CBAM Monthly News Update: August 2026

August 2026 was the month the CBAM definitive period got its operating manuals. The corrected default values entered into force on 3 August with retroactive effect, the European Commission published ten guidance documents on 14 August and a verification guide on 24 August, and on 1 September the CBAM Registry opened to accredited verifiers. The consultation on how CBAM certificates will be bought and repurchased closed with 93 responses and a delayed adoption date, while the EU ETS carbon price, which drives the certificate price, held above €80 per tonne. The European Parliament now votes on its negotiating mandate for the CBAM revision in the plenary session of 14 to 17 September. For importers the message of the month is practical: the rules for 2026 are settled, and the paperwork for proving actual emissions has arrived.

1. Corrected Default Values Apply Retroactively from 1 January 2026

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1740 entered into force on 3 August 2026. It replaces Annex I and Annex IV of Regulation (EU) 2025/2621 in full and applies from 1 January 2026, so every embedded emissions figure calculated with the original tables this year has to be rechecked.^{1, 2} The Commission published the corrected Excel workbooks on 10 August.¹

The correction is larger than the word "technical" suggests. The replacement annexes contain 12,823 rows, and 837 of the 12,814 records that can be matched to the original tables change at least one emissions value. The changes repair missing values, wrong production-route indicators and product classification errors, and they run in both directions.³ Our article on the corrected CBAM default values sets out where the movements are largest and what to do about them.

2. Ten Guidance Documents for the Definitive Period

On 14 August 2026, the Commission published a series of ten guidance documents for the definitive period, roughly 470 pages in total. Four general guides cover an introduction to CBAM concepts and the compliance cycle, a quick guide for non-EU operators, the methods for calculating embedded emissions, and the calculation of the free allocation adjustment to the number of certificates to be surrendered. Six sector guides with worked examples follow for cement, hydrogen, fertilisers, iron and steel, aluminium and electricity.^{3, 4}

The documents are written first of all for operators of installations outside the EU that produce CBAM goods, but the Commission explicitly addresses authorised CBAM declarants and verifiers as well, and it repeats the advice that businesses should use actual values for their 2026 imports and prepare for the verification of their emissions data.⁴

Guidance No. 4 deserves attention from anyone modelling costs. It is the first official explanation of how the free allocation adjustment works in practice. For 2026 the CBAM factor stands at 2.5%, which means that the number of certificates to surrender for this year's imports is 2.5% of the verified embedded emissions after the adjustment for free allocation.⁵ The factor rises every year from here, and the July 2026 EU ETS review proposes to slow that climb; see our analysis of the CBAM factor and the phase-out of free allocation.

3. Verification Guidance Published and the Registry Opens to Verifiers

The verification infrastructure took three concrete steps. On 24 August 2026, the Commission published guidance on CBAM verification and accreditation, a 141-page document written for verifiers and for the national accreditation bodies that accredit and supervise them. It explains what verifying emissions from non-EU installations requires under the rules in force since 1 January 2026.^{3, 6}

On 27 August a 146-page manual followed for the Operators of Third-Country Installations Portal, the part of the CBAM Registry where non-EU producers enter installation and emissions data once and then share it with their EU customers. Two guides on verifier access appeared on 28 August. Together they describe a staged procedure: a verifier first obtains accreditation and technical access, then applies for registration, which the national competent authority of the accrediting Member State decides on. Only after approval does the verifier appear as registered in the Registry.^{3, 9}

Registry access for verifiers opened on 1 September 2026. Verifiers must register within two months of receiving accreditation, and from January 2027 they will issue verification reports directly in the Registry, which is what allows importers to declare verified actual emissions instead of marked-up default values.^{6, 7}

The bottleneck is accreditation itself. The Commission's state of play of 1 September lists 24 national accreditation bodies that have agreed to offer CBAM accreditation, 14 of which are ready to accept applications, and it notes that France's COFRAC now accepts applications from third-country verification bodies.^{7, 8} As of 4 September, however, no verifier in the EU held a formal CBAM accreditation yet. Portugal, Slovakia and Slovenia have announced opening dates in September, October and November.¹⁰ The first accreditations are still expected around September; our overview of CBAM verification and accredited verifiers explains what to arrange with suppliers in the meantime.

