AI Governance Engineer
GitHub

Residual risk

By Updated

What is left of a risk once treatment is applied 1. The EU AI Act requires residual risk per hazard and overall to be judged acceptable for high-risk systems 2. A residual rating credits only controls whose evidence is current.

Developed in
ch. 13, Inherent risk, residual risk and who accepts it
Chapters
ch. 13, Risk Management
Contrast with
Inherent risk · Risk tolerance
Source
2 numbered references, listed below

Where it is used

8 chapters of the Body of Knowledge use the term. Each link opens the first section that does.

Patterns that use this term

One pattern page uses the term.

  • AI governance committee

    The cross-functional body that takes the decisions a gate cannot: accepting residual risk above a product owner's authority, granting exceptions, weighing…

  • AI Act (EU)

    Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, the EU's horizontal, risk-tiered law for AI, amended by the Digital Omnibus.

Sources

  1. [1] Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0), NIST AI 100-1 (risk tolerance and residual risk; seven trustworthy characteristics; transparency answers "what happened", explainability "how", interpretability "why"; MAP 1.1 intended purposes; MANAGE 1.1 go/no-go determination; profiles). NIST. 2023-01-26. https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.AI.100-1 (verified: primary)
  2. [2] Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act), consolidated text as amended by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 (Digital Omnibus on AI, in force 27 Jul 2026; definitions in Art. 3, incl. 3(1), 3(3) to 3(14), 3(14b), 3(20), 3(22), 3(23), 3(29) to 3(32), 3(49), 3(55) to 3(57), 3(60), 3(61), 3(63), 3(68); Arts. 4, 5, 6 (incl. 6(3) third subparagraph, profiling), 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 22 to 27 (incl. 26(11)), 40, 41, 43, 47, 48, 50, 53 (incl. 53(1)(c)), 55, 57, 60, 72, 73, 86; Annexes I, III, IV). Publications Office of the EU (EUR-Lex). 2026-07-27. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/2026-07-27/eng (verified: primary)

Definitions of legal terms paraphrase the cited text, which governs. Dated statements are as of .

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). Residual risk. In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0), Glossary. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/residual-risk. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026residualrisk,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Residual risk}},
  note    = {Glossary, AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge, version 0.5.0},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url     = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/residual-risk}
}