Applicablev1.0.0

Article 85: right to lodge a complaint with the market surveillance authority

Anyone with grounds to consider that the Regulation has been infringed may lodge a complaint with the relevant market surveillance authority. For an organisation that means your own staff, customers and candidates have a route to the regulator that does not run through you.

Preliminary reading

The right itself is settled; what it asks of you is not. Article 85 addresses the market surveillance authority and imposes no literal duty on the organisation complained about: there is no deadline, no duty to inform and no requirement to set up an internal complaints channel. We nonetheless read a practical consequence into it, namely that you must be able to rebut a complaint with recorded evidence at the moment the authority asks, and that is not the same as a duty following from the text. A defensible alternative reading is that this article is purely procedural for you and that your preparation is governed entirely by Article 26 and Article 72. It is also unclear how this right to complain relates to the right to complain under the GDPR where the same conduct engages both.

The text of the provision is settled. How it plays out has not been decided in case law or guidance, so this is our reasoned reading and not established law. Weigh it yourself, or put it to your own lawyer.

Praxikon tracks Article 85: right to lodge a complaint with the market surveillance authority under the EU AI Act, checked against the official source on 14 August 2026, citing the source for every statement.

Status: Applicable
Application date: 2 August 2026
Version: 1.0.0
Last reviewed: 14 August 2026

Review status: placed against the official source (14 August 2026). Next check due by 10 February 2027. The check date is the knowledge date of this version; no later recheck has been recorded.

From source to evidence

Why this obligation applies, what it asks of you, and what you show for it.

Applies

Applicable · 2 August 2026

For whom

Deployer

What you do

Make sure you can answer a complaint with documents

What you record

Official source

Article 85

Who this is relevant to

When this applies

Deployer
An organisation using an AI system under its authority, excluding personal non-professional use.

1Applies as soon as anyone has grounds to consider that the Regulation has been infringed. There is no standing threshold: the right belongs to any person, and the complaint goes to the market surveillance authority of the Member State concerned.

What the official source establishes

Without prejudice to other administrative or judicial remedies, any natural or legal person having grounds to consider that there has been an infringement of the provisions of this Regulation may submit complaints to the relevant market surveillance authority. In accordance with Regulation (EU) 2019/1020, such complaints shall be taken into account for the purpose of conducting market surveillance activities, and shall be handled in line with the dedicated procedures established therefor by the market surveillance authorities.

Our interpretation

The official source remains authoritative. This general interpretation is not legal advice.

The practical meaning of this article lies not in what it instructs you to do but in whom it gives a route. An employee who thinks the scheduling or appraisal system is wrong, a rejected candidate, a customer who feels mishandled: they do not have to convince you first and do not have to show standing. The complaint arrives at the authority, and the first question you then face is about record keeping: which system, which version, which assessment was carried out and when. That is the same record keeping Articles 26 and 72 already require of you, and that is exactly the point. Whoever has that file answers a complaint with documents; whoever does not answers it with a reconstruction after the fact, and a regulator reads that differently. Note too that this right does not depend on harm or on a decision, whereas the right to an explanation in Article 86 does.

What you can do now

Assume a complaint starts at the authority and not with you. Make sure that per AI system you can show which assessment was carried out, by whom, on what date and against which system version, and keep that as a living file rather than a one-off document. Also agree internally who receives a question from an authority and within what period.

01
Make sure you can answer a complaint with documents
Record per AI system which assessment was carried out, by whom, on what date and against which system version, and agree who receives a question from the authority and within what period.

What to retain

Register of requests for an explanation

Per request: who made it, about which decision, which system and which version contributed to it, what explanation was given and when. This is also the file that shows you did not silently ignore the right.

Control and reassessment

Routing and deadline tracking of a request for an explanation
The control that ensures an incoming request reaches an identifiable person within a set period and is answered, instead of sitting in a general inbox.

Public tools

Full text of Article 85
The full legal text in the public AI Act Explorer.

