will consider a late claim if you explain the delay in claiming. Neither is something to rely on. If you are inside 28 days the claim is routine; outside it you are asking for a favour.

How to claim

You need four things: the date of travel, the scheduled and actual times, the booking reference or ticket image, and your bank details for the refund. Most operators accept the claim online. A few still prefer post, which you can ignore: use the online form.

The claim takes about five minutes if you have the booking confirmation email open. Payouts usually arrive within two to four weeks, by the same method you paid (card refund or bank transfer).

Deadlines and record-keeping

You have 28 days from the date of travel. Every operator on the list above publishes the same window, so there is no longer deadline to fall back on. If you miss it, the claim is gone. It is worth filing within a week if you can, because you will still remember the journey detail if the form asks for it.

Keep the booking confirmation. A screenshot of the timetable on the day (from Realtime Trains) is a nice-to-have if there is any dispute about the actual arrival time, but operators can usually see their own data.

Things the forms do not tell you

A few small things that trip people up:

A cancellation counts as a delay for the purpose of Delay Repay. You claim based on how long the next available train took you. You do not need to prove you took that specific train.
If you abandoned the trip entirely because of the delay, you are entitled to a full refund instead of compensation. The operator's refund form is separate from the Delay Repay form. Do not use both for the same journey.
Advance tickets are still covered. A common myth is that cheap tickets are not refundable. Advance tickets cannot be changed or refunded for ordinary reasons, but Delay Repay is not an ordinary reason: the scheme pays on any valid ticket.
You can claim for everyone on the booking if you paid for the whole group. Operators ask for the number of passengers on the form. This is how they calculate the payout.

That is the whole scheme. It is less complicated than it looks, and the money does land. If you travel by train more than once a month, a twenty-minute audit of the last 28 days is usually worth doing.

Sources

The compensation and refund rights every rail ticket carries, from the rail regulator. Office of Rail and Road, rail passenger compensation and refund rights
The quarterly figures behind the claim counts, published per operator. Office of Rail and Road data portal, delay compensation claims
The contract you enter into when you buy a ticket. National Rail Conditions of Travel
Free and independent, and where an unresolved complaint goes after the operator has had its 40 working days. Rail Ombudsman
The independent watchdog behind the passenger research on how many people claim. Transport Focus
Every threshold and claim window above was checked against the operator's own published page on 20 August 2026. Each operator's claim link sits on its own page in this directory.

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Questions readers ask

Can I claim on a season ticket?

Yes. Operators use a published daily-value formula to pro-rate the compensation against your season. The payout per claim is smaller than a single-ticket claim, but season holders tend to make a lot more of them over a year.

The train was cancelled, not delayed. Does the scheme still apply?

Yes. A cancellation is treated as a delay for Delay Repay. You claim based on how much later you arrived on the next available service. You do not need to prove you took a specific replacement train.

I used split tickets. Who do I claim from?

Each leg is claimed separately from the operator named on that leg's ticket. It is a little more paperwork than a single-ticket claim, but the total payout is usually higher because each segment qualifies on its own threshold.

Does it still work if I booked through Trainline?

Yes. Trainline is a retailer, not an operator. You claim from whichever operator is named on the ticket, not from the app you bought it in. The booking reference on your Trainline confirmation is the one operators ask for.

How long does payment usually take?

Most operators pay within two to four weeks, back to the card or bank account used to buy the ticket. A few default to rail vouchers and a few to bank transfer, and most let you choose at the point of claim.

I threw the ticket away. Can I still claim?

Often yes, if you bought online. The booking confirmation email, the app receipt, or a line on your bank statement is usually enough. You lose the option on cash-bought paper tickets with no record, which is a good reason to keep things digital where possible.

Check a booking you already have

Free with a sign-in, and we never take a percentage. The claim goes to the operator and 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.