AFIR Regulation: What It Asks of Your Charging Stations

Use this article if you:

• operate EU charging stations that customers or the public can use
• install public stations and order the hardware for them
• need to know what to change on each station, and by which date

The AFIR regulation sets rules for every publicly accessible charging point in the EU. What applies to a point depends on its power, the date it went into service, where it stands and whether charging is paid. Free points are exempt from the payment rule only. They still need a digital connection and published data.

Three dates decide what you change next:

1. 8 January 2026: public chargers installed from this date, AC included, must talk to the car over ISO 15118, which needs a powerline chip many AC wallboxes lack.
2. 14 April 2026: station data must be available in DATEX II, the European format. Finland converts your data into DATEX II, while Germany and Denmark expect DATEX II from you.
3. 1 January 2027: fast chargers from before April 2024 on main EU roads or in truck parks need a card or contactless reader, and German price fines start.

You can try tariffs and remote control on your own hardware with a 30-day free trial of ELVO, the charging platform we make.

Written in November 2026 from the texts in force and national agency procedures. “Commission’s reading” marks guidance from the Commission’s answers on AFIR, not law. A review proposal is planned for late 2026.

Does the AFIR regulation apply to your stations?

AFIR covers charging points at sites open to the general public, on public or private land, even with conditions of access. A shop, restaurant or hotel car park open to customers counts. An office car park used only by employees does not.

In the Commission’s reading, a residents’ garage counts only if the owner opens it to the public. Opening hours, a parking fee or a sign do not change the answer.

Points that are not public skip the rules on payment, price, connection and data. Two technical rules still apply. AC points installed or renovated from 8 January 2026 need Type 2 sockets or plugs, and DC points need Combo 2 plugs. Wallboxes and DC chargers installed or renovated from 1 January 2027 also need ISO 15118-20.

What AFIR asks of each station

Four facts sort the rules for each public point: its power, whether charging is paid, its dates and, for older fast chargers, its location. Payment and price follow the date the point went into service. In the Commission’s reading, that is when drivers can first use it. Smart charging and standards follow the build or installation date.

Power means the theoretical maximum the point can deliver. One maker sells a 50 kW model limited at the factory to 49.9 kW. If you cap a 50 kW unit in software yourself, we found no ruling on whether it then counts as below 50 kW.

Article 5 of the consolidated text sets payment and price:

Station	Payment without an account	Price before the session
Free, any power	Not required	No price to show
Below 50 kW, paid, in service before 13 April 2024	Drivers can pay without an account; any payment method	Full price at the station: per kWh, per minute, per session, other fees
Below 50 kW, paid, in service from 13 April 2024	Card reader, contactless reader, or secure online payment such as a QR code	Full price at the station, as in the row above
50 kW or more, paid, in service from 13 April 2024	Card reader or contactless reader	Price per kWh plus any occupancy fee per minute, shown at the station; no fee per session (Commission’s reading)
50 kW or more, paid, older, on the TEN-T (main EU roads) or in a certified truck and coach park	Card reader or contactless reader from 1 January 2027	AFIR sets no display rule; prices must be reasonable, clear and comparable. Germany still requires the kWh price at or next to the point (see the national rules below)
50 kW or more, paid, older, elsewhere	Drivers can pay without an account; no card reader required	Same as the row above

The other rules apply to paid and free points alike:

Rule	Which public points	From
Digitally connected: monitored and controlled remotely, including start and stop	All	14 October 2024
Data available free of charge (see the data section)	All	14 April 2025
Charging cable fixed to the charger	All DC points	14 April 2025
Smart charging: the station changes its current in real time on a signal, for example from the platform	Built after 13 April 2024, or renovated after 14 October 2024	Build or renovation date

The operator answers for these rules: the company that manages the point and sells the charging to drivers. An owner who is not the operator must supply hardware that can meet the technical rules.

New public chargers since 8 January 2026: ISO 15118

Public points installed or renovated from 8 January 2026, AC and DC, must comply with ISO 15118 parts 1 to 5, the standard for digital communication between car and station. Points installed or renovated from 1 January 2027 also need ISO 15118-20. Points already in service keep their standards until renovated.

ISO 15118 runs over the charging cable, through a powerline communication (PLC) chip in the charge controller. Many AC wallboxes use only PWM, the simple analogue signal that tells the car little more than the maximum current. Compliance needs a controller with a PLC chip, so a PWM-only unit needs a new controller. Existing PWM units are exempt, because the delegated regulation notes that upgrading one can mean replacing it.

Before you order public AC stations, ask the maker to confirm ISO 15118-2 and -3 with PLC hardware in writing. Renovated means a major or complete replacement of the equipment; a new cable does not count.

Paying without an account

AFIR calls a charge bought without registration or a contract an ad hoc charge, and every paid public point must offer one. Below 50 kW, a secure online payment such as a QR code is allowed. In the Commission’s reading, a static QR sticker works if it is readable and the payment is secure, and your own app does not count.

Some points offer automatic authentication, such as Plug & Charge, where the car identifies itself through the cable or its own data connection. The driver must still be able to skip it and charge ad hoc or with another charging card or app accepted there, and the point must show that choice clearly.

