Q1 2026 CBAM Certificate Price: EU Commission Publishes First Official Quarterly Average

By Ahmed Medhat · Published7 April 2026 · Updated 1 September 2026

The EU Commission has published the first official quarterly average CBAM certificate price for Q1 2026: €75.36 per tonne of CO₂e, calculated in accordance with Article 1 of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2548.

What this price means

This price applies to the CBAM certificates that correspond to the embedded emissions of goods imported between 1 January and 31 March 2026 (IR (EU) 2025/2548, Art. 1(6)). The Commission published it on its website on 7 April 2026 (Art. 4(1)).

For non-EU exporters, this price sets what each CBAM certificate, one tonne of CO₂e, costs the EU buyer for goods imported in that quarter.

How the price is calculated

Under Article 1(1) of IR 2025/2548, the price for each quarter of 2026 is the quarterly average of the auction clearing prices of EU ETS allowances — the prices struck in the EU ETS primary auctions, not prices quoted on a secondary exchange.

Article 1(3) sets out which auctions count: those held under Articles 10 and 11 of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2830 on the common auction platform and on the opt-out auction platforms, with cancelled auctions left out of the average. Each auction's clearing price is weighted by the volume of allowances auctioned (Art. 1(4)), and the result is expressed in euro and rounded to the nearest cent (Art. 1(5)).

The Q1 2026 average therefore covers the qualifying auctions held between January 1 and March 31, 2026. The Commission calculates each quarterly price during the first calendar week of the following quarter (Art. 1(2)) and publishes it on its website on the first working day of the calendar week after the week of calculation (Art. 4(1)).

What exporters should do now

Use the sector calculator to see your specific exposure at this official price.

Regulatory source: Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2548, Article 1.