How the figures are calculated

An estimate from EU default values. What the EU importer pays when the producer gives no verified figure. The cost calculator, the default-value pages and the comparison tools show this. It uses only published EU numbers and what you choose (product, country, year, tonnes, certificate price).

A figure calculated from your own data. The emissions calculator and the paid Evidence Pack work out emissions from the fuel, material and production quantities you enter. The result is as good as those entries. It is not a verified figure until an accredited verifier has checked it.

A proposal, not law. Anything about 2028 product coverage comes from texts that are still being negotiated. Those pages say so, and no cost figure on this site depends on them.

1. Find the default value. The row for the CN code in the table of the country of origin. The longest matching code wins (8 digits, then 6, then 4). A country without a table, or a code with no value in its country's table, uses “Other countries and territories”. The value is the total column, or the direct column where the file gives no total.
2. Add the mark-up. 10% for 2026, 20% for 2027, 30% from 2028. Fertilisers: 1% in every year.
3. Deduct free allocation. CBAM factor × Column B benchmark of the same production route. The CBAM factor is 97.5% in 2026, 95% in 2027, 90% in 2028, 77.5% in 2029, 51.5% in 2030, 39% in 2031, 26.5% in 2032, 14% in 2033 and 0 from 2034. Benchmarks marked (1) apply to 2026 and 2027, those marked (2) to 2028 to 2030; where alloy grades leave several values, the highest applies.
4. Certificates per tonne = default value with mark-up − free allocation, never below zero.
5. Cost = certificates per tonne × tonnes × certificate price. The price is the latest one the Commission has published unless you type another.

With a producer's own verified figure, step 2 falls away: no mark-up applies. The same free allocation is deducted. That last point is an approximation, stated on every result that uses it: the exact deduction for actual emissions depends on the producer's precursors (Annex section 3 of Regulation (EU) 2025/2620), which the free calculator does not ask for.

Fuel: quantity × net calorific value × emission factor × oxidation factor. Process materials: quantity × emission factor. The standard factors are the IPCC 2006 values as reproduced in Annex D of the Commission's Guidance Document 3 (14 August 2026); each factor shows its source next to it, and you can replace any of them with the value on your supplier's invoice or laboratory report.

Bought inputs that are CBAM goods themselves (precursors) add their embedded emissions: the supplier's verified figure where you have one, otherwise the EU default value for that input and its country, with the mark-up. Each result lists which inputs rest on a default value.

A plant's emissions are shared between its products by output mass. The engine covers iron, steel and aluminium goods, for which only direct emissions count (Annex II of Regulation (EU) 2023/956). It does not calculate the indirect emissions from electricity that count for cement and fertilisers, and says so when such a good is entered.

Default values: Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2621 Annex I/IV as corrected by (EU) 2026/1740 (Commission file v2, 6 Aug 2026).

Benchmarks: Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2620, Annex section 5, Column B, every production route (Commission file v1, 6 Feb 2025).

Mark-ups and CBAM factors: Regulation (EU) 2023/956 as amended by Regulation (EU) 2025/2083, Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2621, and Article 10a(1a) of Directive 2003/87/EC.

Certificate price: the Commission's price page; latest €82.32 for Q3 2026, published 2026-10-05.

Default values and benchmarks were last refreshed on 2026-10-06. The same data is open to download from the data feed, and every past certificate price is on the price page.

The data. Every default value and benchmark on the site is compared, value by value, with the Commission's own Excel files before a release goes out. One difference stops the release.

The calculation. A second calculator, written separately from the official texts and reading the Commission's files directly, recomputes the estimate for every product code in every country table for 2026, 2027, 2028, 2030 and 2034. It shares no lookup code with the site. One difference stops the release.

The emissions engine and the paid outputs are checked against calculations done by hand.

The rules. The EU acts and Commission pages the site depends on are checked daily for amendments. A new act has to be read and recorded before the next release.

Not a declaration, not a verification and not legal or tax advice. The estimate leaves out a carbon price already paid in the country of origin, which can reduce the bill, and it assumes the cross-sectoral correction factor is 1. The Official Journal texts are the binding version; where this site and they differ, they are right.

Found a figure you think is wrong? Tell us with the product code, country and year. A confirmed error is corrected and the correction is tested from then on.