The EU Data Act has applied since 12 September 2025. Its switching rules do not give you an export "within 30 days of asking". They require a contract setting out three periods, running one after another: a notice period of up to two months, then a transitional period of at most 30 calendar days for the port itself, then a retrieval window of at least 30 calendar days after that.
We are not lawyers, and nothing here is legal advice. What follows sticks to what the regulation itself says, and to what this category's own pages currently say, not to our interpretation of how either applies to your situation. If you need a legal answer, ask a lawyer.
This page is one part of a larger guide. For the whole subject in one place, see what feedback tools actually cost.
What does the EU Data Act actually require?
Chapter VI of Regulation (EU) 2023/2854 governs switching between data processing services. Article 25(2) requires the switching contract to contain three separate periods, and the order they run in is the whole point.
| Article | Period | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 25(2)(d) | Notice period, before switching starts | Maximum two months |
| 25(2)(a) | Transitional period, the port itself, starting after that notice | Maximum 30 calendar days |
| 25(2)(g) | Retrieval window, starting after the transitional period ends | Minimum 30 calendar days |
Article 25(2)(a) is explicit that the shorter clock is not the first one to run. The port has to happen:
without undue delay and in any event not after the mandatory maximum transitional period of 30 calendar days, to be initiated after the maximum notice period referred to in point (d)
Regulation (EU) 2023/2854, Article 25(2)(a)
So the 30 days caps the switch, not the wait. A vendor can be entirely compliant, take the full notice period first, and only then start the month the switch itself is allowed to occupy. Read the three rows as a sequence and the honest summary is short: the Act caps the switch at 30 calendar days once notice has run, and guarantees at least another 30 days afterwards to retrieve what is left.
Which of the three windows will actually surprise you?
The notice period, every time. It is the longest of the three, it is the one nobody quotes, and it is the one that decides when your migration can realistically start. Planning a move around "they have 30 days" and discovering that a compliant contract can spend two months before that month begins is the difference between a migration and a scramble.
That is also why "how fast can I get my data out" is the wrong question to put to a vendor. The right one asks what their contract actually says, because the Act's requirement is that the contract states these periods, not that any single number applies to everyone.
Does the Act apply to a feature request board at all?
Honestly, we cannot tell you. The switching obligations bind providers of data processing services, which is a defined term in the Act with its own scope, and whether a given feature request board sits inside that definition is a legal judgement we are not qualified to make. It may. It may not. It may depend on how the vendor is structured and what else it does.
What does not depend on that judgement is whether asking is useful. A vendor that can point at a contract clause setting out its notice period and its transitional period has thought about this. A vendor that cannot has not, whatever the answer to the scope question turns out to be.
Why doesn't any vendor mention it?
Not one vendor in this feature request board category currently mentions the Data Act anywhere in its own marketing or documentation. That silence is itself informative. A requirement nobody advertises is a requirement nobody has been asked about, and a requirement nobody has been asked about is one that has not been tested against what an export button actually produces.
That gap is why the graveyard of tools that have already closed, rebranded or been discontinued matters here too. When a vendor is winding down, the periods in the contract are the thing you are relying on, and a wind-down notice is not a substitute for one.
Is "we have an export button" the same claim as "we comply"?
No, and the difference is not academic. "You can export your data" describes a button existing. It says nothing about what comes out of that button when you press it, nor about the periods a switching contract is supposed to set out. A vendor can be telling the truth about the first sentence while the second one has never been written down anywhere.
Canny.io is the clearest documented example available. Its CSV export contains post data only, with no comments; getting comments out requires calling Canny.io's own JSON API rather than clicking the export button in the admin panel. Canny.io's own public feature request board carries open, unshipped requests from its own customers, titled "Export Board Data" and "Export users". Those requests being open and unshipped is not evidence of bad faith. It is evidence that the export path a customer would actually use to move their own data out is not yet finished, on the vendor's own admission, in public.
Does a CSV without comments meet the legal standard?
We are not going to tell you it does or does not, because that is a legal judgement and this page is not one. What we can say is narrower and checkable: a CSV of post titles without the comments attached to those posts is not a complete copy of the conversation that happened on your feature request board. Whether that gap matters under the Act in your specific case is a question for a lawyer, put to your specific vendor, about your specific account.
What is not a legal question is whether you can ask. You can ask any vendor what its notice period is, what its transitional period is, and what actually comes out at the end of both. The answer, or the silence, tells you something either way.
One payment, no subscription, unlimited products.
How do you actually put this to a vendor?
Ask for the periods, not for a deadline. Something close to this: "Under the EU Data Act's switching provisions, what notice period and what transitional period does your contract set out, and at the end of them, is the export structured and machine-readable, including comments as well as posts?"
That question is harder to answer vaguely than "can I export my data", because it asks for two numbers that either exist in a contract or do not. A vendor that has done the work answers in one message. A vendor that has not either goes quiet or tells you which part is missing, and both replies are worth having before you need them.
For the practical, ten-minute version of testing your own file today, read your export file before you need it walks through what to download and check, column by column, before any of this becomes urgent.
Where does this leave Docket?
There is no notice period, no transitional period and no retrieval window, because there is nothing to switch away from. Every feature request, bug report and comment in Docket is a Markdown file, committed to your own repository, from the first post onward. Nobody has to structure it for you, format it for you, or hand it over at the end of a contractual window, because it was never anywhere else. git clone is not Docket's answer to a legal export requirement; it is just where the data already lived.
That is not a claim that a repository of Markdown files is a substitute for legal advice about your own obligations, or anyone else's. It is a claim about where the data physically sits, and the honest answer is that a request was never needed to begin with.
Frequently asked questions
Does the EU Data Act give me an export within 30 days of asking?
No, and that is the most common misreading of it. Article 25(2) requires a switching contract to set out three periods in sequence: a notice period of up to two months, then a transitional period of at most 30 calendar days for the port itself, then a retrieval window of at least 30 calendar days. The 30 days caps the switch, not the wait.
When did the EU Data Act start applying?
12 September 2025. Its switching provisions sit in Chapter VI of Regulation (EU) 2023/2854, and Article 25(2) is the part that sets out the periods a contract has to contain. This is not legal advice; ask a lawyer for anything beyond what the text itself says.
Does the Act cover a feature request board?
The obligations bind providers of data processing services, a defined term in the Act, and whether a particular feature request board falls inside that definition is a legal judgement we are not qualified to make. What you can do without settling that question is ask a vendor what periods its own contract sets out.
Does Canny.io's export meet the standard?
We cannot say, and that is a legal question rather than one this page answers. What is documented is narrower: Canny.io's CSV export contains post data only, with comments requiring a separate call to Canny.io's JSON API, and Canny.io's own public board carries open, unshipped requests for full board and user data export.
Why doesn't any feedback tool advertise Data Act compliance?
None currently mention it in their own marketing or documentation, as far as this page has checked. That silence does not prove anything either way; it means the claim has not been tested publicly, which is exactly why asking a vendor for its actual notice and transitional periods is worth doing before you need them.
What should I actually ask my vendor?
Ask what notice period and what transitional period their contract sets out, and what the export contains at the end of them: structured, machine-readable data, comments as well as posts. Asking for two numbers that either exist in a contract or do not gets a more precise answer than asking whether you can get your data out.