Fines under the AI Act: Article 99 and the action that follows each tier

What the obligation asks for

Art. 99 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 sets the frame within which a Member State authority penalises an operator. Art. 99(1) requires each Member State to lay down the rules on penalties and other enforcement measures, which may include administrative fines, warnings and non-monetary measures, for any infringement of the Regulation by operators, and to take the interests and economic viability of SMEs, start-ups and SMCs into account when imposing them. Art. 99(2) requires each Member State to notify those rules to the Commission by the date of entry into application. Art. 99(3), 99(4) and 99(5) set three Union-level ceilings, one per class of conduct, each with the rule that the fixed amount or the turnover percentage applies, whichever is higher. Art. 99(6) reverses that rule for an SME, including a start-up: each fine is capped at whichever of the two is lower. Art. 99(6a) applies the same lower-of rule to an SMC for the second and third tiers. Art. 3(14a) defines an SME by reference to the Annex to Recommendation 2003/361/EC, and Art. 3(14b) defines an SMC by reference to the Annex to Recommendation (EU) 2025/1099. Art. 99(7) lists the circumstances an authority weighs when deciding whether to fine and how much: (a) the nature, gravity and duration of the infringement and its consequences, including the number of affected persons and the level of damage; (b) and (c) fines already applied to the same operator by other authorities for the same conduct; (d) the size, annual turnover and market share of the operator; (e) other aggravating or mitigating factors such as financial benefit gained; (f) the degree of cooperation with the national competent authorities; (g) the degree of responsibility in view of the technical and organisational measures implemented; (h) the manner in which the infringement became known, in particular whether the operator notified it; (i) intent or negligence; (j) action taken to mitigate harm. Art. 99(8) leaves the extent to which fines apply to public authorities and bodies to each Member State, Art. 99(9) allows a Member State to have its courts impose the fines, Art. 99(10) requires judicial remedies and due process, and Art. 99(11) requires each Member State to report its fines to the Commission every year. Art. 100 gives the European Data Protection Supervisor the fining power over Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies.

Art. 101 is a separate power. Art. 88(1) gives the Commission exclusive powers to supervise and enforce Chapter V, so no Member State authority fines a provider of a general-purpose AI model for a Chapter V infringement. Art. 101(1) allows the Commission to fine a provider of a general-purpose AI model that intentionally or negligently infringed the relevant provisions, failed to comply with a request for documents or information under Art. 91 or supplied incorrect, incomplete or misleading information, failed to comply with a measure requested under Art. 93, or refused access to the model for an evaluation under Art. 92. Art. 101(1) requires the Commission to take into account commitments made under Art. 93(3) or in a code of practice under Art. 56, Art. 101(2) requires it to communicate its preliminary findings and give the provider an opportunity to be heard before any decision, and Art. 101(5) gives the Court of Justice unlimited jurisdiction to cancel, reduce or increase the fine. Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 entered into force on the twentieth day after publication, as recorded in the regulation data 2024-08-01In force, and applies in stages under Art. 113. Art. 113(b) applies Chapter XII, which holds Art. 99 to Art. 101, from the same date as the Chapter V duties on general-purpose AI models 2025-08-02In force, with the exception of Art. 101, which applies from the general application date 2026-08-02In force. A tier attaches to a provision only once that provision applies: the Art. 16 provider duties and the Art. 26 deployer duties for an Annex III system apply from the Annex III date 2027-12-02Deferred, the Art. 50 transparency duties from the Art. 50 date 2026-08-02In force, and the inserted Art. 5 prohibitions from their own date 2026-12-02Deferred.

Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 amended Art. 99, and the consolidated text on EUR-Lex, consolidated as of the Omnibus entry-into-force date 2026-07-27In force, marks three changes: Art. 99(1) is replaced, and now names administrative fines among the Member State measures, covers any infringement rather than infringements, and adds SMCs to the interests a Member State weighs; Art. 99(4)(da) is inserted, and adds the obligations of providers and operators under Art. 25(2) and 25(4) to the second tier; and Art. 99(6a) is inserted with the SMC lower-of rule. The Omnibus also inserted Art. 75(1) and Art. 75c: for the AI systems in Art. 75(1), which are systems based on a general-purpose AI model where the model and the system come from the same provider or the same undertaking, with the exceptions in Art. 75(1)(a), and the systems in Art. 75(1)(b), the AI Office is exclusively competent, and Art. 75c(4) allows its non-compliance decision to be accompanied by penalties under Art. 99(3) to 99(7), applied mutatis mutandis, with the Art. 99(4) fine for infringement of any applicable provision, including those not listed in Art. 99(4), and the Art. 99(5) fine for incorrect, incomplete or misleading information supplied to the AI Office; the regulation entry for the Commission's enforcement powers records the change. The three ceilings in Art. 99(3), 99(4) and 99(5), the higher-of rule, the Art. 99(6) SME rule and the Art. 99(7) criteria carry no amendment mark, and Art. 101 carries none. The Omnibus moved application dates and left the penalty amounts as adopted. The table states each ceiling once, as the Act writes it, with the market surveillance step that precedes or accompanies the fine.

Art. 99(3) to 99(5) name the provisions with a Union ceiling. An infringement of a provision outside those lists, for example the fundamental rights impact assessment under Art. 27 or the literacy duty under Art. 4, falls under the rules each Member State lays down under Art. 99(1), which since Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 expressly cover any infringement and may include administrative fines; the ceiling for such an infringement is a matter of national law, and the operator reads the notified rules of the Member State whose authority acts. For an operator within the AI Office's exclusive competence under Art. 75(1), Art. 75c(4)(a) places the infringement of any applicable provision, including those not listed in Art. 99(4), in the Art. 99(4) tier.

The steps that precede a fine sit in Art. 74 to Art. 85, of which Art. 113(b) applies only Art. 78 earlier, apply from the general application date. Art. 74(1) extends Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 to AI systems, Art. 74(12) requires the provider to grant the market surveillance authority full access to the documentation and to the training, validation and testing data sets, and Art. 74(13) adds access to the source code on a reasoned request when it is necessary to assess conformity with Chapter III Section 2 and the procedures based on the data and documentation supplied have been exhausted or proved insufficient. Art. 21(1) requires the provider to give a competent authority, on a reasoned request, all the information and documentation necessary to demonstrate conformity with Chapter III Section 2, and Art. 21(2) extends the request to the logs under the provider's control. Art. 79(2) requires the authority that has sufficient reason to consider a system to present a risk to evaluate it against all the requirements and obligations of the Regulation, and, where the system does not meet them, to require the operator to take corrective action, withdraw the system or recall it within a period the authority prescribes, and in any event within the shorter of fifteen working days or the period in the relevant Union harmonisation legislation. Art. 79(5) requires provisional measures that prohibit, restrict, withdraw or recall the system on the national market where the operator does not act within that period. Art. 80 runs the same evaluation on a system the provider classified as not high-risk under Art. 6(3). Art. 82 covers a system that meets the Regulation and still presents a risk, and Art. 83(1) lists the formal findings, from a missing CE marking to technical documentation that is not available, on which the authority orders the provider to end the non-compliance within a period it prescribes. Art. 85 gives any natural or legal person with grounds to consider that an infringement occurred the right to lodge a complaint with a market surveillance authority, and the authority takes the complaint into account in its market surveillance activities. The scenario on the first information request gives the assembly sequence for the file those steps read.

