Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2621 of 16 December 2025 laying down rules for the application of Regulation (EU) 2023/956 of the European Parliament and the Council as regards the establishment of default values

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to Regulation (EU) 2023/956 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 May 2023 establishing a carbon border adjustment mechanism (1), and in particular Article 7(7) thereof,

Whereas:

(1) Article 7 of Regulation (EU) 2023/956 requires the use of default values for determining embedded emissions in goods other than electricity and in imported electricity , and for determining indirect embedded emissions .

(2) In accordance with Article 7 of Regulation (EU) 2023/956 default values are to be determined on the basis of the methodology set out in Annex IV to that Regulation, which is to be based on the most up-to-date and reliable information. In the event that neither data obtained by the Joint Research Centre nor data collected during the transitional period is considered sufficiently reliable, the default values should be based on the average of the ten exporting countries with the highest emission intensities for which reliable data can be applied for that type of goods.

(3) The environmental objective of the carbon border adjustment mechanism (‘the CBAM’) is to prevent carbon leakage. This objective would be compromised if importers of goods other than electricity were allowed to apply default values that are lower than the actual emissions embedded in those goods. At the same time, the default values including mark-ups need to be proportionate and necessary to contribute to achieving the CBAM objectives. Therefore, the default values including mark-ups should be determined using a conservative approach that ensures that embedded emissions are not underestimated when applying default values.

(4) To ensure the environmental integrity of the CBAM, default values for embedded emissions of goods other than electricity should include a mark-up to account for the deviations of an individual installation with emission levels higher than the relevant average emission intensity of the producer country. Given the difficulties to verify that installation-specific data from third countries is of a sufficiently high quality, a suitable proxy should be applied to estimate the variations of individual installations compared to the average. Therefore, the proposed mark-up is based on existing deviations of Union installations with respect to Union average altogether.

(5) To avoid immediate disproportionate impacts on prices of goods, and to give economic operators time to adapt, the mark-up should be gradually phased-in. This phase-in, is also necessary as the number of verifiers may increase in the first years following the end of the transition period, in particular in 2026. and hence CBAM declarants should therefore be able to use default values in those first years, and rely on actual emissions subsequently.

(6) Specific considerations apply to the fertilisers sector where a lower mark-up should be applied.

(7) For indirect embedded emissions, the default value should be calculated based on the average of the emission factor of the country-of-origin electricity grid. Such method of calculation is the most suitable to achieve both the prevention of carbon leakage as well as the preservation of the environmental integrity of the CBAM, given that it reflects to the largest possible degree decarbonisation efforts of third countries’ electricity grids while maintaining a high level of protection against the risk of carbon leakage. In order to reflect the impact of decarbonisation policies of third countries, such as the increase in renewable energy production, as well as climatic conditions on the yearly electricity supply in the countries concerned, whilst avoiding an excessive volatility of the emission factor due to anomalous years, including attributable to exceptional climatic conditions or other unforeseeable events, the emission factor should be calculated on the basis of the simple average of the emission factor for the most recent five-year period before the reporting for which reliable data is available.

(8) For electricity imported into the customs territory of the Union, in order to reflect the impact of decarbonisation policies in the third country or group of third countries, on the emission intensity of the electricity production in the countries concerned, whilst avoiding an excessive volatility of the emission factor due to anomalous years, including attributable to exceptional climatic conditions or other unforeseeable events, the CO2 emission factor should be calculated on the basis of the average of the yearly CO2 emission factors for the most recent five-years period for which reliable data is available.

(9) To provide certainty on the default values to be used for precursors for which the country of production is not known, such default values should be laid down. To prevent operators that use a precursor produced in a third country for which a high default has been set from claiming that the country of production of a precursor is unknown in order to avoid being subject to that high default value, where the country of production of a precursor cannot be identified, the default value to be used for that precursor should be the default value of the third country with the highest emission intensities for that precursor.

(10) Where the Commission proceeds to revise this Implementing Act, it should conduct a public consultation to uphold transparency and to ensure a meaningful participation of all relevant stakeholders, in accordance with the Commission’s Better Regulation Guidelines.

(11) The default values and mark-ups shall be revised by December 2027 at the latest. The Commission should make all necessary efforts, in close collaboration with the Member States and based on a systematic and holistic review, to ensure that a revision of the default values can already be carried out in 2026.

(12) The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the CBAM Committee,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Default values

Article 2

This Regulation shall enter into force on the third day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

It shall apply from 1 January 2026.

It shall be revised in 2027 at the latest.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at Brussels, 16 December 2025.

For the Commission The President Ursula VON DER LEYEN

(1) OJ L 130, 16.5.2023, p. 52, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/956/oj.

(2) Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2547 of 10 December 2025 laying down the rules for the application of Regulation (EU) 2023/956 of the European Parliament and the Council on the methods for the calculation of emissions embedded in goods (OJ L, 2025/2547, 22.12.2025, ELI:. http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2025/2547/oj).