Commission finds CBAM's 50-tonne exemption left out 0.87% of embedded emissions

The European Commission has found that the 50-tonne de minimis threshold in the EU's carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) exempted 0.87 per cent of the emissions embedded in imported goods over the twelve months to 31 March 2026, below the 1 per cent ceiling set in law. The assessment covers 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026 and was published on 30 September by the Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union, according to the Commission's notice.

The figure matters to producers outside the EU because the threshold decides which of their European customers carry CBAM obligations at all. Importers above 50 tonnes of CBAM goods must apply for the status of authorised CBAM declarant, buy certificates and declare the emissions embedded in their imports, as the Commission's definitive regime page sets out. Importers below it are exempt.

What the assessment tests

The threshold was introduced by Regulation (EU) 2025/2083 of 8 October 2025, which amended the original CBAM Regulation. Its new Article 2a exempts an importer from the regulation's obligations where the net mass of its imported goods does not cumulatively exceed the single mass-based threshold laid down in Annex VII. The threshold applies to the total net mass of goods under all CN codes, aggregated per importer and per calendar year, and the article does not apply to imports of electricity or hydrogen, the regulation states.

The recitals say the threshold should initially be set at 50 tonnes, and that it is meant to ensure that at least 99 per cent of emissions embedded in imported goods remain within the scope of CBAM. On the Commission's figure, 99.13 per cent of embedded emissions in the period assessed sat with importers above the threshold.

Under Article 2a(3), the Commission must assess whether the threshold applies to no more than 1 per cent of embedded emissions. It must adopt a delegated act amending the threshold, using the methodology in point 2 of Annex VII, where the value produced by that methodology deviates from the applicable threshold by more than 15 tonnes, the notice explains. An amended threshold would apply from 1 January of the following calendar year, under the regulation. The notice does not announce a change, and it does not publish the threshold value that the methodology produced or the number of importers that fall below 50 tonnes.

The period assessed falls mostly within the transitional phase, which ran from 2023 to the end of 2025, and includes the first quarter of the definitive regime, which has applied since 1 January 2026, according to the Commission's CBAM page.

What it means for exporters

CBAM places its obligations on EU importers or their indirect customs representatives, not on foreign producers. Authorised declarants buy certificates from the national competent authority in their EU country of establishment, at a price based on EU emissions trading system auction prices, calculated as a quarterly average in 2026 and as a weekly average from 2027. Importers declare the embedded emissions each year and surrender the corresponding number of certificates, the Commission says.

Because the exemption is counted per importer and across all CBAM goods, a non-EU producer that sells to several buyers in the bloc can find that some of its customers are exempt and others are not, depending on each buyer's total annual tonnage. What an exporter pays in practice then depends on how its contracts allocate the charge and on the emissions data it can supply. The Commission publishes default values and benchmarks for 2026, and the corrected set is linked from its definitive regime page.

One provision bears directly on countries building their own carbon pricing. If importers can prove that a carbon price has already been paid during the production of the imported goods, the corresponding amount can be deducted, according to the Commission. The same page links a 2024 overview of EU guidance and technical support for developing and least developed countries, and says the EU is committed to helping countries that want to introduce or enhance carbon pricing systems.

The regime covers cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen, the CBAM page shows. Because Article 2a does not apply to electricity or hydrogen, importers of those two goods get no de minimis relief whatever their volumes.

What to watch

• Implementation material for the first declarations: the Commission published new resources for CBAM verifiers on 28 September and a follow-up to its fourth implementation webinar, on emissions calculation, declarations and certificates, on 30 September, its news page shows.
• Registry access, which importers request through the national competent authority of the member state where they are established; the Commission's list of those authorities was last updated on 26 June 2026, according to the definitive regime page.
• Any delegated act on the threshold, which on the regulation's terms would follow only if the Annex VII methodology produced a value more than 15 tonnes away from 50 tonnes.