Bail-in reform 2026: what the new EU bank resolution rules change for deposits over €100,000

Anyone with more than €100,000 in an account knows the uncomfortable truth: up to that limit deposit protection covers you, above it the money depends on resolution law if things go wrong. In the EU that law is the bank recovery and resolution directive 2014/59/EU, BRRD for short, which Sweden, Denmark and Finland have written into their own national acts; how a bail-in works is explained separately. These are exactly the rules the EU has now revised. The package is known in the jargon as CMDI, for Crisis Management and Deposit Insurance, and it has been published in the Official Journal since 20 April 2026.

The good news first: for deposits over €100,000 the position gets better, not worse. The bad news: almost two years will pass before you notice anything. And the limit itself stays where it is.

Three legal acts, one date

The package consists of three parts, all dated 30 March 2026:

• Directive (EU) 2026/806, which amends the BRRD, in other words the rules on early intervention, resolution and bail-in,
• Regulation (EU) 2026/808, which does the same for the banks in the eurozone's Single Resolution Mechanism,
• Directive (EU) 2026/804, which amends the deposit guarantee schemes directive.

The directives entered into force twenty days after publication. They only take effect, however, through national law. Under Article 3 of Directive 2026/806, member states must adopt their transposing laws by 11 May 2028 and apply them from 12 May 2028. The same deadline applies to the deposit guarantee directive, to be applied from 11 May 2028. Until then your account in Sweden, Denmark or Finland stays under the national resolution law as it stands today.

What stays: €100,000 and protection from bail-in

The coverage level of deposit protection stays at €100,000 per depositor. Article 6(1) of the deposit guarantee directive sets it for "the aggregate deposits of each depositor", and the reform does not touch this paragraph. Countries outside the euro protect the equivalent in their own currency: in Sweden that is SEK 1,050,000. Equally, the resolution authority still may not apply its write-down or conversion powers to covered deposits under Article 44(2) of the BRRD. Whatever is protected up to €100,000 is not touched in a bail-in.

How high the limit is in other countries is shown in our comparison of deposit guarantees worldwide.

What changes: the ranking of deposits

The real rebuild sits in Article 108 of the BRRD. It governs the order in which creditors are paid in a bank's insolvency, and with that who bears losses first in a bail-in. For in a bail-in the principle applies that no creditor may be left worse off than in normal insolvency proceedings.

Until now the ranking was only partly harmonised. The directive describes this itself in recital 42: covered deposits stood at the top, below them the deposits of natural persons and small and medium-sized enterprises above the coverage level. For all other deposits, above all the balances of large companies, only a lower rank was prescribed. Exactly where they stood was up to each country.

The new version of Article 108(1) turns this into a fixed three-tier order:

1. At the top: covered deposits and the claims of the deposit guarantee scheme.
2. Below: the part of the deposits of natural persons, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and public bodies that lies above the coverage level.
3. Below that: all other deposits, with a rank that is higher than the rank of ordinary unsecured creditors.

Recital 43 calls this a "general depositor preference", under which, with limited exceptions, all deposits rank above ordinary unsecured claims. Exempt are, for example, deposits that a bank has taken in expressly to meet its loss-absorbing requirement (MREL).

What this means for your money over €100,000

For you as a private individual, the place of your balance over €100,000 in this order is not new. You stay on the second tier. What is new is what lies below you.

Picture the loss order as a stack. First the owners lose, then the holders of subordinated bonds, then the ordinary unsecured creditors, such as holders of normal bank bonds. Until now, large corporate deposits could, depending on the country, stand on the same tier as these bondholders. In future the reform pushes all deposits above the ordinary creditors. Corporate balances thereby form a layer of their own between the bondholders and your uncovered balance. Before your money over €100,000 bears a loss, more creditors must have lost ahead of you than before.

That is not a guarantee. A bank whose losses run deep enough can reach the second tier too. But the buffer beneath you gets thicker, and for balances above the coverage level that is the best news a resolution regime can deliver.

Who pays for it: bondholders

What depositors gain, others lose. The directive says so openly in recital 43: taking deposits out of the class of ordinary unsecured claims increases the "bail-inability of the remaining ordinary unsecured claims". In plain words: whoever holds normal, non-subordinated bonds of a bank will in future stand alone ahead of the depositors in the loss order. In some countries they used to share that tier with large corporate deposits.

