CBAM Article 9: Carbon Price Deductions Every Exporter Should Understand

The exporter's guide to the most misunderstood — and potentially most valuable — provision in the CBAM regulation

Article 9 of the CBAM regulation is the provision that allows an EU importer to deduct, from the number of CBAM certificates they have to surrender, any carbon price that has already been paid in the country where the goods were produced. For exporters in countries with operating carbon pricing schemes, Article 9 is the single biggest lever for keeping CBAM costs competitive. For exporters in countries with no carbon price, it is the reason a national carbon policy is suddenly a commercial issue for your company, not just a policy issue for your government.

This article explains what Article 9 actually says, what the EU Commission has confirmed about how it will work, what is still under consultation, and what every exporter to the EU should be tracking right now — even though the detailed implementing rules are not yet in force.

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1. What Article 9 says

Article 9 of the primary CBAM regulation is short. Stripped to its essentials, it provides four things.

First, an authorised CBAM declarant — that is, the EU importer of your goods — may claim a reduction in the number of CBAM certificates they have to surrender, equal to the carbon price that was effectively paid in the country of origin for the embedded emissions in those goods.

Second, the declarant must demonstrate, with documentation, that this carbon price was actually paid. Article 9 uses the phrase "effectively paid," meaning that any rebates, free allocations, or compensations granted by the country of origin must be subtracted. Only the net price that left the producer's pocket counts.

Third, the carbon price has to be of a recognisable form. The regulation refers to a tax, levy, or fee directly linked to greenhouse gas emissions, or a price paid under an emissions trading system. Voluntary carbon credits, generic fuel excise taxes, and renewable energy obligations do not qualify under the current text.

Fourth, the Commission is empowered to adopt an implementing act setting out the detailed methodology for converting the carbon price into a corresponding reduction in CBAM certificates, including currency conversion, documentation requirements, and the list of recognised third-country schemes.

That implementing act is what is still being finalised. The Commission opened a stakeholder consultation in Q1 2026 and is expected to adopt the act later in the year. Until then, the Article 9 deduction exists as a right in the primary regulation, but the operational rules — what evidence to submit, how to convert a foreign carbon tax in local currency into a per-tonne euro deduction, which national schemes the Commission will recognise as qualifying — are still in draft.

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2. Why Article 9 is an exporter issue, not just an importer issue

In legal terms, Article 9 is exercised by the EU importer. They are the ones who hold the CBAM certificates, file the CBAM declaration, and claim the deduction. So why does the exporter outside the EU care?

Three reasons.

First, the importer cannot claim what the exporter cannot prove. The documentation requirements — receipts of carbon tax paid, evidence of ETS allowance surrender, audited records showing that no rebate was received — all originate in the country of production. The exporter is the only party able to assemble those records. An importer without an exporter who can document the carbon price will not get the deduction.

Second, the size of the deduction shows up in the price the importer is willing to pay. If two suppliers are otherwise identical but one is based in a country with a recognised carbon price and the other is not, the EU importer's landed cost from the first supplier is lower by the value of the Article 9 deduction. That price difference is real money in a competitive market.

Third, the Article 9 deduction interacts with the embedded emissions calculation. The deduction applies per tonne of CO₂ equivalent. Exporters who can prove low actual emissions through verified data already save money relative to default values. Exporters who can prove low actual emissions and a paid carbon price stack two reductions on top of each other.

For an exporter in a country with a carbon pricing scheme that the Commission ultimately recognises, the combined effect of verified actual emissions plus Article 9 deduction can move the effective CBAM cost from "punitive default value baseline" to "competitive with an EU producer." For an exporter in a country with no recognised carbon price, the gap can be the difference between winning and losing the contract.

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3. What the implementing act is expected to cover

Drawing on the Commission's consultation documents and stakeholder commentary published since late 2025, several aspects of the implementing act are now reasonably clear in shape even if the final text is not yet adopted.

The methodology will define how the carbon price paid in the country of origin is converted into a per-tonne reduction. For taxes and levies, this means dividing the total tax paid by the emissions volume to which it applied. For ETS-style schemes, it means using the average allowance price over the relevant year. Currency conversion will use a published exchange rate, most likely the European Central Bank reference rate for the relevant period.

The act will list the carbon pricing schemes the Commission considers qualifying. This list is the single most consequential element. Schemes commonly cited in analyses as candidates for recognition include the Republic of Korea's Emissions Trading Scheme (K-ETS), China's national ETS for power generation, the United Kingdom's ETS, New Zealand's ETS, and South Africa's Carbon Tax. Schemes that are unlikely to qualify, at least in their current form, include voluntary carbon offset markets, fuel excise taxes not specifically linked to emissions, and pilot schemes that do not require actual settlement.

The documentation requirements are expected to mirror, in spirit, the verification requirements for embedded emissions. Producers in countries with qualifying schemes will need to be able to produce evidence — typically issued by the national emissions trading authority or tax authority — that a specific quantity of carbon tax or allowances was paid in respect of the specific batches of goods exported to the EU.