In the same reading, apps of mobility service providers, the companies whose cards drivers use across networks, do not count either. A bank card in a phone wallet counts at a contactless reader, and cash alone does not.

Static QR stickers attract fraud. In October 2026 a Dutch municipality found a fake QR sticker stuck over the real one on a public charger. The safer options are a QR code that changes on the station’s display, or a card terminal. Some operators who keep stickers use durable, weatherproof ones with the payment platform’s name and the charge point number, and check them on site visits.

From 1 January 2027, older points of 50 kW or more need a card or contactless reader in two places. One is the TEN-T, the EU’s main road network, including sites within 3 km of driving from an exit. The other is a certified safe and secure parking area for professional drivers.

To check a site, open the Commission’s TENtec map viewer and zoom in on the roads near it. If a TEN-T road runs near the site, measure the driving distance from the site to its nearest exit with a route planner. Up to 3 km counts as on the TEN-T.

One terminal can serve several points of the same site. You can build a card terminal into each charger, or put up one payment kiosk, a standalone terminal for the whole site. Either the terminal talks to the charger directly, or it talks to your charging platform over the internet, for example through the terminal maker’s own servers using OCPI. OCPI is the open protocol charging platforms use to exchange station data.

Ask the terminal maker which charger models and platforms its terminal already works with. The charger maker can tell you whether your model takes a terminal added later. In Germany, the charger’s documents under Eichrecht, the German calibration law, list which payment forms, card terminals included, it may be used with.

Showing the price before the session

Prices at public points must be reasonable, transparent and easy to compare. Prices for drivers and for mobility service providers must not differ, unless the difference is proportionate and objectively justified. Below 50 kW, the full price must be available at the station before the session. From 50 kW, newer points must show it at the station.

Below 50 kW the rule covers older points too. In the Commission’s reading, a QR code at the station that opens the payment page with the price is enough.

On points of 50 kW or more in service from 13 April 2024, the ad hoc price per kWh must be shown at the station. In the Commission’s reading, a screen or a sticker does it, and a link alone does not. The rule covers ad hoc charging only, not contract or roaming prices. Besides the kWh price, the law names one extra: an occupancy fee per minute. In the Commission’s reading, that rules out a fixed fee per session.

The law does not say when the occupancy fee may start, only that it is there to discourage long stays. In the Commission’s reading, a fee from the first minute is probably disproportionate, because it also hits drivers who leave once the car is charged.

To bill per kWh, you need a meter your country accepts. AFIR sets no meter rules, and each country decides under the Measuring Instruments Directive, the EU law on certified meters. Germany requires chargers that meet Eichrecht, its calibration law, for kWh billing, and a certified time count for a fee per minute. Our Eichrecht guide covers kWh billing. From 10 October 2028, a 2026 amendment adds EU rules for charging station meters, and existing stations keep theirs.

AFIR sets no fines; penalties come from national law. In Germany, a price that is not shown, wrong or incomplete can be fined up to EUR 100,000 from 1 January 2027, under the amended price law.

Operator ID and data for the national access point

Since 14 April 2025, every public point, paid or free, must have its data available free of charge. That means static data such as location and connectors, plus live status, availability and ad hoc price. Drivers’ apps reach it through the national access point, each country’s public data platform.

You start with an operator ID from your country’s ID registration organisation, the IDRO: two letters for the country plus three characters for your company. Your charge point IDs include the operator ID, so the data cannot go out without it. The EU directory of IDROs still lists some countries, Italy among them, as coming soon. Finland and the Netherlands accept IDs from other countries’ IDROs.

Live data must be updated within one minute of a change, static data within 24 hours, under an implementing regulation from 2025. Since 14 April 2026, the data must be available in DATEX II, the European format for traffic data. Germany and Denmark want DATEX II from you, while other countries take other formats, as the table below shows. Your platform, an aggregator that collects data from several operators, or you can deliver the data. AFIR lets the operator and the owner agree which of them provides it. National rules say who is legally responsible for it:

• Netherlands: the operator, also when an aggregator delivers the data.
• France: the aménageur, the company that owns the charging network, who may hand the publishing to the company that runs the points. The French operator ID must also be the owner’s.
• Austria: the operator, who may hand the technical reporting to others.

What you send depends on the country, as of November 2026:

Country	Operator ID from	What you send, and where
Germany	BDEW codes	DATEX II to Mobilithek, which does not convert. The states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg take OCPI and convert it for free.
Netherlands	Benelux IDRO	OCPI 2.2.1 only, to DOT-NL, run by NDW, the Dutch road traffic data agency. Five OCPI fields that are optional elsewhere are mandatory there: opening times, energy mix, parking restrictions, maximum power and tariff IDs. NDW says it will also publish the data in DATEX II, but that is not live yet.
Belgium	Benelux IDRO	Your own DATEX II feed, or one from an aggregator, registered with its link on transportdata.be.
Finland	Traficom	OCPI to Fintraffic, which converts it to DATEX II free of charge.
Denmark	Danish Road Traffic Authority	Your own DATEX II interface, registered in its Data Exchanger. No conversion is offered.
Austria	E-Control	Static data through E-Control’s web portal or API; live status goes to E-Control’s own interface, ideally from your platform.
France	Avere-France	The national CSV format on data.gouv.fr, or the state platform QualiCharge, which takes data through its own interface. QualiCharge says it handles the AFIR rules and the transfer to the national access point, without naming the format. For the CSV route, no French source we found mentions DATEX II. Ask QualiCharge or transport.data.gouv.fr which route covers you.