This affects you if you hold bank bonds in your portfolio, or certificates and structured notes with a bank as issuer. For these securities the reform is a deterioration, not an improvement. Anyone weighing a fixed deposit over €100,000 against a bond from the same bank should know the gap: a private investor's fixed deposit already ranked above the bond. What is new is that from 2028 the bond also ranks behind all corporate deposits, and in the same way in every member state.

More transfers, fewer break-ups

The reform's second lever is less visible. The directive extends when and how much the deposit guarantee scheme may help fund a resolution instead of only paying out depositors. Under the reworded Article 109 of the BRRD it can contribute, for example, when a bank is sold or transferred to a bridge institution and the depositors keep access to their money as a result. Recital 48 sets limits for this, among them a cap of 62.5 percent of the scheme's target level for such transfers, from which the competent authority may deviate.

The aim behind it: even a small or medium-sized bank should more easily be transferred with its deposits to another bank in a crisis, instead of going into insolvency proceedings. Recital 43 links the new ranking to exactly this, because it eases access to resolution funding. In a transfer your deposits, including the part over €100,000, ideally simply move. The downside: how much the deposit guarantee scheme may contribute is capped, and the sums remain a case-by-case decision of the authority.

Special protection many underestimate: temporary high balances

For the "over €100,000" question one detail of the deposit guarantee reform matters more than anything else. Already today Article 6(2) of the deposit guarantee directive protects certain temporarily high balances beyond €100,000, for example after the sale of your own home. Until now member states could largely set the duration and amount themselves.

Directive 2026/804 harmonises this. Such deposits are in future to be protected for six months with at least €500,000 on top of the regular coverage level. For balances from the sale or purchase of a privately used residential property the directive sets a maximum of €2,500,000, and you must be able to document the transaction. Anyone who sells a house and parks the proceeds in the account for a few weeks will be considerably better off from 2028.

A second change concerns customers of payment and e-money institutions. These institutions often place customer funds in accounts with banks. The directive aims to protect such deposits on condition that the individual customers are known or can be identified (recital 17). On 23 July 2026 the European Banking Authority launched consultations on the technical details, including rules on when repayment goes directly to the customer. How money held through an app is protected today is set out in Revolut as a foreign account: how safe is your money.

And in the UK?

The UK does not take over the EU reform; it has its own regime. The special resolution regime of the Banking Act 2009 gives the Bank of England a bail-in tool, and under section 48B protected deposits are excluded from it by law. Since 1 December 2025 the FSCS has protected eligible deposits up to £120,000 per person and per authorised firm, according to the FSCS, and temporary high balances of up to £1.4 million for six months after life events such as a home sale. For an account at a UK bank the new EU ranking plays no part.

And in Switzerland?

Switzerland does not take over the EU reform either; it has its own restructuring law. The Banking Act allows FINMA, in Article 30b, to convert debt into equity or reduce claims in a restructuring plan, essentially the same tool as a bail-in. Exempt are privileged claims "to the extent of their privilege". Under Article 37a, deposits up to CHF 100,000 per creditor are privileged and protected through the banks' deposit insurance, which under Article 37h must pay the money to FINMA's appointed agent within seven working days. Anything above that is an ordinary claim in the third class.

What decides is the seat of the bank, not your residence. If you live in the UK or the Nordics and hold an account in Switzerland, Swiss law applies to it, with protection up to CHF 100,000 and the possibility of a reduction of claims above that. If you hold an account at a bank in the EU, the EU ranking applies, wherever you live.

What you can do until 2028

Because the reform only bites in 2028, it changes little about your planning today. The basic rules remain:

• Spread balances over €100,000 across several banks, not across several accounts at the same bank. The coverage level applies to all deposits of the same depositor at one institution.
• Check who owns the brand. Two names can belong to one institution, and then the limit only counts once.
• Separate money you park from money you invest. Securities in a custody account are not deposits. Deposit protection does not cover them, and the depositor ranking does not concern them.
• Think about the bank's country. The EU rules apply to banks in the EU. Anyone who deliberately holds assets in different jurisdictions also spreads the resolution risk. How that looks in connection with enforcement and creditors is set out in asset protection with an offshore account.

The word bail-in sounds like expropriation, and it is often used that way. The 2026 reform goes in the opposite direction: it puts depositors in a better position than before. The €100,000 limit nevertheless remains the most important number on your bank statement, and the new ranking does not change that.

Want to know how to spread larger sums sensibly across banks and countries? The free consultation goes through it with you.