How to check in online with Ryanair

With Ryanair, online check-in is free, and it's how you get your boarding pass. Check-in closes 2 hours before departure. When it opens depends on your seat: 60 days ahead if you've paid to reserve one, 24 hours ahead if it's allocated to you at random. The boarding pass itself is digital, and it lives in the Ryanair app.

Below we set out what you need before you start, how the process runs on the website and in the app, when the check-in window opens in each case, how the digital boarding pass reaches your phone, and what it costs if you leave check-in until the airport.

Before you start, have the following to hand:

• your reservation number and the email address the booking was made with, or the email address and password of your myRyanair account;

• your passport, since you'll be asked for your travel document details as you work through check-in;

• the Ryanair app on your phone, which is where your boarding pass will appear.

If you haven't got the reservation number, ask whoever made the booking. On the website it's asked for together with the email address used at the time.

The travel documents accepted are a passport and a national identity card. A driving licence or a birth certificate won't do, wherever you're flying, and it's each passenger's responsibility to carry photo ID that meets both Ryanair's requirements and those of the immigration authorities at the other end.

The process takes a few minutes, and you can go through it on the website or in the app.

How to check in for a Ryanair flight:

1. Go to the Ryanair website, or open the Ryanair app.

2. Sign in to myRyanair, or open your booking with your reservation number and the email address the booking was made with.

3. Select check-in, then work through the steps.

4. Enter your travel document details when you're asked for them, and finish the check-in.

Once that's done, your boarding pass appears in the Ryanair app. There's nothing to print.

The website and the app both take you through the same check-in, but only one of them ends with the boarding pass on your phone. Here's how each one goes.

With Ryanair, when check-in opens depends on your seat: a reserved seat brings it forward by weeks, while a seat allocated at random means waiting until the day before the flight.

Reminders arrive by email 48 hours and 24 hours before departure, so the window is unlikely to pass unnoticed. Do bear in mind that the reminder isn't the opening: with a reserved seat you can check in long before the first email lands.

Keep the online closing time apart from the deadlines waiting for you at the airport. Online check-in closes 2 hours before departure. The check-in and bag drop desks close 40 minutes before, and the boarding gate closes 30 minutes before. Only the first of the three is something you can deal with before leaving the house, and we come back to the other two further down.

Online check-in with Ryanair is free, and skipping it has a price. Checking in at the airport is still possible, and it carries a fee of £55 per passenger, per flight, on flights departing from the UK.

The check-in and bag drop desks close strictly 40 minutes before departure, so the airport route has a cut-off of its own. If you haven't checked in by then, you may not be allowed to fly, and there's no refund.

That £55 is the figure in Ryanair's Table of Fees as it stood in August 2026. The published amount is lower on flights leaving Spain and Austria, so do have a look at the table if you're coming home from either.

At the airport

With the boarding pass on your phone, what's left depends on whether you have a bag to check in.

• With hold luggage, the bag drop desk comes first, and it closes strictly 40 minutes before departure.

• With hand luggage only, in most cases you can go straight through to security.

The desks open at the latest 2 hours before departure, and Ryanair's advice is to be there at least that far ahead.

The boarding gate closes 30 minutes before departure, wherever you're flying from, and if you reach it after that you won't be travelling on that flight. All of these deadlines are worked out from the scheduled departure time.

You checked in in good time, you got to the gate when you were meant to, and your booking was confirmed. Even so, a delay, a cancellation or an overbooked flight can still get in the way of your plans.

If that happens and the airline is responsible, UK261 entitles you to compensation of up to £520 per passenger, depending on how far you were due to fly. The rules cover every flight departing from a UK airport, whichever airline you're travelling with.

If your Ryanair flight departs from an airport in the EU, the equivalent European rules apply instead, under Regulation EC 261/2004.

Being turned away at the gate is covered too: our guide to denied boarding sets out where you stand. And to see what you may be owed for your own flight, start with our Ryanair compensation page.

Keeping track of your Ryanair flight

With check-in out of the way, all that's left is the wait. It's well worth keeping an eye on your flight status in the meantime, particularly if you have a connection to make or someone meeting you at the other end.

In the Ryanair app, the Day of Travel Assistant carries your flight status, the gate number and the boarding information, and it updates through the day. Ryanair's advice is to check the airport screens as well, since those carry the latest information.

You could also use the free AirHelp app, which does one thing more: if your flight is delayed by more than 3 hours, is cancelled, or you're denied boarding, the app checks automatically whether you're entitled to compensation under UK261/EC 261 and lets you know.

With the AirHelp app you can:

• receive real-time notifications about delays, cancellations, gate changes and baggage reclaim;

• scan your boarding pass to add your flight quickly;

• share your flight status with whoever is picking you up;

• automatically check whether a disruption entitles you to compensation of up to £520;

• start your compensation claim straight from the app, with no paperwork.

The app is free and available on iOS and Android.