CBAM, explained
The tarify blog
Plain-English guides to the EU's carbon border rules — what CBAM is, who it affects, and what you actually have to do.
The CBAM factor nobody could look up is now 100 %
One input in the CBAM free-allocation formula could not be looked up for most of 2026: the cross-sectoral correction factor. It was set on 23 July 2026 at 100 % for every year to 2030 — and it arrived as an emissions-trading decision, not a CBAM one. If you assumed 1.0, your number is right. Its status still is not.
Never recompute the CBAM mark-up. 2026 will not tell you why.
The default values carry a statutory mark-up that rises with the year, and it is tempting to apply it yourself. In 2026 that gives the right answer on every row. From 2027 it stops — five cement rows compound instead, and eight steel rows never land on the factor at all. Read the published column.
Fifteen steel codes where we cannot reconcile the two CBAM acts
One implementing act assigns your steel a production route. The other publishes free-allocation benchmarks for a different set of routes. For 15 CN codes we cannot get the two to meet — so our calculation returns nothing rather than pick a route. Here are the codes, our derivation, and what would change our reading.
The CBAM price for this quarter doesn't exist yet
In 2026 the certificate price is a quarterly average the Commission publishes after the quarter has ended. So for three months you are importing against a number nobody can look up — and the two published quarters differ by eight cents, which tells you the real risk is timing, not volatility.
CBAM's new product list isn't settled. Your deadline already is.
The extension to downstream goods applies on 1 January 2028, and three EU institutions still disagree on which products are in. None of that changes the year you have to act — because authorisation takes up to 120 days and has to exist before you cross the threshold.
The EU just halved the steel quota. Your CBAM position moved with it.
Since 1 July 2026 the tariff-free steel quota is 47% smaller and the out-of-quota duty is 50%. Buying less from outside the EU lowers your carbon bill — and can quietly change whether CBAM applies to you at all.
Actual values or default values — and what the choice really costs
Since the Omnibus you may declare your supplier's actual emissions instead of the EU defaults. It sounds like the cheaper, more accurate path. For most importers the arithmetic forecloses it before it begins — the verifier costs more than the whole obligation could ever save.
The two numbers most CBAM calculations get wrong
Both are multiplications, and both get applied to the wrong thing. One inflates your carbon bill by a factor of twenty; the other quietly under-states it. We shipped the second mistake ourselves before we caught it.
The CBAM deadline nobody talks about: authorisation takes 120 days
Everyone is watching the 2027 filing date. The deadline that can stop your imports is already running — you need authorised-declarant status before you cross 50 tonnes, and the decision takes up to 120 days.
Does CBAM affect me? The goods, thresholds and origins that trigger it
A quick way to tell whether the EU's carbon border rules apply to your imports — the six goods categories, the small-quantity exemption, and why 'made outside the EU' is the deciding factor.
What is CBAM? A plain-English guide for EU importers
The EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, explained without the jargon — what it is, which goods it covers, the 2026 shift from reporting to paying, and what importers actually have to do.