Last updated: August 2026
Get the passenger details wrong at checkout, and fixing them later costs real money. The Ryanair name change fee is £115 per passenger online, or £160 through the contact centre or airport desk. Once you’re within 48 hours of departure, free correction stops being an option too.
How much is the Ryanair name change fee?
Ryanair charges by channel, not by how big the mistake is. A single misspelled letter costs the same as swapping the entire name, once you’re outside the free-correction windows below.
Advertisement
| Fee | Deadline | |
|---|---|---|
| Online (My Booking) | £115 per passenger | Up to 24 hours before departure |
| Contact centre or airport desk | £160 per passenger | Up to 2 hours before departure |
| Free correction (conditions apply) | £0 | See “When can you fix a name for free?” below |
Both paid fees are per passenger, not per booking, so a family of four all sharing the same misspelled surname pays four times over.
How to change a name on your Ryanair booking online
The online route is always the cheaper of the two paid options, and it takes a few minutes through your account.
- Go to “My Bookings” on ryanair.com, or “My Trips” in the app, and log into your myRyanair account.
- Select “Manage this booking” on the trip you need to change.
- Choose “Change a name” and pick the passenger whose details are wrong.
- Edit the name, then click “Check the price” to see the £115 fee confirmed.
- Confirm you want to proceed and enter your payment details.
- You’ll get an updated email itinerary once the change goes through.
Changes have to be made across every flight in the booking, not just one leg, so an outbound-and-return trip only needs a single trip through this process. If you’re already checked in, you’ll need to contact Ryanair to get unchecked before the system will let you make the change.
When can you fix a name for free?
Three genuine free-correction routes exist, though the first two run on clocks that people mix up.
- Swap the first and last name once, free, but only within 48 hours of making the booking. This covers a simple order mix-up, like “Smith John” instead of “John Smith”.
- Fix up to three characters in a name once, free, up to 48 hours before scheduled departure. This window is tied to your flight date, not your booking date, so it stays open much longer.
- Update a name to a maiden or married name for free, at any point before travel, as long as your passport is updated first and you send proof, such as a marriage certificate, through Ryanair’s chat.
“The two free-correction windows trip people up because they don’t run on the same clock. One counts from when you booked, the other counts down to your flight, and mixing them up is how a free fix turns into a £115 bill.”
Kate Acaster, Chief Editor, Flight Tribe
Is it cheaper to just book a new flight instead?
Sometimes, yes. Ryanair’s basic fares can be genuinely cheap: a one-way London Stansted to Dublin flight in mid-September 2026 was priced from £16.99 to £26.99 depending on the time of day, checked live on ryanair.com. If your original booking cost about the same, paying £115 to fix a name makes no sense when a fresh, correctly-named ticket costs less than the fee itself.
Treat any figure here as an example, not a promise. Search your exact route and dates before deciding, since a bargain fare found today might not still be there tomorrow.
The catch is that these fares are non-refundable. Walk away from the original booking and you lose the full ticket price, plus anything paid for seats, priority boarding or checked bags, with one small exception: the £20 Government Tax Refund Administration Fee per passenger can still be reclaimed. Add the fare and any extras on the original booking together, compare that total against a fresh one-way fare, and the cheaper option is whichever number actually comes out lower.
Can you transfer a Ryanair ticket to someone else entirely?
Yes. Ryanair allows a full transfer to a different passenger, and it costs exactly the same as any other name change, £115 online or £160 through an agent. There’s no separate “transfer fee” and no extra paperwork beyond entering the new passenger’s details, but you can’t make the switch once one flight in the booking has already departed.
More on flying with Ryanair
For everything else on flying with the airline, see our guide to flying with Ryanair. If a booking needs cancelling rather than correcting, our guide on cancelling a flight and getting a refund covers the rules. Weighing up airport costs generally? The Ryanair airport check-in fee guide covers the other charges worth avoiding.
- Booking a replacement is easiest during a fare promotion, so check when the next sale starts and when new flights get released before committing to rebook.
- If a trip gets disrupted rather than mislabelled, our guide on flight delay and cancellation compensation covers what you’re owed.
Ryanair Name Change Fee: FAQs
How much does Ryanair charge to change a name on a booking?
£115 per passenger if you do it online through My Booking, or £160 if you go through the contact centre or the airport desk. The higher fee applies any time an agent processes the change for you.
Can I change a name on a Ryanair booking for free?
Yes, in two situations: swapping the first and last name once, free, within 48 hours of booking, or fixing up to three characters in a name once, free, up to 48 hours before departure. Anything beyond that triggers the full fee.
Is it cheaper to rebook a Ryanair flight than pay the name change fee?
Sometimes. Ryanair’s cheapest one-way fares can undercut the £115 to £160 fee by a wide margin, but you’d lose everything paid on the original non-refundable booking, including any seats or bags.
Can you transfer a Ryanair flight to a different person?
Yes, but Ryanair charges the standard name change fee rather than a separate transfer fee. You can’t make the switch once one flight in the booking has already departed.
What’s the deadline for changing a name on a Ryanair flight?
Online changes close 24 hours before scheduled departure. After that, only the contact centre or the airport desk can process it, up to 2 hours before departure, at the higher £160 fee.
Can Ryanair correct a name to a maiden or married name for free?
Yes, if you update your passport before you travel and send proof, such as a marriage certificate, through Ryanair’s chat. This route avoids the name change fee entirely.
Kate Acaster is Chief Editor at Flight Tribe. She writes about practical travel planning, budget airlines, baggage rules, city breaks, beach holidays and good hotels that do not cost daft money.
Kate has travelled through Europe, South America and beyond, usually with a notebook, a half-formed plan and a strong opinion on airport snacks. At Flight Tribe, her work focuses on helping UK travellers understand what is included, what costs extra, and whether a trip is worth booking at the price shown.
How Kate works
Kate checks the details that can change the value of a trip, including cabin-bag rules, airline fees, hotel location, seasonality, travel dates and booking conditions. She is especially interested in offers that look useful on the surface but need a proper reader-first check before they are worth recommending.
Editorial standards
Flight Tribe covers deals and travel advice for readers first. Affiliate links do not decide whether an offer is worth writing about.
