The first accredited CBAM verifier exists. The official list still does not.

By Ahmed Medhat · Published23 September 2026

On 14 September 2026 the Hellenic Accreditation System, ESYD, signed a new scope annex to accreditation certificate No. 874-9. The certificate belongs to EMICERT S.A., an Athens verification body that already held accreditation for EU ETS work. The annex extends that accreditation to CBAM verification "in accordance with Annex I of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2551", and it names every activity group in that annex. As far as we can find, it is the first CBAM accreditation on any national register in the Union.

Two things follow from that, and they pull in opposite directions. A verifier now exists that can sign a CBAM verification report. And the list you would go to in order to find one still does not.

What was granted, exactly

Accreditation for CBAM is granted per activity group. Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2551 defines the scope of accreditation as "the CBAM activity groups referred to in Annex I to this Regulation for which accreditation is sought or has been granted" (Art. 1(3)), and a verifier "shall only issue a verification report in respect of an operator's emissions report for the group of activities referred to in Annex I for which the verifier is accredited" (Annex II, Section 2.17.1).

Annex I lists eight goods groups and three other activities:

• I: calcined clay, cement clinker, cement, aluminous cement
• II: hydrogen, ammonia
• III: nitric acid
• IV: urea, mixed fertilisers
• V: sintered ore, pig iron, direct reduced iron, crude steel
• VI: ferro-alloys (FeMn, FeCr, FeNi)
• VII: unwrought aluminium
• VIII: iron or steel products, aluminium products
• L: carbon capture, utilisation and storage
• LI: electricity imported into the customs territory of the Union
• LII: indirect emissions

ESYD's annex for EMICERT covers all eleven. So a steel mill in Egypt, a cement plant in Türkiye and an aluminium smelter in the Gulf can each, today, engage a verifier whose accreditation certificate names their good. The accreditation certificate is valid to 9 June 2030.

One detail from the Commission's own table is worth holding onto. The table dated 1 September 2026 records ESYD as agreeing to provide CBAM accreditation but not yet ready to accept applications. EMICERT's grant thirteen days later was a scope extension of an existing ETS accreditation, the route Article 4 of the delegated regulation opens for bodies "accredited pursuant to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/2067 for the relevant group of activities". That is the fast lane, and it is the lane every early CBAM verifier is likely to come through.

What the Commission's table says about everyone else

The Commission publishes a two-page table, "State-of-play CBAM accreditation", on its verification page. The version dated 1 September 2026 lists 28 national accreditation bodies. Its own totals row reads:

• 24 have agreed to provide CBAM accreditation
• 14 are ready to accept applications
• 7 have agreed to accredit third-country applicants
• 5 are already accepting third-country applications

The seven that will take an applicant from outside the Union are France (COFRAC), Greece (ESYD), Italy (Accredia), the Netherlands (RvA), Poland (PCA), Slovakia (SNAS) and Sweden (Swedac). Five of those are already accepting.

This matters for exporters because of where verifiers will come from. The delegated regulation says plainly that "[a]n applicant that is not established under the national law of a Member State shall request a national accreditation body of any Member State that provides accreditation in accordance with this Regulation to grant accreditation" (Art. 3(2)). A verification body in Cairo, Istanbul or Mumbai does not need its own country's accreditation body to be recognised. It needs one of those seven to say yes. Türkiye's TÜRKAK, for example, appears on the Commission's table only as a bilateral arrangement noted against the Dutch body, not as an accreditor in its own right.

Why there is no list yet

The Commission's verification page says: "The list of accredited CBAM verifiers will be published on this page." As of today it is empty, and the same page says the first verifiers "are expected to receive CBAM accreditation around September 2026". The timing is not an oversight. It is written into the regulation.

Article 10a of Regulation (EU) 2023/956 requires an accredited verifier to "submit a request for registration in the CBAM registry to the competent authority of the Member State in which the national accreditation body is established", and to do so "within two months of the date on which the accreditation was granted, but not before 1 September 2026" (Art. 10a(1)). The registry entry holds the verifier's name and accreditation identification, its scope, country of establishment, the effective and expiry dates of the certificate, any administrative measures and a copy of the certificate (Art. 10a(2)). That information is one of the few parts of the registry the regulation makes public (Art. 14(4)).

So the mechanism that will produce the official list opened on 1 September, and the first verifier eligible to use it was accredited on 14 September. EMICERT has until 14 November to register. A list with one name on it is the realistic near-term expectation, and it will grow as the scope extensions come through.

What this changes for an exporter, and what it does not

Verification by an accredited verifier is required "where the embedded emissions are determined on the basis of actual emissions" (Reg (EU) 2023/956, Art. 8(1)). It is not required where the declarant uses default values. The first CBAM declaration is due by 30 September 2027 for the year 2026 (Art. 6(1)), and the declarant may rely on verified information the operator discloses to it (Art. 8(2)).

That gives the sequence. An operator who wants its actual figures to survive into a buyer's 2027 declaration needs a verification report from an accredited verifier before the buyer files. Until 14 September we can find no such verifier on any national register. Now one does, with a scope wide enough to cover every CBAM good.

Three practical points.

Ask for the annex, not the press release. The accreditation certificate names the activity groups. Before you engage any verifier, ask for the scope annex issued by the national accreditation body and check that your good's group is on it. A verifier accredited for group V cannot sign for your urea.

Expect the registry entry. Once a verifier is registered, the CBAM registry will show its scope and expiry date publicly. A verifier that cannot show you a registry entry after the two-month window should be able to explain why.

Do not wait for the list to prepare the file. The verifier will ask for the monitoring plan, the emissions data by production process, the precursor records and the evidence behind any narrowing under Article 14(3) of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2547 (precursors used in a given production process traced to a single installation or a subset of installations). None of that depends on which verifier you pick. We set out the full list in our guide on what an accredited verifier will ask you for, and when.

We track the CBAM acts and the Commission's verification page daily and write up what changes. If you want to see how the pieces fit before you engage a verifier, the DeCarbonPro free CBAM tools need no account.