National rules on top of AFIR

• Germany, price on older fast chargers: AFIR’s display rule leaves out points of 50 kW or more in service before 13 April 2024. On those, the German price law, PAngV §14, still requires the kWh price at or next to the point. A sticker, a screen or a free web page without registration that the point links to is enough, and any other fee must be shown in full next to it. The government has announced a separate rule for these chargers.
• Germany, notification: under the Charging Station Ordinance, report each public point to the Federal Network Agency within two weeks of starting it. Data sent to Mobilithek, the German national access point, does not replace this.
• Austria: every operator of public points reports to E-Control’s charging register. E-Control drops a site from the public list if the site cannot send live status.
• Meters: each country decides whether billing per kWh at a public point needs a certified meter. Outside Germany, ask your country’s metrology office before you bill per kWh.

How to check your stations against AFIR

1. List each public point with its power, start date and location. Leave out sites that only employees or residents can use.
2. Mark the fast chargers that need a card reader by 1 January 2027. Use the TEN-T check above.
3. Check payment and price on each point against the first table. On newer points from 50 kW, show the price per kWh on a screen or sticker at the station.
4. Check that every public point is online and controlled from a platform. A point without a platform link fails, even when charging is free.
5. Get your operator ID, then agree who delivers the data. Check which format your national access point takes before your platform or an aggregator connects.
6. Order new public stations with ISO 15118 confirmed in writing. Ask for parts 2 and 3 with PLC hardware now, and part 20 for anything installed from 2027.

Running public stations on ELVO

After a 30-day free trial, ELVO costs EUR 3.99 per station per month, plus 3% only on paid charging sessions. Each payment goes straight to your own payment account, and the 3% is invoiced monthly with your subscription.

If your public stations are paid, you set a tariff on each connector. A tariff can hold a price per kWh, a parking price, a fixed fee, a cap and an idle fee. The idle fee starts once the car has finished charging but stays connected. Prices include VAT, and you are the company named on the driver’s invoice.

If your public stations are free, they still have to stay connected. You see each station’s status and sessions in real time and control it remotely. With autostart, charging starts as soon as a car plugs in, with no card or app.

If a public station drops offline, you see it in the station list. From the same screen you can reset it, unlock a connector, start a session for a driver or push a firmware update.

If your stations share one supply, you put them in a load balancing group with a shared current limit. The platform re-evaluates the group and adjusts the current allowed per station.

ELVO is compatible with 700+ charger models and holds an Open Charge Alliance certificate, Full and Security, OCA.0016.1071.CSMS.

Try ELVO free for 30 days. The plan runs month to month, with no sales call. Connect one public station, set its tariff and watch it live.

Frequently asked questions

What is the AFIR regulation?

AFIR is Regulation (EU) 2023/1804 on alternative fuels infrastructure. It has applied directly in every EU member state since 13 April 2024. For public charging points, it sets rules on payment, price display, digital connection, smart charging, data and the standards of new stations.

Do all chargers of 50 kW or more need a card reader from 2027?

Not all of them. Paid points of 50 kW or more in service from 13 April 2024 need a card or contactless reader already. From 1 January 2027, older ones need one on the TEN-T road network, within 3 km of driving from an exit, or in a safe and secure parking area.

Is a QR code enough for AFIR payment?

Below 50 kW, a secure online payment such as a QR code is allowed. In the Commission’s reading, a static QR sticker works if it is readable and the payment is secure, and your own app does not count. From 50 kW, points in service from 13 April 2024 need a card or contactless reader.

Do new AC chargers need ISO 15118 under AFIR?

Public ones, yes. Public AC and DC points installed or renovated from 8 January 2026 must comply with ISO 15118 parts 1 to 5, which needs a powerline communication chip. Points installed or renovated from 1 January 2027 need ISO 15118-20 too, and private wallboxes need it as well.

Where do I send AFIR charging data?

To your country’s national access point, the data platform drivers’ apps read. First get an operator ID from the national office that issues them, the IDRO. Formats differ: the Netherlands and Finland take OCPI, while Germany and Denmark expect DATEX II. Who is legally responsible also differs, for example the owner in France.

Read next

• Starting an EV charging business: what to watch out for
• EV charging billing: a practical guide for operators
• EV chargers without management software: what it costs

Sources

• Regulation (EU) 2023/1804 (AFIR), consolidated text
• European Commission, questions and answers on AFIR
• Open Charge Alliance, ELVO certificate OCA.0016.1071.CSMS

ELVO Team. We operate CPMS for manufacturers, distributors, installers, and operators across Europe and beyond.

Published 5 November 2026.