Edited by Francesco Pizzo, Lorenzo Ontano, Marta Marrapodi, Silvia Sciortino
The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) came into force on October 1, 2023, with Regulation (EU) 2023/956 (hereinafter also “CBAM Regulation”), marking the beginning of the transitional period that will end on December 31, 2025.
On October 17, 2025 the Regulation (EU) 2025/2083 was published in the Official Journal of the EU, coming into force the amendments to the CBAM Regulation.
These amendments are part of the Omnibus package presented in February 2025 and are aimed at simplifying the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. Below are the main ones:
De minimis exemption
Importers, including those qualified as authorized CBAM declarants, are exempt from obligations under the CBAM Regulation if the total net mass of goods imported in a given calendar year does not exceed, cumulatively for all combined nomenclature codes, the threshold of 50 tonnes. The exemption does not apply to imports of electricity and hydrogen.
With regard to this amendment, the Italian Customs Authorities provided important clarifications with the notice of October 22, 2025, specifying that:
- the obligation to request the status of authorized CBAM declarant is requested for entities importing goods falling within the scope of the CBAM Regulation whose quantities exceed the de minimis threshold;
- from January 1, 2026, it will be mandatory to indicate in the customs declaration the reason of the importation of CBAM goods, specifically demonstrating:
- the possession of the authorized CBAM declarant status,
- being an importer who does not exceed the de minimis threshold in the year, or
- to have already submitted an authorization request.
Regarding this last point, the amendments to the CBAM Regulation have established that economic operators can import goods subject to CBAM, even in the case of exceeding the de minimis threshold during 2026, provided that the authorization application has been submitted by the importer or the indirect customs representative by March 31, 2026.
Procedural and calculation simplifications
The amendments to the CBAM Regulation also provided some simplifications in the declaration submission procedures and calculating emissions. In particular:
- the authorized CBAM declarant can delegate the submission of CBAM declarations to a third part acting on behalf of the declarant, while remaining responsible for the obligations to which they are subject under the Regulation itself;
- the calculation of emissions can be based on predefined values, calculated and made available by the EU Commission, or on actual values verified by accredited verifiers;
- the carbon price paid in a third country can be deducted from the purchase of CBAM certificates, based on default carbon prices for each country, calculated from the annual average carbon price.
The main deadlines are postponed
- The sale of CBAM certificates to authorized declarants is postponed to February 1, 2027.
- The deadline for submitting the CBAM declaration has been postponed to September 30 of the year following the reference year.
- By the same deadline of submission of the declaration, the authorized CBAM declarant is forced to return the number of CBAM certificates corresponding to the emissions embedded in the goods imported during the previous year.
- The deadline for submitting the request to repurchase the remaining CBAM certificates in the declarant’s account in the CBAM registry, after the certificates have been returned, has been postponed to October 31. Beyond this deadline, and more precisely from November 1 of each year, the EU Commission cancels the purchased CBAM certificates that remain in the account of an authorized CBAM declarant in the CBAM registry. These CBAM certificates are cancelled without compensation.
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