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EU AI Act Art. 86: right to explanation of individual decision-making

A person subject to a deployer's decision based on an Annex III system (except point 2) with legal or similarly significant adverse effects may obtain clear and meaningful explanations of the system's role and the main elements of the decision, where Union law does not already give the right

By Reviewed

From clause to evidenceThe chain from EU AI Act Art. 86 to its evidence record, in 6 steps; the text alternative lists them and the facts under the figure state each in full.ClauseEU AI ActArt. 86Duty holderDeployerApplies from2027-12-02DeferredArtefactExplanationrecord per…LayersLayer 02Layer 04Layer 05Evidence recordEvidence recordv1Same topic elsewhere: no crosswalk topic files this clause yetAs of 2026-09-24 · illustrative, not a claim of conformity From clause to evidenceThe chain from EU AI Act Art. 86 to its evidence record, in 6 steps; the text alternative lists them and the facts under the figure state each in full.ClauseEU AI Act · Art. 86Duty holderDeployerApplies from2027-12-02 · DeferredArtefactExplanation record per decisionLayersLayer 02Layer 04Layer 05Evidence recordEvidence record v1Same topic elsewhere: no crosswalk topicfiles this clause yetAs of 2026-09-24illustrative, not a claim of conformity
From clause to evidence Build the artefact, then file every output it produces as a record that names AIGE-OBL-EUAIA-ART86. Drawn from chapter 08.
Text alternative
  • Clause: EU AI Act, Art. 86.
  • Duty holder: Deployer.
  • Applies from: 2027-12-02, Deferred.
  • Artefact: Explanation record per decision.
  • Layers: Layer 02, Layer 04, Layer 05.
  • Evidence record: Evidence record v1.
  • Record schema: Evidence record.
  • No crosswalk topic files this clause yet.
Id
AIGE-OBL-EUAIA-ART86
Instrument
EU AI Act (post-Omnibus) law
Compared side by side
ISO 42001 vs EU AI Act · NIST AI RMF vs EU AI Act
Clause
Art. 86
Duty holder
Deployer
Authority
National MSA
Applies from
Deferred · Annex III; Chapter IX applies from 2026-08-02, but the right needs a classified Annex III system (reading, to be confirmed)
Later dates
  • Deadline for legacy high-risk systems intended for use by public authorities (Art. 111(2))
System class
High-risk (Annex III)

The artefact that evidences it

Explanation record per decision (system and model version, reason codes, determinative or advisory role, human decider); request-handling workflow and response log.

Patterns that build it

Cases that cite this article

Source

Chapter 08, section EU AI Act, post-Omnibus, checked against its sources on the review date above.

Machine-readable

Cite this obligation

García Aibar, J. (2026). EU AI Act Art. 86: right to explanation of individual decision-making (AIGE-OBL-EUAIA-ART86). In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/obligations/aige-obl-euaia-art86. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026obligation,
  author       = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title        = {{EU AI Act Art. 86: right to explanation of individual decision-making (AIGE-OBL-EUAIA-ART86)}},
  howpublished = {In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge},
  year         = {2026},
  version      = {0.5.0},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url          = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/obligations/aige-obl-euaia-art86},
  note         = {Version 0.5.0}
}