Inputs

• The consolidated text of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 on EUR-Lex, read for Art. 99, Art. 101 and Art. 74 to Art. 85.
• The letter, request or order received: the authority, the legal basis it cites, the systems and versions it names, the period it sets.
• The classification memo per system: the operator role (provider, deployer, importer, distributor, authorised representative, general-purpose AI model provider) and the Art. 6 basis, since each Art. 99(4) point attaches to a role.
• The basis on which the organisation claims SME, start-up or SMC status under Art. 3(14a) or Art. 3(14b), or the statement that it claims none.
• The technical documentation under Art. 11 and Annex IV, the quality management system documentation under Art. 17, the logs under Art. 12 and the retention configuration under Art. 19 or Art. 26(6).
• The register of corrective actions under Art. 20(1) and the serious incident reports under Art. 73.
• The rules on penalties notified by the Member State of the acting authority under Art. 99(2), and the market surveillance authority list published under Art. 70(2).
• A shell with python and a CSV reader for the readiness checklist.

Procedure

The procedure is the sequence an operator follows from the first contact by an authority to the point where a fine is decided. Each step cites the article it derives from, and record names the document the organisation holds at that step. The YAML tier table and the CSV checklist follow the steps they belong to. Every organisation name, system, version, path and status in the examples is synthetic.

1. Record how the authority's action started and which article it cites.

   Record Trigger record: the source of the authority's action (complaint under Art. 85, own initiative, deployer notification under Art. 26(5)), the article cited and the receipt stamp

   [Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 85 and Art. 74(1) with Regulation (EU) 2019/1020]

2. Classify each request as documentation, data set, log or source code access and record its legal basis.

   Record Request register: request type, legal basis, systems and versions named, language indicated, period set, and for source code the two Art. 74(13) conditions as stated by the authority

   [Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 21(1), 21(2), Art. 74(12) and 74(13)]

3. Verify every statement in the reply against a record before it is sent. Mark a statement with no record as a gap.

   Record Reply verification record: each statement in the reply mapped to the document and version that supports it

   [Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 99(5)]

4. Assemble the file for an evaluation against every requirement and obligation of the Regulation, not only the article named.

   Record Evidence pack index with version and hash per file, covering every requirement and obligation the evaluation can reach, and the Art. 6(4) assessment record for a system classified under Art. 6(3)

   [Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 79(2) first subparagraph and Art. 80(1)]

5. On a corrective action order, record the period the authority prescribed and the action chosen for each finding.

   Record Corrective action plan: the order, the period prescribed, the choice between corrective action, withdrawal and recall, and the owner per action

   [Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 79(2) second subparagraph]

6. Extend the corrective action to every system concerned on the Union market and inform the operators in the supply chain.

   Record Corrective action notification record: each system concerned on the Union market, and each distributor, deployer, authorised representative and importer informed

   [Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 79(4) and Art. 20(1)]

7. Check the formal findings of Art. 83(1) and close each within the period the authority prescribed.

   Record Formal conformity checklist: CE marking under Art. 48, EU declaration of conformity under Art. 47, registration under Art. 71, authorised representative where applicable, technical documentation available, each with its status and closure record

   [Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 83(1)(a) to (g) and Art. 83(2)]

8. Map each alleged infringement to its Art. 99 tier and record the evidence held for Art. 99(7)(f), (g), (h) and (j).

   Record Tier mapping and Art. 99(7) factor record: the provision infringed, the tier it sits in, and the evidence the organisation holds for points (f), (g), (h) and (j)

   [Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 99(3), 99(4), 99(5) and 99(7)]

9. Record the size status the organisation claims and the basis for the claim.

   Record Enterprise size status record: SME, start-up, SMC or none, with the basis under the Annex to Recommendation 2003/361/EC or the Annex to Recommendation (EU) 2025/1099

   [Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 99(6), 99(6a), Art. 3(14a) and Art. 3(14b)]

10. For a general-purpose AI model, record the Commission's preliminary findings and reply within the opportunity to be heard.

    Record Preliminary findings reply record: the Commission's preliminary findings, the reply within the hearing, the Art. 93(3) commitments and code of practice commitments cited

    [Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 101(1), 101(2) and 101(5)]

11. Record the remedy available against each measure and each fine, and the period within which it runs.

    Record Remedies record: the judicial remedy and the procedural safeguard available against each measure and fine, with the period for each

    [Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, Art. 99(10) and Art. 79(2) with Art. 18 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1020]

Example for steps 8 and 9. The file below encodes the four tiers as data, so the tier mapping is produced from one source and the ceilings are never retyped in a reply. The ceilings and rules are copied from Art. 99 and Art. 101 of the consolidated text; the operator, system, version, size status and mapping at the bottom are synthetic.