Conditions and exceptions

No separate exception is recorded in this first public version.

Official sources and locators

EU Artificial Intelligence Act 2024/1689
European Parliament and Council | original-oj-2024-07-12
Source locator: Article 85
Open official source

Referring to this object

Citation block

Copy this reference into your advice, article or file. The identifier, the version and the hash keep the statement findable later, even once the dataset has moved on.

Reference

Praxikon, "Article 85: right to lodge a complaint with the market surveillance authority",
praxikon:eu:ai-act:obligation:article-85-right-to-complain@1.0.0,
dataset praxikon:sys:registry:dataset:ai-act-implementation-graph 2.1.0 (schema 1.4.0),
effective_at 2026-08-02T00:00:00.000Z, known_at 2026-08-14T00:00:00.000Z,
sha256 721db6d8aebb1ea9c2681a8ed7ba0daa59165fc2d8f3dc8d8974695ff70869fe,
https://www.praxikon.com/en/verplichtingen/article-85-right-to-complain
(https://www.praxikon.com/api/v1/obligations?id=praxikon%3Aeu%3Aai-act%3Aobligation%3Aarticle-85-right-to-complain&effective_at=2026-08-02&known_at=2026-08-14&lang=en, accessed 2026-08-21)

Short form

praxikon:eu:ai-act:obligation:article-85-right-to-complain@1.0.0 (sha256 721db6d8)

BibTeX

@misc{praxikon-eu-ai-act-obligation-article-85-right-to-complain-1-0-0,
  author       = {{Praxikon}},
  title        = {Article 85: right to lodge a complaint with the market surveillance authority},
  year         = {2026},
  version      = {1.0.0},
  number       = {praxikon:eu:ai-act:obligation:article-85-right-to-complain},
  howpublished = {AI Act Change \& Evidence Graph, dataset 2.1.0, schema 1.4.0},
  note         = {effective_at 2026-08-02T00:00:00.000Z; known_at 2026-08-14T00:00:00.000Z; sha256 721db6d8aebb1ea9c2681a8ed7ba0daa59165fc2d8f3dc8d8974695ff70869fe},
  url          = {https://www.praxikon.com/en/verplichtingen/article-85-right-to-complain},
  urldate      = {2026-08-21},
  language     = {en}
}

CSL JSON

[
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    "title": "Article 85: right to lodge a complaint with the market surveillance authority",
    "container-title": "AI Act Change & Evidence Graph",
    "publisher": "Praxikon",
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    "number": "praxikon:eu:ai-act:obligation:article-85-right-to-complain",
    "URL": "https://www.praxikon.com/en/verplichtingen/article-85-right-to-complain",
    "language": "en",
    "issued": {
      "date-parts": [
        [
          2026,
          8,
          14
        ]
      ]
    },
    "accessed": {
      "date-parts": [
        [
          2026,
          8,
          21
        ]
      ]
    },
    "note": "dataset praxikon:sys:registry:dataset:ai-act-implementation-graph 2.1.0; schema 1.4.0; effective_at 2026-08-02T00:00:00.000Z; known_at 2026-08-14T00:00:00.000Z; sha256 721db6d8aebb1ea9c2681a8ed7ba0daa59165fc2d8f3dc8d8974695ff70869fe; retrieved_from https://www.praxikon.com/api/v1/obligations?id=praxikon%3Aeu%3Aai-act%3Aobligation%3Aarticle-85-right-to-complain&effective_at=2026-08-02&known_at=2026-08-14&lang=en; licence https://www.praxikon.com/nl/legal/terms"
  }
]

How to verify a reference later is set out in the methodology. Terms

Version history

v1.0.0
2 August 2026
Article 85: right to lodge a complaint with the market surveillance authority
Anyone with grounds to consider that the Regulation has been infringed may lodge a complaint with the relevant market surveillance authority. For an organisation that means your own staff, customers and candidates have a route to the regulator that does not run through you.

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Expert behind this page

Zahed Ashkara

Lawyer and AI governance specialist

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