CBAM Certificate Price 2026: Cost, Rules & Deadlines

The first CBAM certificate price landed at €75.36 per tonne of CO₂ for Q1 2026, published by the European Commission on 7 April. The second came in at €75.28 for Q2, barely moving. Both numbers matter more than they look, because the definitive regime went live on 1 January 2026 and every tonne of covered goods an EU importer has cleared since then is already accruing a bill that falls due in September 2027. This guide covers what the CBAM certificate price is, how it is set, what it costs per tonne of actual steel or aluminium, and how to work out your exposure before the invoice arrives.

What is the CBAM certificate price and how is it set?

The CBAM certificate price is the amount an EU importer pays per tonne of CO₂ embedded in covered goods. It tracks the auction clearing price of EU Emissions Trading System allowances, calculated as a quarterly average during 2026 and switching to a weekly average from 2027, per the Commission's definitive-regime rules. One certificate covers one tonne of CO₂.

The published schedule so far:

The two-cent gap between quarters is the useful part of that table. Importers who budgeted for a volatile carbon price got a flat one, which means the variable that decides your CBAM bill is not the certificate price at all. It is how much carbon sits inside the goods you buy, and that is a sourcing decision, per Flexport's read on the first published price.

Which goods does CBAM cover?

Six sectors: cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen. Scope is set by CN code, not by sector name, so a product being "steel-ish" does not put it in scope and a product sounding unrelated sometimes is. Screws, bolts and aluminium structures already sit inside the steel and aluminium annexes.

In February 2026 the Commission proposed extending CBAM downstream into more complex metal products. Its own impact assessment put the additional exposed import value at roughly €4 billion from China, €2 billion each from the UK and Japan, and €1 billion each from the US and Türkiye, according to Covington's analysis of the draft. If you import fabricated metal parts and assumed CBAM was somebody else's problem, that proposal is the one to read.

Who has to register, and by when?

Anyone importing more than 50 tonnes of CBAM goods into the EU in a calendar year needs authorised CBAM declarant status. Below that single mass-based threshold, you are out of scope. The 50-tonne line replaced the old €150-per-consignment test during the 2025 simplification round, and it was deliberately drawn to strip out the long tail of occasional importers while keeping the tonnage that actually carries the emissions, per the ICAP summary of the adopted simplifications.

The dates that matter:

1. Now: you cannot import CBAM goods above the threshold without authorised declarant status. Apply through your national competent authority.
2. 1 February 2027: certificate sales open on the common central platform.
3. 30 September 2027: first annual CBAM declaration for 2026 imports, plus surrender of the matching certificates.

That gap between importing and paying is the trap. Goods cleared in January 2026 generate a liability that is not invoiced for twenty months. Finance teams that are not accruing for it will find a seven-figure surprise sitting in the 2027 accounts.

The certificate price barely moved between Q1 and Q2. Your CBAM bill will still swing by a factor of five depending on which mill rolled the steel.

What does CBAM actually cost per tonne of product?

Multiply the embedded emissions by the certificate price. For steel the production route decides almost everything. Blast furnace and basic oxygen furnace steel, dominant in India and China, runs about 2.0-2.5 tCO₂ per tonne. Electric arc furnace steel, which melts scrap and dominates in Türkiye and southern Europe, runs about 0.3-0.5 tCO₂ per tonne, per Global Efficiency Intelligence's steel-trade analysis.

At the Q2 2026 price of €75.28, that works out to roughly €150 to €190 per tonne of BF-BOF steel against €23 to €38 per tonne of EAF steel. On a 500-tonne order the spread is well over €60,000. Any carbon price already paid in the country of production can be deducted, which narrows the gap for suppliers in jurisdictions with a live carbon market and widens it for everyone else.

Two practical consequences. First, "cheapest offer per tonne" stopped being a meaningful comparison in January. Second, a supplier who cannot hand you verified installation-level emissions data is a supplier whose goods you will have to declare using default values, and defaults are set punitively on purpose.

How do you find lower-carbon suppliers before you commit?

Start from the trade flows, not from the sales deck. Shipment records show which mills and smelters are already shipping your CN code into the EU, in what volume, and from where. That gives you a shortlist of suppliers who have cleared EU customs repeatedly and are used to European documentation, which correlates strongly with being able to produce emissions data on request.

The sequence most procurement teams are running now:

1. Pin the CN code. CBAM scope is code-level. Get this wrong and every downstream number is wrong. If codes are new to you, start with how HS and CN codes work.
2. Map current suppliers by route. EAF or BF-BOF changes the bill by 5x. Ask, and ask for evidence.
3. Widen the supplier pool. Pull shipment data for your code into the EU and rank origins by volume and consistency.
4. Check the carbon-price deduction. A supplier in a jurisdiction with a functioning carbon price hands you a deductible.
5. Verify before you switch. A cheap low-carbon quote from an unknown counterparty is still a counterparty risk, so verify the company before paying.

One EU fabricator we spoke to about this ran the exercise on a single CN code and found their long-standing supplier ranked 40th by EU shipment volume, while three EAF mills shipping the same code weekly had never been approached. The switch paid for the data subscription in one order.

How ShipScout helps

ShipScout puts 11B+ shipment records across 240+ countries behind one search, so the supplier-mapping half of CBAM stops being guesswork:

1. Search by CN or HS code with the EU as destination and see who is actually shipping, at what volume, from which origin.
2. Rank suppliers by consistency, not by directory listing, so you approach mills with a real EU track record.
3. Compare origins side by side to see where production routes and carbon exposure differ, then link that to the steel and iron trade flows feeding Europe.
4. Pull contacts where available and open the conversation with their own shipment history instead of a cold introduction.

CBAM turned procurement into a data problem with a deadline attached. Start a free trial and map your CN code's EU supply base before the September 2027 surrender.