# Synthetic example: art-99-tiers.yaml for demo-hiring 2.4.0, a synthetic provider record.
# The ceiling and rule strings are copied from Art. 99 and Art. 101 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689;
# every other value is an input of this example.
operator: demo-hiring
system: demo-hiring-screening
version: "2.4.0"
role: provider                       # provider | deployer | importer | distributor | authorised-representative | gpai-provider
size_status: SMC                     # SME | SMC | none; basis Art. 3(14a) or Art. 3(14b)
tiers:
  - tier: first
    article: "Art. 99(3)"
    conduct: "non-compliance with the prohibition of the AI practices in Art. 5"
    ceiling: "Art. 99(3): up to 35 000 000 euro or, if the offender is an undertaking, up to 7 % of total worldwide annual turnover for the preceding financial year"
    rule: "whichever is higher under Art. 99(3); whichever is lower for an SME or start-up under Art. 99(6); no SMC rule for this tier"
    imposed_by: "Member State authority or court, Art. 99(1) and 99(9)"
    follows: "Art. 79(2) evaluation and corrective action, withdrawal or recall order; Art. 79(5) provisional measures if the operator does not act"
  - tier: second
    article: "Art. 99(4)"
    conduct: "non-compliance with Art. 16, Art. 22, Art. 23, Art. 24, Art. 25(2) and (4), Art. 26, Art. 31, Art. 33(1), (3) and (4), Art. 34 or Art. 50"
    ceiling: "Art. 99(4): up to 15 000 000 euro or, if the offender is an undertaking, up to 3 % of total worldwide annual turnover for the preceding financial year"
    rule: "whichever is higher under Art. 99(4); whichever is lower for an SME or start-up under Art. 99(6) and for an SMC under Art. 99(6a)"
    imposed_by: "Member State authority or court, Art. 99(1) and 99(9)"
    follows: "Art. 79(2) corrective action order within the prescribed period; Art. 83(1) order to end a formal non-compliance; Art. 79(5) or Art. 83(2) restriction, prohibition, withdrawal or recall if it persists"
  - tier: third
    article: "Art. 99(5)"
    conduct: "incorrect, incomplete or misleading information to a notified body or a national competent authority in reply to a request"
    ceiling: "Art. 99(5): up to 7 500 000 euro or, if the offender is an undertaking, up to 1 % of total worldwide annual turnover for the preceding financial year"
    rule: "whichever is higher under Art. 99(5); whichever is lower for an SME or start-up under Art. 99(6) and for an SMC under Art. 99(6a)"
    imposed_by: "Member State authority or court, Art. 99(1) and 99(9)"
    follows: "corrected reply to the Art. 21(1) or Art. 74(12) request; the Art. 79(2) evaluation the request served"
  - tier: gpai
    article: "Art. 101(1)"
    conduct: "a general-purpose AI model provider that infringed the relevant provisions, failed an Art. 91 request or supplied incorrect, incomplete or misleading information, failed an Art. 93 measure, or refused Art. 92 model access"
    ceiling: "Art. 101(1), outside Art. 99: not exceeding 3 % of annual total worldwide turnover in the preceding financial year or 15 000 000 euro"
    rule: "whichever is higher under Art. 101(1); the Art. 99(6) and 99(6a) rules have no counterpart"
    imposed_by: "the Commission, Art. 101(1), after preliminary findings and a hearing under Art. 101(2)"
    follows: "Art. 93 measure or Art. 92 evaluation; Court of Justice review under Art. 101(5)"
mapping:                             # synthetic: the alleged infringement mapped to its tier
  - alleged: "instructions for use omit the accuracy metrics under Art. 13(3)(b)(ii)"
    provision: "Art. 16(a) with Art. 13"
    tier: second
    art_99_7_evidence:
      f_cooperation: "request register and reply verification record"
      g_measures: "quality management system documentation under Art. 17 and the Annex IV set"
      h_notification: "none; the finding came from an Art. 85 complaint"
      j_mitigation: "corrective action plan with the revised instructions for use"

