In 2025, the last full year before the carbon border adjustment started to bite, the European Union imported 113.4 Mt of goods that now fall under CBAM, worth €89.5 bn at the border. That is 15 % more tonnage than in 2024 (98.4 Mt) — a jump that is at least partly consistent with importers bringing goods in before 1 January 2026.
The goods came from 152 countries. But the flows are concentrated: the five largest suppliers by volume — Türkiye, China, Ukraine, Russia and Canada — account for 50 % of the tonnage.
Steel dominates
Iron and steel make up 65 % of the volume (73.8 Mt), followed by fertilisers (18.9 Mt), cement (14.3 Mt) and aluminium (6.4 Mt). Hydrogen barely registers. The steel figure includes a large block of iron ore pellets, which count as a CBAM good but carry almost no CBAM cost — see the pellet story.
Exposure is even more concentrated
If every tonne were declared with the official default value for its country of origin, CBAM would cost importers about €14.4 bn in 2026. The five countries with the largest exposure account for 63 % of it:
| Country | Imports 2025 | Exposure 2026 | per tonne |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 11.3 Mt | €2.80 bn | €247/t |
| Indonesia | 3.2 Mt | €2.02 bn | €623/t |
| Türkiye | 14.8 Mt | €1.76 bn | €119/t |
| Russia | 10.4 Mt | €1.24 bn | €119/t |
| India | 4.4 Mt | €1.17 bn | €265/t |
| Ukraine | 11.1 Mt | €629 m | €56/t |
| Egypt | 6.5 Mt | €554 m | €85/t |
| Taiwan | 2.4 Mt | €399 m | €166/t |
| South Korea | 3.7 Mt | €390 m | €104/t |
| United Kingdom | 3.3 Mt | €342 m | €103/t |
Volume and exposure rank differently. Canada ships 9.5 Mt but faces only €50.3 m, because most of it is iron ore. Indonesia ships a fraction of that and tops the list for cost per tonne. Türkiye, the largest supplier by volume, has a moderate cost per tonne but a large total, much of it in cement.
The exposure figure is a ceiling, not a forecast: it is what CBAM costs when nobody brings their own data.
How to read these numbers
Exposure here means the default-value scenario — no verified supplier data, the 2026 mark-up of 10 % (1 % for fertilisers), the free allocation adjustment for 2026, and the third-quarter 2026 certificate price of €82.32. Importers with verified actual emissions will pay less, and importers below the 50-tonne annual threshold pay nothing. The methodology explains each step.