What the quarterly CBAM certificate price actually is

Published 14 September 2026

The CBAM certificate price is often described as an average of the EU ETS market price. The act says something narrower, and the difference matters for anyone reading a screen quote and expecting it to be the number their buyer pays.

The rule for 2026, clause by clause

Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2548 Article 1 sets the method for each quarter of 2026:

• What is averaged. The price of CBAM certificates for each quarter in 2026 is the quarterly average of the auction clearing prices of allowances, as determined under Article 7 of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2830 (Art. 1(1)). The clearing price is the price successful bidders pay for each allowance when an auction's bidding window closes; the act's recital 4 chooses it because it is the final price of the auction.
• Which auctions. The clearing prices of all allowances auctioned under Articles 10 and 11 of that Delegated Regulation on the common auction platform and on the opt-out auction platforms, since the last calculation. Cancelled auctions are left out of the average (Art. 1(3)).
• How they are weighted. For each auction, the clearing price is weighted by the volume of allowances auctioned (Art. 1(4)). A large auction moves the quarter's average more than a small one.
• In what form. In euro, rounded up or down to the nearest cent (Art. 1(5)).
• When it is calculated and published. The Commission calculates a quarter's 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 that, a working day being one designated as such by the Commission under Regulation (EEC, Euratom) No 1182/71 (Art. 4(1)). From the third quarter of 2026 the quarterly prices are also made available to authorised CBAM declarants in the CBAM registry (Art. 4(2)).
• What it applies to. The quarterly price applies to the CBAM certificates that correspond to the embedded emissions declared for the year 2026, for the quarter in which the goods were imported (Art. 1(6)).

The base act states the 2026 rule in its own words: the price of the certificates corresponding to embedded emissions declared for 2026 under Article 6(2), point (b), is the quarterly average of the closing prices of EU ETS allowances on the auction platform, for the quarter of importation (Regulation (EU) 2023/956 Art. 21(1a), inserted by Regulation (EU) 2025/2083). The implementing act above is adopted to apply that rule, and it names the auction clearing price as the price it averages.

Three things it is not

• Not a secondary-market price. Allowances also trade on exchanges, and an exchange quote is a different number. The act takes its price only from the auctions named in Art. 1(3); an exchange quote is not the certificate price.
• Not a daily price. For 2026 there is one price per quarter. A shipment imported in February and one imported in March carry the same certificate price, because both fall in the first quarter.
• Not known in advance. The quarter's price is calculated after the quarter ends. An importer planning purchases during the quarter is working from an estimate until the Commission publishes the figure.

From 2027: the same basis, every week

From 1 January 2027 the Commission calculates the price every calendar week, as the average of the auction clearing prices since the last calculation, on the same platforms, cancelled auctions again excluded, weighted by volume, in euro to the nearest cent (Art. 5(1) to 5(4)). It publishes each weekly price on its website on the first working day of the calendar week which follows the relevant auctions, and makes it available to authorised CBAM declarants in the CBAM registry on the first day of application of that price (Art. 8(1) and 8(2)). The weekly price applies to the certificates sold to authorised CBAM declarants during the period set out in Article 21(2) of Regulation (EU) 2023/956 (Art. 5(5)).

What to do with this

• If a supplier, a broker or a tool quotes a certificate price, ask which quarter it is and whether it is the Commission's published figure or an estimate from market prices. Only the published figure is the price.
• For planning, an estimate built from market prices can be useful, but it can differ from the published figure. It stays an estimate until the Commission publishes the quarter's price.
• The published quarterly figure is the one to put against declared embedded emissions for imports in that quarter; our own tools carry the Commission's published price for each quarter once it is out.

Regulatory sources: Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2548, recital 4, Art. 1(1) to 1(6), Art. 4(1) and 4(2), Art. 5(1) to 5(5), Art. 8(1) and 8(2); Regulation (EU) 2023/956 Art. 21(1a) and 21(2); Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2830 Art. 7, Art. 10 and 11, Art. 3(18) and 3(19) as cross-referred; Regulation (EEC, Euratom) No 1182/71 Art. 2 as cross-referred.