Question · Art. 99(4)

What Happens If You Ignore Article 50? Penalties Explained

Last updated: 8 November 2026

If you ignore Article 50, you risk fines of up to €15 million or 3% of worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher, under Article 99(4). SMEs, start-ups and small mid-caps face the lower of the two. Actual fines depend on the circumstances of the case. The free Article50.io scan shows the most severe finding on one public page.

A lower cap doesn't mean lighter duties: smaller businesses carry the same obligations. Below: how the ceiling is worked out, what decides the actual amount, and why fines aren't the only exposure.

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The penalty structure

€15M or 3%

Article 99(4): fines of up to €15 million or, for an undertaking, up to 3% of total worldwide annual turnover for the preceding financial year — whichever is higher.

Lower cap for smaller firms

For SMEs, including startups, the cap flips to whichever of the two amounts is lower. Article 99(6a) applies the same lower cap to small mid-cap enterprises for fines under Article 99(4) and (5) (AI Act Service Desk: Article 99).

One tier for all of Article 50

Chatbot disclosure, content marking and deep fake disclosure breaches all fall under the same Article 99(4) tier.

How Article 99(4) applies to Article 50

Article 99(4) lists the obligations whose breach carries the €15 million / 3% tier, and it names transparency obligations for providers and deployers pursuant to Article 50 explicitly. There's no separate scale for each sub-clause: an undisclosed chatbot under 50(1), unmarked synthetic content under 50(2) and an unlabeled deep fake under 50(4) all share the same ceiling.

These are maximums, not fixed amounts. Under Article 99(1), each Member State lays down the detailed rules on penalties, which must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive.

The full breakdown, with the other fine tiers, the SME and small mid-cap caps, how a fine is decided and who enforces it, is in EU AI Act fines for Article 50.

How the ceiling is worked out

Company	Ceiling
Large company with €1 billion turnover	3% = €30 million (higher than €15 million)
Company with €200 million turnover	€15 million (higher than 3% = €6 million)
SME with €5 million turnover	3% = €150,000 (the lower of the two)

Illustrations of the ceiling only. Real fines depend on the factors below.

What decides the actual amount

Under Article 99(7), when a fine is set, all relevant circumstances of the case are taken into account, including:

the nature, gravity and duration of the infringement and its consequences, including the number of people affected
whether it was intentional or negligent
what the business did to mitigate the harm
how it cooperated with the authority
how the authority found out, including whether the business reported it itself
the size, annual turnover and market share of the business
whether other authorities have already fined it for the same conduct

A business that finds and fixes a missing disclosure quickly is in a very different position from one that ignores a complaint.

Fines aren't the only exposure

Article 99 fines are what a regulator can impose. Separately, if your AI system harms someone, they may bring a civil claim — under the revised Product Liability Directive (EU) 2024/2853 or national tort law — and a documented Article 50 failure can become evidence in that claim. See what happens if your AI causes harm.

What it means for a typical website

For most sites, the fix for an Article 50 gap is a line of disclosure text beside a chat widget or above AI-generated content. Against a ceiling of €15 million or 3% of turnover, that is a small change — and the free scan pairs your most severe finding with this same penalty exposure so the risk is concrete.

Not sure the Act reaches you? See does Article 50 apply outside the EU. Want to check every obligation by hand? Use the compliance checklist.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the fines for breaching Article 50?

Non-compliance with Article 50 falls under Article 99(4) of the AI Act: fines of up to €15 million or 3% of total worldwide annual turnover for the preceding financial year, whichever is higher. For SMEs, including startups, and small mid-cap enterprises (Article 99(6a), per the AI Act Service Desk), the fine is capped at the lower of the two amounts.

Is every Article 50 breach fined the same way?

They share the same ceiling. Every Article 50 transparency violation — a missing chatbot disclosure, unmarked synthetic content or an unlabeled deep fake — falls under the same Article 99(4) fine tier. The actual amount in a given case depends on the circumstances.

Since when can Article 50 be enforced?

Article 50's transparency obligations have applied since August 2, 2026, and the Article 99 penalty rules have applied since August 2, 2025 (Article 113(b)), so Article 50 breaches can be fined now. The December 2, 2026 transition is narrow: it gives existing generative AI providers extra time for Article 50(2) marking.

Is there a grace period for chatbot disclosures?

No. Chatbot and deep fake disclosure have applied since August 2, 2026. December 2, 2026 brings two separate changes: existing generative AI providers must meet Article 50(2) marking (Article 111(4)), and new Article 5 bans start on AI that generates non-consensual sexual deepfakes or child sexual abuse material. See the 2 December 2026 deadline.

Check your site automatically

Article50.io is an automated scanner for the Article 50 transparency rules of the EU AI Act. It scans a website for potential Article 50 transparency gaps and generates a report of what the scan found and what it could not check, with remediation guidance, implementation instructions and disclosure wording you can paste in.

The free scan shows your single most severe finding. Scans are capped at 45 seconds — no signup, public pages only.