Example for steps 2 to 4. The checklist below has one row per request type an authority can make, the article that grounds it, what the authority reads, the document the organisation holds, where it sits and whether it is ready. The organisation, the paths and the statuses are synthetic; the articles are not.

request_type,legal_basis,what_the_authority_reads,document_held,location,version,ready
documentation,"Art. 21(1); Art. 74(12)",technical documentation that demonstrates conformity with Chapter III Section 2,Annex IV technical documentation set,evidence/annex-iv/,2.4.0,yes
training validation and testing data sets,"Art. 74(12)",the data sets and their governance records under Art. 10,dataset documentation and bias examination results,evidence/art-10/,2.4.0,yes
logs,"Art. 21(2); Art. 12(1)",automatically generated logs under the provider's control,decision reconstruction record and log retention policy,evidence/art-12/,2.4.0,partial
source code,"Art. 74(13)(a) and (b)",the source code once data and documentation procedures are exhausted or insufficient,source access procedure with the two Art. 74(13) conditions recorded,evidence/access/,2.4.0,no
not-high-risk assessment,"Art. 6(4); Art. 80(1)",the documented Art. 6(3) assessment under Art. 6(4),Art. 6(3) assessment record,evidence/art-6/,2.4.0,yes
fundamental rights authority request,"Art. 77(1)",documentation in an accessible language and format,Annex IV set with the accessible-format export,evidence/annex-iv/export/,2.4.0,partial
formal findings,"Art. 83(1)(a) to (g)",CE marking; EU declaration of conformity; registration; authorised representative; technical documentation availability,formal conformity checklist,evidence/formal/,2.4.0,yes
corrective action order,"Art. 79(2); Art. 20(1)",the corrective action taken across every system concerned,corrective action plan and notification record,evidence/art-20/,2.4.0,no
deployer notification,"Art. 26(5)",the deployer's notice of a risk within the meaning of Art. 79(1) and the suspension of use,deployer notification record,evidence/art-26/,2.4.0,yes

A row with ready set to no or partial is a gap that the Art. 99(5) tier reaches if the reply describes the document as existing; the reply states the gap and the step that closes it.

A pitfall that vendor documentation omits

Governance dashboards present the Art. 99 ceilings as the first line of an AI Act page and the fine as the event to prepare for. The Regulation orders the events the other way round. The authority's first act under Art. 74(12) is to read: it has full access to the documentation and the data sets, and under Art. 21(1) the provider supplies, on a reasoned request, all the information and documentation necessary to demonstrate conformity. Its second act under Art. 79(2) is to evaluate the system against all the requirements and obligations of the Regulation, not only the one the complaint or the request named, and to order corrective action, withdrawal or recall within a prescribed period. Its third act under Art. 79(5), or under Art. 83(2) for a formal finding, is a measure on the market: prohibition, restriction, withdrawal or recall. The fine under Art. 99 sits beside or after that sequence, and Art. 99(7)(f), (g), (h) and (j) require the authority to weigh the degree of cooperation, the technical and organisational measures implemented, whether the operator itself notified the infringement, and the action taken to mitigate harm. Each of those four points is answered by a document the operator either holds before the request or does not: the request register, the quality management system documentation under Art. 17, the corrective action register under Art. 20(1) and the serious incident reports under Art. 73. The technical file under Art. 11 and Annex IV is what the authority reads at the first step and what it evaluates at the second, so its state on the day of the request is what the first two acts examine; the guide on assembling the Annex IV documentation gives its structure.

