CBAM in the Definitive Period: What an EU Importer Has to Do

What changed, and what the simplification actually did

CBAM was created by Regulation (EU) 2023/956. Its transitional period, which required quarterly reports but no payment, ran to the end of 2025; the definitive regime applies from 1 January 2026.

Shortly before it started, Regulation (EU) 2025/2083 of 8 October 2025 (OJ L, 2025/2083, 17 October 2025, in force 20 October 2025) amended the CBAM Regulation substantially. It is usually described as a simplification, and for small importers it is one — but it also moved deadlines, changed how certificates are held and rewrote the rules on default values. Any material written before October 2025 is unsafe on all three points.

Are you in scope? The 50-tonne threshold

The threshold sits in Article 2a of the CBAM Regulation, with the figure in Annex VII: 50 tonnes of net mass. Four features of it decide whether it protects you.

• It is cumulative and aggregated. It applies to the total net mass of goods under all CN codes, added up per importer and per calendar year — not per consignment, not per CN code and not per supplier.
• Exceeding it is retroactive. Once you pass 50 tonnes in a calendar year, all the obligations of the Regulation apply to all emissions embedded in all goods imported in that year — not just the tonnes above the line.
• It does not apply to electricity or hydrogen. Article 2a(4) excludes them. An importer of electricity or hydrogen must always hold authorised CBAM declarant status, whatever the quantity.
• It has to be declared. An importer relying on the exemption declares it in the customs declaration.

The old exemptions are gone: the value-based negligible-consignment exemption and the personal-luggage exemption were both deleted and replaced by the mass threshold.

Splitting imports to stay under the line is expressly addressed: authorities must disregard non-genuine arrangements whose main purpose is to fall below the threshold, such conduct counts as a serious infringement, and the Commission circulates a list of importers that exceed 90 per cent of it. If your group imports through several entities, prepare a written, commercially grounded explanation of why — now, not when asked.

The threshold is itself reviewed annually: by 30 April the Commission assesses whether it still confines the exemption to no more than 1 per cent of embedded emissions, and may amend it by delegated act where the recalculated figure moves by more than 15 tonnes, effective from the following 1 January.

Authorised CBAM declarant status

Article 4 has applied since 1 January 2026: goods may be imported only by an authorised CBAM declarant. An importer established in a Member State must apply before importing; where the importer is not established in the EU, an indirect customs representative must hold the status and carries the importer's obligations for those goods — whether or not the importer is exempt under the threshold.

There is a transitional safety net, and it is narrow. Under Article 17(7a), an importer or indirect customs representative that submitted its application by 31 March 2026 may continue to import provisionally until the competent authority decides. If authorisation is then refused, the authority establishes the emissions embedded in everything imported between 1 January 2026 and the decision date using default values, and that figure feeds a penalty — which the authority may reduce, but not below the standard level.

The Commission reported more than 12,000 applications and more than 4,100 authorisations by 7 January 2026. If yours is still pending, that is a live commercial risk, not an administrative detail.

The timetable you are working to

Two consequences are easy to miss. There is no quarterly holding obligation during 2026 at all, because that provision applies from 1 January 2027. And certificates bought in 2027 for 2026 emissions can only be repurchased in 2027 — buy carefully.

Pricing also differs for the first year: 2026 emissions are priced at the quarterly average of EU ETS auction closing prices for the quarter of importation, rather than the weekly average that applies from 2027. The Commission published EUR 75.36 for the first quarter of 2026 and EUR 75.28 for the second.

The real work: embedded emissions data

Under the amended Article 7(2) you have a genuine choice. Embedded emissions in goods other than electricity are determined either from actual emissions, following the methods in Annex IV, or by reference to default values. The old gate — default values only where actual emissions could not be adequately determined — has gone. That choice has three consequences.

Default values carry a mark-up. They are set by Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2621 of 16 December 2025, which is country- and year-specific and has applied since 1 January 2026. Its tables carry an explicit mark-up of 10 per cent for 2026, 20 per cent for 2027 and 30 per cent from 2028, with 1 per cent for fertilisers. The mark-up is designed to make actual data the cheaper option, and it usually is. Those values were also corrected with retroactive effect by Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1740 of 20 July 2026: if you built a 2026 estimate on the original annex, recompute it.

Verification only bites on actual emissions. Article 8(1) requires verification by an accredited verifier only where embedded emissions are determined on the basis of actual emissions. Using default values removes that obligation — and, with it, most of your ability to argue that your supplier is cleaner than the default.

Verifier capacity is only now arriving. Accreditation runs through national accreditation bodies under Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2551, and the Commission expected the first CBAM accreditations around September 2026. Since the first declaration is due on 30 September 2027, booking verification capacity is a 2026 procurement task.

