What Is CBAM? The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism
The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is the EU tool that prices the embedded carbon in imported goods, starting with cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity, and hydrogen.
Updated 2026-10-01 · 5 min read
What CBAM is
The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism charges importers for the carbon emitted in making the goods they bring into the EU, so that domestic producers facing the EU emissions price are not undercut by imports that are not.
It applies to a defined list of goods by CN code: cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity, and hydrogen.
Embedded emissions
The reporting unit is embedded emissions — the CO2e released in producing the goods, including the electricity used. Importers report it per good, by CN code, with the production route and the country of origin.
Direct emissions come from the production process; indirect emissions come from the electricity consumed.
Who reports and what they need
Authorised declarants report, supported by data from their non-EU suppliers. That means supplier emissions data, production routes, and quantities, mapped to the correct CN codes.
Because the data crosses organisations and formats, importers need to validate it before it reaches the CBAM registry — a wrong CN code or a negative emissions value routes the declaration nowhere.
Data quality is the hard part
Most CBAM defects are data defects: an unmapped CN code, a quantity without a unit, or an emissions figure that fails a range check. Validating the declaration before submission is cheaper than a rejection after it.
Try it on real data
Frequently Asked Questions
Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism — the EU mechanism that puts a carbon price on certain imported goods.
Cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity, and hydrogen, identified by CN code.
The greenhouse gases released in producing the goods, including the electricity used, expressed as CO2e per unit.