From 2026 to 2034: how the CBAM bill grows

2026 is the cheapest year CBAM will ever be. Two things make it more expensive every year until 2034: EU producers lose their free emission allowances, so importers lose the matching deduction; and the mark-up on default values rises from 10 % to 30 %.

Two dials turning at once

The free allocation adjustment multiplies the CBAM benchmark by the CBAM factor: 97.5 % in 2026, 90 % in 2028, 51.5 % in 2030 and zero in 2034. In 2026, importers pay for only 2.5 % of benchmark-level emissions; by 2034 they pay for all of them. At the same time default values carry a 20 % mark-up in 2027 and 30 % from 2028 (fertilisers stay at 1 %).

Holding 2025 volumes and the current certificate price constant, the bill grows from €14.4 bn to €27.0 bn. Real outcomes will differ — prices move, trade shifts, producers decarbonise and more importers bring verified data — but the direction is fixed in law.

Who is hit hardest by the phase-in

The phase-in hurts most where emissions sit close to the benchmark, because that is the part that was almost free in 2026. Countries whose default values are far above the benchmark already pay heavily in 2026, so their bill grows less in relative terms.

For a buyer, the practical lesson is that a supplier that looks cheap on CBAM in 2026 may not look cheap in 2030. Model several years, not one — the methodology sets out the assumptions behind these figures.