How CBAM works, step by step
The EU importer pays the CBAM charge; the non-EU producer holds the data that decides how large it is. Below is the process once from each side, and at every step the free tool on this site that helps with it.
For exporters: eight steps
You do not pay CBAM. Your buyer does, and what it pays depends on the figures you give it.
Step 1: Is your product covered?
CBAM applies to iron and steel, aluminium, cement, fertilisers, hydrogen and electricity, by customs (CN) code. Many articles of steel and aluminium are in; many are not yet.
Where we help: Is my product covered?, Products proposed from 2028.
Step 2: See what your EU buyer pays without your figures
If you send no verified figure, your buyer must use the EU default value for your country and product, with a mark-up, and pays for that much carbon. This is the cost your own figures can lower.
Where we help: Cost calculator, Default values by country.
Step 3: Estimate your own emissions
Work out roughly what your plant emits per tonne of product, from your fuels, your production and the metal you buy in. If it is well under the default value, verified figures are worth the effort.
Where we help: Emissions calculator, Compare metal sources, Readiness check.
Step 4: Set up your monitoring
Write down how you measure: the monitoring plan the rules ask for, in English. Then keep monthly records of production, fuels, electricity and bought-in metal, with the bills behind them, and ask your own suppliers for their figures.
Where we help: Monitoring plan template, Data collection workbook, Letter to your suppliers.
Step 5: Calculate the year's figures per product
After the year ends, calculate the emissions of each product by the EU method: direct emissions, the precursors you bought, attribution to each good.
Where we help: Emissions calculator.
The paid CBAM Evidence Pack, which does this for a whole plant and links every figure to its source document, is not open yet.
Step 6: Have the figures verified
Your figures count as actual emissions for your EU buyer only once a verifier accredited for CBAM has checked them. The verifier is an independent body; you choose and pay it.
Where we help: Checklist before the verifier, Guide: CBAM verifiers.
Step 7: Send the figures to your buyer
Your buyer needs them in time for its yearly declaration, in the Commission's communication template. Agree in the sales contract who provides what, and by when.
Step 8: Repeat every year, and watch the dates
The charge grows each year to 2034 as free allocation in the EU is phased out, and the certificate price moves. Recheck your cost and the dates each year.
Where we help: CBAM deadlines, Certificate price.
For EU importers: six steps
You are the one who declares and pays. Most of the work is getting figures from your suppliers in time.
Step 1: Are your imports covered?
Check the CN codes of what you import. An importer that brings in more than 50 tonnes of CBAM goods in a calendar year has the obligations below.
Where we help: Is my product covered?.
Step 2: Become an authorised CBAM declarant
Apply through the CBAM registry in the member state where you are established, or have an indirect customs representative act as declarant. Without the authorisation you may not import the goods.
This step is done in the EU's CBAM registry. Nothing on this site does it for you.
Step 3: Ask each supplier for its emissions data
Send every non-EU supplier a list of the goods you buy from it and what you need. Suppliers that send verified figures lower your cost; for the rest you use default values.
Where we help: Data request to a supplier, CBAM clause for contracts.
Step 4: Estimate what you will pay
Price each product and supplier, with default values or with the figures you were given, year by year.
Where we help: Cost calculator, Several products at once, Compare sources.
Step 5: Buy and hold certificates
CBAM certificates are sold from 1 February 2027. From the 2027 import year you must also hold enough of them at the end of each quarter.
Where we help: Certificate planner, Certificate price.
Step 6: Declare and surrender
By 30 September each year you file the CBAM declaration for the year before and surrender the certificates; the first one, for 2026 imports, is due by 30 September 2027. A carbon price already paid in the country of origin can be deducted, with evidence.
Where we help: CBAM deadlines, Check a supplier's template.
What this site does not do
The tools estimate and prepare. They do not verify your figures (only an accredited verifier can), they do not file anything in the CBAM registry, and they are not legal advice. Every figure comes from the EU's own published tables; see the disclaimer.
Where to start
Exporters: the product checker, then the cost calculator. Importers: the data request to a supplier. For the rules in plain words, the guides.
Steps read against the regulation and the tools on 13 October 2026. Estimates and explanations, not legal advice.