Air conditioner warranty in Europe: who owes you a repair, and for how long
Contents (7)
Nobody reads an air conditioner warranty on the day it is bought. It gets read four years later, in August, with a dead compressor on a balcony and a heatwave forecast. At that point the useful question is not what the warranty says but which of the three promises attached to the machine you are actually invoking, and against whom — because there are three, they are owed by different people, and they run for different lengths of time.
The seller owes you a legal guarantee written into EU law. The manufacturer may add a commercial warranty, which is a contract it wrote itself. The installer owes you the workmanship, under national rules that have nothing to do with either of the first two. Knocking on the wrong door is how a covered failure turns into a quotation.
The promise that is law: the EU legal guarantee
Every new consumer good sold by a trader in the EU carries a legal guarantee of conformity. Under Article 10(1) of Directive (EU) 2019/771, the seller — not the manufacturer — is liable for any lack of conformity that existed at delivery and becomes apparent within two years. It costs nothing, applies automatically, cannot be signed away by a clause in the terms of sale, and exists whatever the box says about warranties.
Three provisions decide most real disputes:
- The burden of proof. Article 11(1) presumes that a fault appearing within one year of delivery was already present at delivery. You do not have to prove it; the seller has to disprove it. Several Member States have extended that presumption across the full two years.
- The order of remedies. Article 13 gives you repair or replacement first, free of charge and within a reasonable time. A price reduction or cancelling the sale come afterwards — when repair and replacement have failed, are impossible, or would cause significant inconvenience.
- Installation counts as part of the goods. Article 8 treats incorrect installation as a lack of conformity of the product itself where the seller installed it or arranged the installation, and also where you installed it yourself and the fault came from defective instructions. For a split sold and fitted as one package, that quietly folds the fitting into the product guarantee.
Two years is a floor, not a ceiling. National law sits on top of it and the differences are large enough to change a decision.
| Where | Period under national law | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| EU minimum (Directive 2019/771) | 2 years from delivery | Reversed burden of proof for at least the first year |
| Portugal | 3 years on goods | Extension adopted when the directive was transposed |
| Sweden | 3 years | Applied alongside a test of what the product should reasonably last |
| Netherlands, Finland | No fixed cut-off | Conformity is judged against what a buyer could reasonably expect of that product: an expensive fixed appliance is expected to last well beyond two years |
| Ireland | 2-year guarantee | A six-year limitation period in which a claim may still be brought |
| United Kingdom (outside the EU) | Consumer Rights Act 2015 | Six years in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, five in Scotland, with the burden of proof reversing after the first six months |
That table describes the shape of each regime rather than its letter, and national rules change. For a purchase made in another country — which is most online purchases — the European Consumer Centre network of your own country is the free body that tells you which law applies and writes to the trader for you.
What changes on 27 September 2026
From that date a harmonised EU notice about the legal guarantee becomes mandatory for sellers across the Union, displayed prominently in shops and on websites, so that the two-year floor stops being invisible at the point of sale. Alongside it, the EU GARAN label marks a producer guarantee of durability covering the whole product for more than two years at no extra cost — the first time a showroom claim of "five-year warranty" becomes directly comparable between two brands rather than a slogan.
Separately, the Right to Repair Directive (EU) 2024/1799 applies from 31 July 2026 and extends the legal guarantee by twelve months when a consumer chooses repair rather than replacement. Its list of covered goods is tied to products carrying EU repairability requirements — washing machines, refrigerators, displays, phones and similar — and air conditioners are not on that list as things stand, although it is designed to grow as new ecodesign rules arrive.
The promise that is a contract: the manufacturer warranty
Headline numbers on a brochure — three years, five years, ten on the compressor — are commercial offers. Article 17 of the same directive requires only that they be given in durable form and that they never reduce your legal rights. Read one for three things.
- What is covered, part by part. A "ten-year" system is usually two or three years on everything and ten on the compressor alone. Compressor cover is normally the part, not the labour, not the refrigerant, not the recovery of the old charge, not the lift or scaffold. On a wall-mounted outdoor unit those excluded items are most of the bill.
- Which conditions attach. Installation and commissioning by an F-gas certified undertaking with paperwork to prove it, registration of the machine within a stated window after installation, and documented annual servicing are the three standard conditions across European brands. Miss the registration window and the extended half of the cover generally never existed.
