Without prejudice to Articles 101, 102, 106 and 107 TFEU and notwithstanding the direct cost principle laid down in Article 31(3) of this Directive, any discount on the charges levied on a railway undertaking by the infrastructure manager, for any service, shall comply with the criteria set out in this Article.

With the exception of paragraph 3, discounts shall be limited to the actual saving of the administrative cost to the infrastructure manager. In determining the level of discount, no account may be taken of cost savings already internalised in the charge levied.

Infrastructure managers may introduce schemes available to all users of the infrastructure, for specified traffic flows, granting time-limited discounts to encourage the development of new rail services, or discounts encouraging the use of considerably underutilised lines.

Discounts may relate only to charges levied for a specified infrastructure section.

Similar discount schemes shall apply for similar services. Discount schemes shall be applied in a non-discriminatory manner to any railway undertaking.