4. Certificate Platform: Consultation Closed, Adoption Slips to Q4

The public consultation on the draft delegated regulation for the sale and repurchase of CBAM certificates closed on 6 August 2026 with 93 responses. The draft foresees a fee of €0.05 per certificate purchased, one repurchase request per year and unique, non-transferable certificate identifiers. Adoption, originally planned for the second quarter of 2026, is now expected in the fourth quarter. The start of certificate sales on 1 February 2027 is not affected.¹¹

Industry feedback concentrated on error handling. The Gerber Group, in a statement filed on the closing day, asked for a general right to correct obvious input errors before payment, a timestamped audit trail, monthly processing of repurchase requests within 15 calendar days, automatic deadline protection when the Commission's own systems fail, helpdesk support in the official languages of the Member States, and structured involvement of importing SMEs in platform testing before the system becomes mandatory.¹² Whether the Commission adjusts the draft will only be visible in the adopted text later this year. The mechanics as they stand are described in our guide to buying CBAM certificates through the central platform.

5. Carbon Price Holds Above €80 per Tonne

The EU ETS allowance price, the reference for the quarterly CBAM certificate price, stayed above €80 per tonne at the start of August after reaching a six-month high of €86.60 on 22 July, the highest level since January 2026. The rally followed the Commission's ETS reform proposals of 17 July, which the market read as tightening supply in the coming years. Analysts surveyed by Reuters nonetheless lowered their forecasts to an average of €79.97 for 2026 and €89.13 for 2027, citing the proposed changes to the annual reduction rate of allowances.¹³

For importers the relevant number is the quarterly average. The certificate prices published so far are €75.36 for Q1 2026 and €75.28 for Q2 2026. The Q3 2026 price, the average of the third quarter's auctions, is due in October 2026.¹⁴ If the summer levels hold, that figure will be the first noticeably higher certificate price of the definitive period.

6. Parliament Votes on the CBAM Revision in September

The two reports adopted by the environment committee on 6 July, on the extension of CBAM to more than 400 downstream product codes and on the Temporary Decarbonisation Fund, go to the plenary session of 14 to 17 September 2026 for adoption of Parliament's negotiating mandate.^{15, 16} The Council agreed its position in June, so trilogue negotiations can start as soon as the plenary has voted, with a final text expected in late 2026 or early 2027.¹⁵ We will cover the outcome of the vote in the September update.

7. Around the World: India Prepares Its Exporters

On 18 August 2026, India's Department of Commerce held a CBAM awareness session in New Delhi with around 100 exporters and industry representatives, organised with the National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies and the Engineering Export Promotion Council. The messages were practical: build a trustworthy domestic system for accrediting and verifying emissions, and collect emissions data from component suppliers as well as from the exporter's own plants.¹⁷

The tone contrasts with the political line that CBAM is discriminatory. An analysis by Sandbag reported on 4 August argues that the impact on Indian steel exports to the EU may be far smaller than feared, with the projected CBAM cost falling from €762 million to €79 million once rising EU market prices are taken into account, and low-emission producers such as ArcelorMittal's Hazira plant potentially gaining market share.¹⁸ For EU importers the practical consequence is the same either way: suppliers in India are being pushed towards verified actual data, and the ones that get there first will be cheaper to buy from.

8. Outlook: What August 2026 Means for Importers

Three conclusions follow from the month:

Recalculate 2026 on the corrected tables. Any cost estimate or supplier comparison built on the January default values is out of date, and the direction of the change differs per product and origin.^{2, 3}
Use the guidance to brief suppliers. The sector guides and the operator portal manual are the documents a non-EU producer needs to deliver verifiable data; sending them is cheaper than explaining the method yourself.^{4, 9}
Book verification capacity early. With no accredited verifier yet in early September and reports only issued from January 2027, the queue for the first verified declaration, due 30 September 2027, will form fast.^{7, 10}

None of this changes the obligations of the current cycle. The 50 tonne de minimis threshold, the requirement to be an authorised CBAM declarant, the start of certificate sales on 1 February 2027 and the declaration deadline of 30 September 2027 all remain in place. What August added is the documentation to meet them. Companies that want to keep emissions data, supplier records and certificate planning in one place can compare the options on the CBAM Desk pricing page or browse earlier updates in our CBAM news archive.

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Hulsman & Partners

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