CBAM: the carbon border adjustment if you import

The CBAM is the mechanism that puts the same price on imported carbon that European industry already pays for its emissions. It was created by Regulation (EU) 2023/956 and works in a very simple way to summarise: you declare how many emissions the goods you import contain and surrender certificates covering those emissions.

Between 1 October 2023 and 31 December 2025 there was a transitional period in which you only had to report every quarter, without paying anything. That period has ended. From 1 January 2026 the definitive regime applies: prior authorisation is required to be able to import (unless you stay below the threshold), emissions for the whole year are calculated and certificates that cost money are surrendered.

The change matters a lot in practice because the control is at customs. Customs will not release a CBAM good for free circulation to anyone who does not prove their status on the import declaration, so the problem does not appear in a future assessment, it appears at the dock.

The CBAM covers 6 families: cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, hydrogen and electricity. It is not decided by the commercial name of the product or by your company's sector, it is decided by the 8 digit CN code listed in Annex I of the Regulation. 2 references that you call the same thing can have different codes and only one might be included.

The quick way to check is to look at the TARIC 775-CBAM measure associated with the heading: if it triggers during clearance, the goods are affected and a document code must be entered on the customs declaration.

Goods originating in the European Union and those originating in Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland are excluded, as well as Büsingen, the island of Helgoland, Livigno, Ceuta and Melilla. Be careful with a common confusion: the Canary Islands are included, because they are part of the customs territory of the Union even though they have their own tax regime. The Canary Islands Economic and Tax Regime does not exempt you from the CBAM.

Goods intended for military activities are also excluded.

This is the filter that decides whether you have obligations or not. Regulation (EU) 2025/2083 replaced the old threshold of €150 per consignment with a single mass threshold: 50 net tonnes accumulated per importer and calendar year. If you do not exceed those 50 tonnes in the whole year adding up cement, iron and steel, aluminium and fertilisers, you are exempt from CBAM obligations, including the obligation to request authorisation.

There are 2 nuances that should be clear. The first: the threshold is cumulative and annual, not per operation or per supplier, so you can exceed it halfway through the year without realising if you do not keep track. And if you do exceed it, you are liable for the emissions of everything imported that year, including the tonnes before you crossed it; so if you expect to exceed it, you must apply for authorisation beforehand. The second: electricity and hydrogen do not fall under this exemption, there is no threshold there.

The exemption is not silent either. Even if you are below the 50 tonnes, the code proving the exemption must be entered on every import declaration, because otherwise customs will assume you are importing without being authorised.

The threshold can move: every year, by 30 April, the Commission assesses whether the exemption covers no more than 1% of imported embedded emissions, and amends the threshold by delegated act when the recalculated value differs from the current one by more than 15 tonnes, with effect from 1 January of the following year. It is therefore advisable to check the current value before closing the year's planning.

The application is submitted to the European Commission's CBAM registry, with an electronic certificate, and the body that resolves it in Spain is the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, which is the competent national authority for these purposes. The AEAT (the Spanish Tax Agency) does not grant this authorisation, it checks it at clearance. MITECO assesses the application within 120 calendar days of receiving it, a period that can be extended if it requests additional information or if you adjust the application.

It can be requested by the importer established in a Member State or, when acting in indirect customs representation, their customs representative. A valid EORI number, a history of customs and tax compliance, and financial and operational capacity are required. If the company was not established in the 2 financial years before the year of the application, it must also provide a first demand bank guarantee, or another form of guarantee offering equivalent security, for the value of the certificates corresponding to its estimated imports; MITECO has not yet published the document setting out how it is provided and calculated. Among other data, you must provide a generic certificate of being up to date with the AEAT, no more than three months old. With an EORI starting with ESN (not established) the application cannot be made in Spain: the indirect customs representative makes it.

There was an escape valve for the start of 2026: anyone who submitted the application by 31 March 2026 at the latest can continue importing provisionally until it is resolved, except for electricity and hydrogen, using code Y238. The AEAT gave 27 September 2026 as the expected end date for that code: if your application is still pending, check with customs before each clearance that it is still accepted. It is not a solution for anyone starting to import now.