The second omission concerns the reply itself. Art. 99(5) places incorrect, incomplete or misleading information supplied to a notified body or a national competent authority in reply to a request in a tier of its own, and Art. 101(1)(b) does the same for a general-purpose AI model provider answering the Commission. A reply assembled from what the organisation believes about its system rather than from its records is the exposure a dashboard does not show, because the dashboard tracks the obligations and not the statements made about them. Art. 80 adds a third omission for an organisation that filtered a system out of Annex III under Art. 6(3): the authority evaluates the classification itself against the Art. 6(3) conditions and the guidelines under Art. 6(5), and Art. 6(4) requires the provider to hand over the documented assessment on request, so an Art. 6(3) decision recorded as a sentence in a register is the first document read and the first finding made. Art. 99 sets no threshold of its own for any of this: the ceilings are maxima, Art. 99(7) governs the amount, and Art. 99(1) leaves every other measure to the notified rules of the Member State.

What the result shows and what it does not

The tier table, the Art. 99(7) factor record and the readiness checklist show which provision list an alleged conduct sits in, which Union ceiling and which rule apply to the operator's role and size status, which document answers each request type an authority can make, and where that document is. They do not show whether an infringement exists, which is the finding of the Art. 79(2) evaluation; they do not show the amount of any fine, which a Member State authority or court sets under Art. 99(7) and 99(9) and which the Commission sets under Art. 101(1); and they do not show the measures a Member State adds under Art. 99(1), which are read from that Member State's notified rules. Nothing in this guide is a legal opinion on liability, on classification or on the reply to an authority; those remain with the provider or deployer and their counsel. The classification and readiness assessment service produces the classification memo, the obligation register with applicability dates from the regulation data and the gap list that the request register and the checklist draw on, within the limits stated on what we cannot do, and each deliverable type is specified with a synthetic sample on the deliverables page. Every protocol on the site is on the methodology index; this guide uses none, because the sequence derives from the articles alone.

Related pages

The related guides on the technical file the authority reads and on the role that decides which Art. 99(4) point applies, and the hubs for the two roles this guide serves, are listed below; the scenario on the first information request gives the assembly sequence for the file.

Related guides

• Annex IV of the AI Act: assembling the technical documentation
• Provider vs deployer under the AI Act

ICP hubs

• Annex III providers
• Enterprises

Questions

+−What does AI Act Article 99 set out?

Art. 99 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 sets the penalty framework. Art. 99(1) requires each Member State to lay down rules on penalties for any infringement by operators. Art. 99(3) to 99(5) set three Union ceilings by class of conduct, each a fixed amount or a turnover share, whichever is higher. Art. 99(6) applies the lower of the two for SMEs and start-ups in every tier; Art. 99(6a) applies it for SMCs in the Art. 99(4) and 99(5) tiers. Art. 99(7) lists the circumstances that decide the fine and its amount.

+−How are EU AI Act fines set and who imposes them?

A Member State authority, or a national court where Art. 99(9) so provides, imposes fines on operators under the rules notified under Art. 99(2), within the Art. 99 ceilings. For the AI systems in Art. 75(1), the AI Office imposes penalties under Art. 99(3) to 99(7) by way of Art. 75c(4). Art. 99(7) requires the deciding authority to weigh the infringement's nature, gravity and duration, prior fines, size, cooperation, measures in place, self-notification, intent and mitigation. The Commission alone fines general-purpose AI model providers under Art. 88(1) and Art. 101(1).

+−What are the penalties for EU AI Act non-compliance?

Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 provides administrative fines in three tiers under Art. 99(3), 99(4) and 99(5), a Commission fine for general-purpose AI model providers under Art. 101, and the measures a Member State lays down under Art. 99(1), which may include warnings and non-monetary measures. Before or beside a fine, Art. 79(2) requires the market surveillance authority to order corrective action, withdrawal or recall, and Art. 79(5) and Art. 83(2) require restriction, prohibition, withdrawal or recall where the operator does not act. Art. 99(3), 99(4) and 99(5) state the ceilings.

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