Amendment to Regulation (EU) 2023/956 on Simplifying and Strengthening the CBAM - Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism – Regulation (EU) 2025/2083

Regulation (EU) 2025/2083 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 October 2025 amending Regulation (EU) 2023/956 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 May 2023 as regards the simplification and strengthening of the CBAM - Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, was published on 17 October 2025 in the Official Journal of the European Union.

Regulation (EU) 2023/956 established the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), which imposes a carbon price on certain goods imported into the European Union, ensuring an equivalent carbon price between that imported product and the same product produced in the EU, thus avoiding the risk of carbon leakage. The Regulation is currently in a transition period and will apply definitively from January 2026.

In order to ensure an harmonious implementation of the CBAM once the transition period has ended, Regulation (EU) 2025/2083 introduces a number of changes, the most notable of which are as follows:

·       Creation of a single mass-based threshold below which importers are exempt from complying with the obligations set out in the Regulation. This threshold is initially set at 50 tonnes of net mass of goods imported in a calendar year and will be reviewed annually to ensure that 99% of emissions are covered by the CBAM. The exemption does not apply to importers of electricity and hydrogen.

·       The CBAM declaration must be submitted by 30 September each year (starting in 2027 with reference to 2026) and must include the total quantity of each type of imported goods, the total emissions embodied in these goods and, where applicable, a verification report issued by an accredited verifier.

·       The regulation introduces rules for calculating embedded emissions, which may be calculated on the basis of actual values (verified by an accredited verifier) or predefined values based on the average emissions intensity of the ten exporting countries with the highest emissions for the type of goods concerned.

The regulation can be consulted here.