The act will also address the treatment of free allocations and rebates. If a producer received free allowances under a national ETS, the effective price paid is reduced by the value of those free allowances. The same applies to tax rebates and compensation schemes. Only the net carbon price that the producer actually bore counts.

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4. Which exporter countries are most affected

Article 9 affects every exporter, but the practical consequences vary enormously by country of origin.

Exporters from countries with a likely-qualifying ETS are positioned to benefit most. The Republic of Korea's K-ETS, in operation since 2015 with mandatory participation for large emitters across most CBAM-relevant sectors, is the most frequently cited candidate for full recognition. Korean steel and aluminium exporters, in particular, may be able to claim a meaningful Article 9 deduction once the implementing act is adopted.

Exporters from countries with a sector-limited carbon price face a more nuanced picture. China's national ETS currently covers only power generation, with industrial sector coverage expected to expand. For a Chinese steel exporter, the indirect emissions associated with electricity consumption may attract an Article 9 deduction, but the direct combustion emissions from blast furnace operations will not — at least until China's ETS expands.

Exporters from countries with a carbon tax rather than an ETS are in a third position. South Africa's carbon tax, in force since 2019 with explicit linkage to emissions and a stated price per tonne of CO₂ equivalent, is structurally well-positioned for recognition, but the substantial allowances and rebates in the South African scheme mean the effective price paid per tonne is significantly lower than the headline rate.

A note on Turkey's ETS status (updated May 2026): Turkey launched its Emissions Trading System legislation in 2022, with monitoring obligations commencing in 2023. However, as of May 2026, Turkey's ETS remains in pilot phase — no allowance allocations have been made and no trading has commenced in any meaningful sense. This means that for Turkish exporters, Article 9 recognition is uncertain at best. Turkish exporters should not plan their CBAM strategy around an Article 9 deduction until the Commission's implementing act confirms Turkey's ETS as a qualifying scheme and Turkey's ETS moves beyond pilot phase into operational trading with real allowance settlements.

Exporters from countries with no operational carbon price — which today still includes most major exporters to the EU across MENA, North Africa, and parts of Asia — face the unambiguous version of CBAM. No deduction is available. The full CBAM cost applies. The strategic implication is that domestic carbon pricing in your country becomes commercially relevant to your competitiveness in the EU market, regardless of whether you believe in it as climate policy.

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5. What exporters should be doing now

Until the implementing act is adopted, exporters cannot calculate a definitive Article 9 deduction. But preparation is not the same as calculation, and three workstreams are worth starting now.

The first is record-keeping. If your country operates any form of carbon pricing — tax, levy, ETS, or otherwise — start retaining the documentation that would be needed to evidence payment. This includes carbon tax assessment notices, ETS allowance surrender records, free allocation grant records, rebate notifications, and the underlying emissions reporting that links these to specific production volumes. The administrative cost of preserving these records is low. The cost of not having them when the implementing act lands is potentially significant.

The second is engagement with your EU importer. Article 9 will only deliver value if the importer is set up to claim it. That means the importer needs to know your country has a qualifying scheme, has the documentation you can provide, and has the lead time to incorporate the deduction into their CBAM declaration. Initiating that conversation now — even before the implementing act is final — positions both parties to capture the deduction efficiently once the rules are clear.

The third is scenario modelling. Even without final rules, you can estimate the order of magnitude of an Article 9 deduction for your situation. If your origin country has a carbon price of around €10 per tonne of CO₂ equivalent, and your goods carry embedded emissions of two tonnes per tonne of product, an Article 9 deduction would reduce the CBAM cost on your product by approximately €20 per tonne. At the current Q1 2026 EUA price of €75.36 per tonne CO₂ equivalent and a 2026 phase-in factor of 2.5%, that translates to a reduction of around €0.50 per tonne of product in 2026, rising substantially as the phase-in factor increases. For a steel exporter shipping 50,000 tonnes a year to the EU, that small-looking per-tonne saving compounds into meaningful annual cost relief by 2030.

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6. The honest caveat

This article describes the legal framework as it stands today. The detailed methodology for Article 9 deductions is being shaped by the EU Commission's implementing act, which is in stakeholder consultation in 2026 and not yet adopted. The specifics of which carbon pricing schemes will be recognised, how documentation will be standardised, and how the conversion arithmetic will work in edge cases are all subject to the final text of that act.

What is not subject to change is the principle in the primary regulation: where an exporter's country of origin imposes an effective carbon price on the emissions associated with goods exported to the EU, the EU importer of those goods is entitled to a corresponding reduction in CBAM certificates. The strategic implications of that principle — for exporter competitiveness, for procurement decisions, for national carbon policy — are already in play, regardless of when the implementing act lands.

Exporters who treat Article 9 as a future problem will be unprepared when the act enters into force. Exporters who treat it as a present opportunity will be in a position to capture it from day one.

If you need help quantifying the potential Article 9 deduction for your specific situation, or assembling the documentation that your EU buyer will need, the DeCarbonPro Country Exposure Assessment service is designed exactly for that conversation.