Overview of all AI Act National Implementation Plans

Last update: 17 June 2026

Since the AI Act entered into force on 1 August 2024, the focus for Member States has shifted to national implementation. One of the first tasks for Member States is to designate the relevant authorities. This post gives an overview of the national authorities designated under the AI Act and what we know about the national implementation plans.*

This resource is a work in progress and will be updated when new information is available. Please help us ensure the completeness and accuracy of this content by contributing any information you have about the authorities in your area: website@futureoflife.org.

*Note: The AI Act is marked as of ‘EEA relevance’ and is currently under scrutiny for incorporation into the EEA Agreement. Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland are participating in AI Board meetings as observers. For completeness, we’ve included all three EEA EFTA states in the overview.

Three types of authorities in Member States under the AI Act

The implementation of the EU AI Act involves three kinds of authorities at national level, which between them oversee the application and enforcement of the rules on AI systems. General-purpose AI models are instead supervised centrally by the AI Office within the European Commission.

Market Surveillance Authority

First, a ‘market surveillance authority’ shall carry out activities and take measures provided for under Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 (Market Surveillance Regulation) on market surveillance and compliance of products (Art 3(26) AI Act). Thus, this authority builds upon the pre-existing and well-established concept of market surveillance authorities within EU law and will be tasked with ensuring that only products compliant with EU law are made available on the Union market. It is the market surveillance authorities that take supervisory and enforcement action against AI systems under both the AI Act and the Market Surveillance Regulation (subject to the exceptions in Article 75). Member States must designate one market surveillance authority to act as a single point of contact.

Notifying Authority

Second, a ‘notifying authority’ will be the national authority responsible for establishing and performing the procedure for assessment, designation and notification of conformity assessment bodies and for their monitoring (Art 3(19) and 28(1) AI Act). ‘Conformity assessment bodies’ are bodies that perform third-party conformity assessment activities, including testing, certification and inspection (Art 3(21) AI Act). Such third-party assessment applies in certain circumstances to biometric high-risk systems (Art 43(1) AI Act). It also applies to AI systems that are themselves products, or safety components of products, covered by the Union harmonisation legislation listed in Annex I, where that legislation already requires the product to undergo a third-party conformity assessment (Art 6(1) AI Act).

The notifying authority and the market surveillance authority are collectively referred to as the national competent authorities (Art 3(48) AI Act). They must function independently, impartially and without bias, have adequate technical, financial and human resources, as well as the infrastructure to effectively execute their tasks under the AI Act (Art 70(1) and (3) AI Act). The Commission will facilitate exchange of experience between national competent authorities (Art 70(7) AI Act). 

National Public Authority

Third, Member States must identify national public authorities responsible for supervising and enforcing fundamental rights obligations in relation to high-risk AI systems referred to in Annex III. Such authorities should have the powers to request and access any documentation created or maintained under the AI Act, when such documentation is necessary to effectively fulfil their mandate within the limits of their jurisdiction (Art 77(2) AI Act).

Wide discretion for Member States

The AI Act gives Member States discretion with regard to the structure and design of these three types of authorities. Accordingly, Member States have proposed or designated authorities that take a range of forms. For example, Cyprus adopted a centralised model, with the Commissioner of Communications acting as the notifying authority, market surveillance authority and single point of contact. In contrast, Finland has adopted a decentralised model, appointing a number of already existing market surveillance authorities, including the Energy Authority, the Transport and Communications Agency, and the Medicines Agency.

Timelines and status of implementation

See our full Implementation Timeline for all key dates and deadlines for the AI Act.

Member States had until 2 August 2025 to establish or designate a market surveillance authority and a notifying authority. Many Member States failed to meet the deadline. As of the date this post was last updated, 9 Member States have designated both market surveillance and notifying authorities (‘clear’ in the table below). To our knowledge, 12 Member States have pending legislative proposals, made announcements or have appointed one competent authority (‘partial clarity’), whereas 6 Member States have yet to designate or establish any competent authority (‘unclear’).

With regard to authorities protecting fundamental rights, Member States were required to publish a list of such authorities by 2 November 2024 (Art 77(2) AI Act). The Commission has published a consolidated list of all identified authorities that is continuously updated. At the date of this post, all EU Member States have already designated their fundamental rights authorities.

Table 1: Overall status of National Authorities in EU-27

Table 2: Member States and their designated National Authorities