- What the conditions cost. An extension conditional on a yearly visit from an approved partner is real cover at a real price. Our guide to what AC maintenance involves in Europe sets out what that visit should contain; if it costs more each year than a fair share of the equipment itself, the extension is selling you the service rather than the other way round.
The promise nobody reads: the installer own liability
A flare joint that weeps, a condensate line laid without fall, a bracket pulled out of soft render, a circuit that was never sized for the machine — none of that is a product defect, and the manufacturer is right to say so. Workmanship is owed by the undertaking that did the work, under national rules on services and building works that differ across Europe: France separates a two-year cover on equipment from a ten-year cover where the work affects the building itself, Spain works from its construction act, Germany from the periods in the civil code and the VOB. What is constant is that the installer liability insurance is the thing you end up relying on, which is why a verifiable certificate and a current insurance attestation matter more than the brand on the box — the checks are in our guide to choosing an AC installer in Europe.
What actually gets refused
- No evidence of certified installation. The most common refusal of all, and the reason a self-fitted split is effectively uninsurable — the rules are in our guide to DIY air conditioning installation.
- No commissioning record. No pressure test, no vacuum reading, no written charge calculation. A claim on a compressor with no commissioning sheet is a claim the manufacturer can attribute to moisture in the circuit.
- Missing maintenance on a warranty that required it, even where the fault has nothing to do with cleaning.
- A private second-hand purchase. The legal guarantee binds traders, not neighbours, and a manufacturer warranty rarely survives a transfer — see our guide to buying a second-hand air conditioner.
- Refrigerant loss treated as a leak to be located and repaired rather than a covered failure. A sealed system that needs gas is reporting a defect somewhere, as our guide to regassing explains.
- Environmental exclusions: coastal salt corrosion, flooding, lightning, sustained overvoltage. These belong to home insurance, not to the warranty.
The folder that wins the argument
One envelope, kept for the life of the machine: the purchase invoice, the installation invoice showing the undertaking F-gas certificate number, the commissioning sheet, photographs of both nameplates, the registration confirmation, and every service report. Claim in writing, to the seller, inside the guarantee period, describing the fault and stating what you want — repair or replacement — and keep the date of that letter. Almost every claim that collapses does so on paperwork rather than on the merits, and the paperwork takes ten minutes on the day of installation.
One last piece of arithmetic. A guarantee is worth the cost of the failure it covers multiplied by the chance of that failure, and both are smaller than people assume on a well-installed modern split. Our guide to how long an air conditioner lasts and when to replace it gives the realistic timeline; an extension priced at a large fraction of a new outdoor unit is rarely the better bet.
Frequently asked questions
Is my air conditioner covered for two years or for five?
Both, by different people. The seller owes you at least two years under EU law — more in some countries — for a machine that was not conforming when delivered. The manufacturer separately owes whatever its own warranty document promises, often five years on the system or ten on the compressor, but only if the conditions attached to it were met. The legal guarantee is the one that cannot be refused on a technicality about registration.
The engineer says my refrigerant leak is not covered. Is that right?
Usually yes under the manufacturer warranty, which generally treats refrigerant as a consumable and a leak as a repair rather than a component failure. It is a different answer if the leak is at a factory joint on a unit still inside the legal guarantee period, because that is a product that was not conforming when delivered. If the leak is on a flare made on site, it belongs to the installer, not to the brand.
I bought the unit online from another EU country. Who do I claim from?
From the seller that invoiced you, in the country whose law governs the sale, and the two-year floor applies wherever in the EU that trader sits. If the trader stops answering, the European Consumer Centre network handles cross-border consumer disputes inside the EU, Norway and Iceland free of charge, and it is far more effective than a review site.
Does servicing have to be done by the brand own network?
The legal guarantee does not require it — no condition can reduce your rights under it. A commercial warranty can require it, and many do for their extended years. Read the guarantee document before booking a cheaper independent service, because losing years six to ten of compressor cover to save on one visit is a poor trade.
Does the guarantee start again after a repair?
Not automatically for an air conditioner today. The Right to Repair Directive adds twelve months to the legal guarantee after a repair, but only for the goods on its list, and air conditioners are not yet on it. A replaced product is a different matter: if the seller replaces the machine rather than repairing it, the new one is delivered new, with its own period running from that delivery.
Sources
Read next
- What it costs to install air conditioning in Europe
- What actually happens on an air conditioning installation day
- Permission to install air conditioning in Europe: who has to say yes
- Air conditioning in a rented home in Europe: what a tenant may actually install
- Heat and health in Europe: how cool a home needs to be, and for whom