What to ask a supplier for

The Regulation puts the obligation on you, not on the producer, and no third country can be compelled to supply anything. A workable request has five parts:

1. Installation-level identification — the operator, the installation and its location, so it can be matched in the CBAM Registry.
2. Emissions calculated under Annex IV and Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2547, not under a corporate greenhouse gas inventory standard. A product carbon footprint prepared for a customer questionnaire is not the same quantity and will not survive verification.
3. Precursor data, because the embedded emissions of a complex good include those of its precursors. Where a precursor's country of production cannot be identified, a separate and generally worse default annex applies.
4. Records a verifier can test — monitoring methodology, measurement or calculation basis, and the underlying data.
5. Evidence of any carbon price effectively paid, in the form described below.

Building this into purchase terms is more effective than asking after the fact. The difference between a default value with its mark-up and a verified actual figure is a price difference, and it belongs in the commercial conversation rather than in a compliance file. Producers in supplier countries — Türkiye among several — have been preparing installation-level data since the transitional period, so the request is rarely a surprise.

Direct and indirect emissions are not treated alike

Carbon price paid in the country of production

Article 9, replaced in full by the 2025 amendment, lets a declarant claim a reduction in certificates to reflect a carbon price effectively paid in a third country, with any rebate or compensation available in that country taken into account.

The evidence requirements are demanding. The declarant must keep documentation demonstrating effective payment, including evidence of rebates or compensation and references to the third-country legislation; that information must be certified by a person independent of both the declarant and the authorities of the third country, named on the documentation; and evidence of the actual payment must be kept, until the end of the fourth year after the declaration year.

There is a second route: a declarant may instead claim the reduction by reference to yearly default carbon prices, and where embedded emissions are determined from default values that is the only route available. From 2027 the Commission may publish default carbon prices for third countries with carbon pricing rules.

One caution: at the date of this review the implementing act setting out the detail of Article 9 — conversion into a certificate reduction, currency conversion, evidence of payment, and the certifier's qualifications and independence — had been published in draft for public feedback in May 2026 but did not appear among the adopted CBAM acts on the Commission's legislation page. Treat the deduction as available in principle and unsettled in detail.

What 2026 will actually cost

Less than the headline suggests, and that is temporary. The number of certificates to surrender is reduced to reflect the free allocation still granted to EU producers, under Article 31 and Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2620. The size of that reduction is governed by the CBAM factor in Article 10a(1a) of the EU ETS Directive, which is 97.5 per cent for 2026 and then falls — 95 per cent in 2027, 90 per cent in 2028, 77.5 per cent in 2029, 51.5 per cent in 2030 and 14 per cent by 2033, with no factor from 2034.

So a 2026 import of goods at or near the EU benchmark carries a small financial charge but a full data obligation, and the cost curve turns sharply from 2029. Treat 2026 as a rehearsal and build the supplier data pipeline while the bill is small; treat it as immaterial and you will rebuild the same pipeline in 2029 under pressure.

Failure to surrender is expensive. The penalty is the EU ETS excess emissions penalty, as indexed, applied per certificate not surrendered, and paying it does not discharge the obligation to surrender. A person who imports without being an authorised declarant faces three to five times that amount, and an importer that exceeds the mass threshold without authorisation is treated the same way, calculated across all its imports in the year.

What is coming, and what is not law yet

The Commission proposed extending CBAM to downstream goods and strengthening anti-circumvention measures in COM(2025) 989 of 17 December 2025. The Council agreed a general approach on 12 June 2026 and the Parliament adopted its first-reading decision on 15 September 2026, referring the file back to committee for negotiations. It is not law. No downstream goods are in scope today, and any page that says otherwise is describing a proposal. The Council's version would widen the list substantially, so watch it — but do not budget for it as a certainty.

What to do in the next six months

1. Measure your annual tonnage properly — all CN codes, all suppliers, per importing entity, added together for the calendar year. That number decides everything else.
2. Confirm your authorisation is granted, not pending, and know your fallback if it is refused.
3. Decide, per product line, between actual emissions and default values, and price the difference. Recompute anything built on the original default-value annex.
4. Put emissions data into purchase contracts with a defined format, a deadline that precedes your verification window and a remedy if it is missing.
5. Book verification capacity now for the declaration due 30 September 2027.
6. Assemble the carbon-price evidence file for each origin where a carbon price is paid, including the independent certification.
7. Plan certificate purchasing for 2027, including the 50 per cent quarterly holding, the 31 October repurchase request and the 1 November 2027 cancellation.

The same evidence discipline that an assurance provider applies to a sustainability report applies to a CBAM verification. If your group also reports under the CSRD and the ESRS, or holds a subsidiary inside the Turkish reporting regime, one supplier data programme can serve all three. How this page was checked is set out in our editorial policy.

This guide is general information about published EU legislation, not legal advice on your company's position, and it is not customs advice. Where a decision depends on a specific classification, origin or authorisation, confirm it with your competent authority.

Frequently asked questions