EU high-risk AI register delayed to 2027, leaving deadline unclear
TL;DR:
- The EU database for registering high-risk AI systems will not be operational until the third quarter of 2027.
- The Commission’s AI Act service desk confirmed the register “is not yet open and operational”.
- The Digital Omnibus deferred many high-risk obligations but appears not to have moved the registration duty itself.
The EU AI Act requires companies to register AI systems used in high-risk settings — schools, law enforcement, worker management — in a central database before switching them on. Euractiv reports that database will not launch until the third quarter of 2027, more than a year after the Council expected it to be running by the end of June.
A duty without a mechanism
The compliance problem is a drafting mismatch. The Commission’s Digital Omnibus simplification package pushed back many high-risk obligations from this August, including the article consolidating provisions for high-risk providers. But it did not move the separate, standalone article establishing the duty to register. On the face of it, that could leave companies obliged to register by 2 August 2026 — in a database that will not exist for another year. The Commission did not respond to Euractiv’s request for clarification.
The service desk’s own message states the obligation begins in December 2027, which it argues matches the omnibus timeline. That reading is not obviously supported by the text.
Daniel Leufer of Access Now said the database “absolutely must be ready and operational when the high-risk obligations kick in” — a key element of the law’s architecture rather than administrative plumbing.
Looking forward
For UK firms, this is the second AI Act timing question in a fortnight, after warnings to prepare for EU transparency and labelling duties. British companies selling into the EU face a familiar problem: no UK regulator will interpret this for them, and the practical answer is to build the registration evidence — system documentation, intended purpose, risk classification — on the original timetable regardless. Slippage in the mechanism is not the same as slippage in the obligation, and the Commission has not said which one it means.