One CBAM certificate covers one tonne of CO2 equivalent embedded in imported goods. Its price follows the EU Emissions Trading System, so an importer pays the same carbon price per tonne as an EU producer. The Commission calculates it from the clearing prices of EU ETS allowance auctions and publishes it on its CBAM price page.
The published prices
| Period | Price per certificate | Published |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 2026 | €75.36 | 7 April 2026 |
| Q2 2026 | €75.28 | 6 July 2026 |
| Q3 2026 | due | 5 October 2026 |
| Q4 2026 | due | 4 January 2027 |
In 2026 the price is the average of the auction clearing prices over the quarter. From 2027 the Commission publishes it every week.
The price for each import quarter
Each quarterly price applies to certificates for goods imported in that quarter. A tonne of steel released for free circulation in February 2026 is priced at €75.36. One released in May 2026 is priced at €75.28.
Certificates cannot be bought during 2026. Sales open on the common central platform on 1 February 2027, and the certificates for 2026 imports are surrendered with the first annual declaration by 30 September 2027. So the price for 2026 goods is fixed now, but the cash leaves in 2027.
Goods imported in 2027 take the weekly price. A declarant must also hold certificates for at least 50% of the year's embedded emissions at the end of each quarter. That turns the certificate price into a treasury question: buying early locks a price, buying late follows the market.
What the price means per tonne of goods
The certificate price is per tonne of CO2e, not per tonne of goods. What a tonne of goods costs depends on its embedded emissions and on the CBAM factor, which covers only part of the emissions until 2034:
| CN code, origin | Default with 2026 mark-up | Certificates per 1,000 t in 2026 | Cost at €75.28 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7208 39 00 steel coil, India | 4.708 | 118 | €8,883 |
| 7208 39 00 steel coil, China | 3.506 | 88 | €6,625 |
| 7601 10 10 aluminium slabs, China | 3.3 | 83 | €6,248 |
| 3102 10 12 urea solution, Egypt | 0.465 | 12 | €903 |
A €10 move in the certificate price moves the Indian steel line by €1,180 in 2026. In 2030, when the CBAM factor is 48.5%, the same €10 moves it by about €27,000. The price matters little this year and a great deal later.
How to model the price for 2027 and later
There is no official forecast. 3 options hold up:
- Hold the last published price. This is what the CBAM calculator does: every answer names the price and its period.
- Use the EU ETS futures curve as a market view of the carbon price in the year of import.
- Run a range. A ±€20 band around the current price shows how exposed a supply contract is.
The cost chart keeps the price as an input, so you can redraw a CN code's cost from 2026 to 2034 at any price.
Price alerts
The quarterly figure is published on a fixed date, and the weekly figure from 2027 will move every week. CBAM Data reads the Commission page, versions every price it publishes, and sends the change to watched codes by email or webhook. The API returns the price and its period with every answer, from /v1/certificate-price.
Sources: Commission CBAM certificate price page. Regulation (EU) 2023/956, Article 21, as amended by Regulation (EU) 2025/2083. Cost figures computed on 16 September 2026 from the CBAM Data dataset.