Article 79 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 — National procedure for AI systems presenting a risk. Official text, practical interpretation, key obligations and compliance implications.
Article 79 is the emergency lane of national market surveillance: what happens when an AI system on the market presents a risk to health, safety or fundamental rights. It choreographs evaluation, corrective action and, if needed, national measures — with Union-wide notification built in.
Official Text Summary
Where a market surveillance authority has sufficient reason to consider that an AI system presents a risk to the health or safety or to the fundamental rights of persons, it carries out an evaluation of the system's compliance with the Regulation — with particular attention where the risk concerns fundamental rights, in cooperation with the authorities referred to in Article 77. Where non-compliance is found, the authority requires the relevant operator to take all appropriate corrective action — bringing the system into compliance, withdrawing it or recalling it — within a period it prescribes. Where the operator fails to act, or the non-compliance is not confined to the national territory, the authority takes appropriate provisional measures to prohibit or restrict the system's availability, and informs the Commission and the other Member States without delay; the Article 81 Union safeguard procedure can follow.
Key Obligations
- The market surveillance authority evaluates the AI system where it has sufficient reason to consider it presents such a risk, including fundamental-rights risks flagged by the Article 77 authorities
- The relevant operator must take all appropriate corrective actions — bring into compliance, withdraw or recall — within a period the authority prescribes
- Where non-compliance is not national only, or the operator fails to act, the authority takes provisional measures and informs the Commission and the other Member States without delay
Compliance Timeline
Applies from 2 August 2026; the 2026 Digital Omnibus deferred the substantive high-risk obligations (Annex III to 2 December 2027, Annex I to 2 August 2028) but did not move this provision.
Official AI Act Compliance Deadline Calendar
Updated · Sources: Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 and the 2026 Digital Omnibus on AI.
| Obligation | Applies to | Original date | New date | Status | Countdown | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prohibited Practices (Art. 5) | All providers and deployers | active | — | AI Act Art. 5 | ||
| GPAI Rules (Chapter 5) | GPAI model providers | active | — | AI Act Art. 51-56 | ||
| Commission Enforcement Powers over GPAI | GPAI model providers | active | — | AI Act Art. 88-94, 101 | ||
| Transparency Obligations (Art. 50) | Providers and deployers of chatbots, generative, emotion recognition systems | active | — | AI Act Art. 50 | ||
| New Art. 5 Prohibition (CSAM / non-consensual intimate imagery) | Providers and deployers of generative AI systems | active | — | AI Omnibus 2026 Art. 5 | ||
| AI-Generated Content Marking (pre-existing systems) | Providers of generative AI systems on the market before 2 Aug 2026 | active | — | AI Act Art. 50(2) — transitional | ||
| Regulatory Sandboxes | National competent authorities | deferred | — | AI Omnibus 2026 Art. 57 | ||
| High-risk AI — Annex III (standalone) | Providers of standalone Annex III systems | deferred | — | AI Omnibus 2026 Art. 6(2) | ||
| High-risk AI — Annex I (embedded) | AI embedded in Annex I regulated products | deferred | — | AI Omnibus 2026 Art. 6(1) |
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AI Act meets DORA and NIS2
Is your organisation subject to both the AI Act and DORA? The two regulations intersect on the operational resilience of financial AI systems. Our sister site regulation-dora.eu covers DORA in depth — including what the AI Act adds on top of an existing DORA programme.
The AI Act for financial institutions ↗ Explore regulation-dora.eu ↗Frequently Asked Questions
The market surveillance authority itself, on sufficient grounds — but a referral from a fundamental-rights authority under Article 77, a complaint under Article 85, or intelligence from another Member State can all supply those grounds.
National measures must be notified to the Commission and the other Member States. If objections are raised, the Union safeguard procedure of Article 81 decides whether the national measure is justified — keeping a single market outcome rather than 27 divergent ones.
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