Without an EORI no application is possible, so that is the first step. If your Spanish tax number (NIF) does not start with N, M, X or Y, the AEAT assigns the EORI automatically (ES plus your NIF) when you lodge your first customs declaration, but you can request it earlier, and you must do so if you need CBAM authorisation and have not yet lodged any customs declaration; if your NIF starts with one of those letters, it always has to be requested. It is requested through procedure DC13, with no tasa (official fee) and no official resolution period, so it is best not to leave it to the last minute. Managora requests the EORI for you if you do not have one yet and files the authorised declarant application for you, as your authorised representative under the AEAT power of attorney DB0117 (CBAM registry access), with the documentation the registry requires.

Embedded emissions are those generated when producing the goods, not those from transport. The general rule is to use actual data from the installation of origin, and in that case the data must be verified by an accredited verifier. When there is no verified actual data, the default values published by the Commission are used, which carry no verification report but do carry a mark-up: 10% in 2026, 20% in 2027 and 30% from 2028 (1% for fertilisers). That is why they are usually less favourable than well documented actual data.

The price of the certificate is not set or negotiated by you: it is published by the Commission based on the auction price of European emission allowances. In 2026, exceptionally, a quarterly average is published, 4 prices a year. From 2027 it becomes weekly.

2 reductions are applied to the number of certificates to be surrendered. The first is the adjustment for the free allocation still received by European industry: what an EU producer would receive free of charge for the same product is deducted, calculated with that product's benchmark multiplied by the CBAM factor, which is 97.5% in 2026 and falls every year until it disappears. It is not 97.5% of your emissions that is deducted: how much is left to pay depends on the product and on whether you use actual data or default values, and with default values the result need not be small. The second is the carbon price already effectively paid in the country of origin, which is deducted if you keep the documentary proof and this is certified by an independent person.

Buying certificates is not possible in 2026. Sales by Member States start on 1 February 2027, on a common central platform that the declarant accesses from its own CBAM registry account, and from 2027 there is also a portfolio discipline: at the end of each quarter you must hold certificates for at least 50% of the accumulated embedded emissions for the year.

When the heading is affected by the TARIC 775-CBAM measure, the import customs declaration must carry a document code explaining its status, and that code is entered in data element 12 04 002 000. If you are an authorised declarant, the CBAM account number is declared, which the EU automatically validates against the registry. If you are below the 50 tonnes, the code for an unauthorised importer importing less than that threshold is declared.

An error in that data is not a formal defect: it blocks the release of the goods. It is the point where most files get stuck, because the purchasing department does not usually know that the consignment is CBAM until customs stops it.

It is also advisable to review who appears as the importer and with what type of representation, because the obligation falls depending on that. Managora tells you which CBAM code must be entered in data element 12 04 002 000 (Y128 with your CBAM account number, or Y137 if you do not expect to exceed 50 tonnes) and checks your EORI. The customs declaration is lodged by your company or by a registered customs representative.

There are 3 different consequences and it is best not to mix them up. The first is immediate and customs related: without the proven status, the goods are not released for free circulation, with the storage and demurrage costs that this entails.

The second is the fine for not surrendering the certificates corresponding to the declared emissions. It is calculated for each missing certificate, taking as a reference the penalty for excess emissions of the European emissions trading system, and paying it does not replace the obligation to surrender the pending certificates.

The third affects anyone who has imported above the threshold without being an authorised declarant: the penalty is three to five times the previous one for each certificate not surrendered, calculated on all the emissions of what was imported in the year, and paying it releases the importer from declaring and surrendering certificates for those imports. The authority may reduce it when the threshold is exceeded by 10% at most or when the application submitted by 31 March 2026 is refused, but never below the ordinary penalty.

Added to all this is the reputational effect before customs. A history of non compliance weighs heavily when later requesting a customs simplification or Authorised Economic Operator certification.

Managora prepares and submits it for you: the authorised CBAM declarant application to MITECO, as your authorised representative under the AEAT power of attorney DB0117; the annual CBAM declaration, whose submission the Regulation allows you to delegate; and the EORI, if you do not have one yet, all online and without you having to travel. You remain the declarant and the party responsible, and you buy the certificates from your own CBAM registry account; we calculate how many you need. The customs declaration is lodged by your company or by a registered customs representative, with the CBAM code we tell you to use. If you are also interested in taking the step to Authorised Economic Operator certification, we also prepare and submit that application, with an honest warning: that file does not end with the electronic processing, because Customs carries out an audit of your facilities and processes before granting the status. You can see the conditions of each service on its file and order it online.