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CBAM for aluminium exporters
If you ship aluminium to the European Union, your customer now pays for the carbon embedded in it — and pays more when you send no data. This is what the rules ask of you.
What is covered
CN chapter 76 — unwrought aluminium and aluminium products. The code on your export invoice decides it, not the name of the product.
Which emissions count
In the definitive period, direct emissions only. That means fuels burned in fixed equipment at your site, process emissions from materials such as carbonates and electrodes, and the emissions embedded in the CBAM material you purchased. Electricity is reported but not counted — sintered ore is the single exception.
- Primary smelting — anode consumption and PFC emissions from anode effects both count. Alumina, anodes and cryolite themselves carry zero embedded emissions.
- Secondary melting — scrap counts as zero, so recyclers often show a very low figure. Fuel for drying, de-coating and melting still counts.
- Extruders and rollers — the unwrought aluminium you buy carries its emissions into your product; your own furnaces add the rest.
What the number looks like
The figure is tonnes of CO₂e per tonne of product: your own direct emissions plus the emissions of the material you bought, divided by your saleable output. Scrap and returned product are excluded from output; offcuts and losses stay in the input side.
What it costs your customer
Certificate cost is tonnes × your value × the EU carbon price × the phase-in factor, which is 2.5% in 2026 and rises to 100% by 2034. With no data from you, the country default plus mark-up is used instead. The gap between the two is what you are negotiating over.
Compare against your country's default →
Verification
From 2026, actual values must be checked by an accredited verifier before they can be used. Plan for it, and until then describe your figures honestly as verification-ready, not verified.
CBAM File is a free browser-based calculator for non-EU steel and aluminium producers. Your production data never leaves your browser. Open the calculator →
Default values by country · Communication Template · Got a data request? · Steel · Aluminium