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AI law comparison · Data verified 2026-08-22

EU AI Act — GPAI Rules vs EU AI Act — Prohibited Practices

EU AI Act — GPAI Rules and EU AI Act — Prohibited Practices are two of the 169 AI and data regulations Aegis Firma tracks. They have different scopes, effective dates, and penalties — and many businesses fall under both. Here is the side-by-side, drawn directly from the regulatory registry.

Find which laws apply to my business

Side by side

Attribute
EU AI Act — GPAI Rules
EU AI Act — Prohibited Practices
Region
EU
EU
Effective date
2025-08-02
2025-02-02
Enforcement begins
2025-08-02
Who must comply
The GPAI provisions create a two-tier compliance structure. Tier 1 — GPAI Model Providers: organizations that train or fine-tune foundation models (LLMs, multimodal models) and make them available to downstream integrato…
Applies to: any provider, deployer, importer, or distributor that places on the EU market, puts into service, or uses an AI system in the EU that falls into one of the eight prohibited categories of Article 5 — regardles…
Maximum penalty
€15,000,000 or 3% of global annual turnover (for GPAI model provider violations)
€35,000,000 or 7% of global annual turnover — highest penalty in the entire AI Act
Compliance requirements
5 tracked
4 tracked
Enforcement actions on record
1
1
Data last verified
2026-08-22
2026-08-22

Summary of publicly available regulatory text. Verify against current official sources before relying on this for compliance decisions. Not legal advice.

The key difference

EU AI Act — Prohibited Practices takes effect first, so it is usually the more urgent of the two. EU AI Act — GPAI Rules tracks 5 compliance requirements and EU AI Act — Prohibited Practices tracks 4. They are not interchangeable — meeting one does not discharge the other. The practical question is not which law is “stricter,” but which of them — or both — actually applies to your business.

EU

EU AI Act — General-Purpose AI (GPAI) Obligations (Art. 50-55) + GPAI Code of Practice

As of August 2, 2025, the EU AI Act's obligations for General-Purpose AI (GPAI) model providers and deployers are in full effect (Chapter V, Articles 50-55). Organizations that integrate GPAI models (LLMs, image generators, multimodal AI) into their products must maintain technical documentation, implement copyright compliance policies, publish training data transparency summaries, and disclose AI-generated content t…

Full EU AI Act — GPAI Rules requirements
EU

EU AI Act — Prohibited Practices (Article 5)

EU AI Act Article 5 bans eight categories of AI outright — no grace period, no exceptions. These prohibitions became enforceable February 2, 2025 and are subject to the HIGHEST penalties in the entire AI Act. Key bans: (1) Social scoring of individuals by public/private bodies. (2) AI systems exploiting vulnerabilities (age, disability, socioeconomic status) to manipulate behavior. (3) Subliminal AI techniques that d…

Full EU AI Act — Prohibited Practices requirements

Common questions

Could both EU AI Act — GPAI Rules and EU AI Act — Prohibited Practices apply to my business?

Yes. EU AI Act — GPAI Rules and EU AI Act — Prohibited Practices are separate regulations with separate scopes — a business can fall under both at once. EU AI Act — GPAI Rules covers The GPAI provisions create a two-tier compliance structure. EU AI Act — Prohibited Practices covers Applies to: any provider, deployer, importer, or distributor that places on the EU market, puts into service, or uses an AI system in the EU that falls into one… If your operations meet both scopes, you must comply with both. Aegis Firma's free scan checks all 169 tracked regulations against your business profile so you do not have to read each law to find out.

Which has the higher maximum penalty — EU AI Act — GPAI Rules or EU AI Act — Prohibited Practices?

EU AI Act — GPAI Rules: €15,000,000 or 3% of global annual turnover (for GPAI model provider violations) EU AI Act — Prohibited Practices: €35,000,000 or 7% of global annual turnover — highest penalty in the entire AI Act Penalty structures differ by regulator and violation type — read each law's full page for the cure periods and per-violation detail.

When does each law take effect?

EU AI Act — GPAI Rules — effective 2025-08-02. EU AI Act — Prohibited Practices — effective 2025-02-02, enforcement from 2025-08-02. Dates last verified against official sources on 2026-08-22 and 2026-08-22 respectively.

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