CBAM Certificate Price Forecast 2027: What Analysts Expect and What Drives It

Analysts now expect the CBAM certificate price to average €93.29 per tonne of CO₂e in 2027, down from an earlier forecast of €107.29, according to a Reuters poll of 10 analysts published April 30, 2026. The same poll cut the 2026 average forecast to €80.61 per tonne, from €92.65 in a January 2026 survey of the same panel. Because the CBAM certificate price equals the EU ETS auction price by law under the EU CBAM mechanism, every published EUA price forecast is, in effect, a CBAM certificate price forecast. This article compiles the published 2027 numbers, the reasons analysts cut them in April, and the supply-side developments since then: the June auction cuts that pushed spot prices back above €80, the July 17 ETS Phase 5 revision proposal (COM(2026) 616) that would loosen supply if adopted, and the late-July market reaction that repriced the December 2026 contract into the low-to-mid €80s. Every figure below is attributed to the source that produced it: cbamguide.com does not publish its own price predictions.

What Is the CBAM Certificate Price Forecast for 2027?

The most recent published 2027 forecast is €93.29 per tonne CO₂e, from a Reuters poll of 10 analysts conducted in April 2026 and released April 30, 2026. That figure is a cut from the same panel's January 2026 forecast of €107.29. The 2026 average forecast moved from €92.65 to €80.61 over the same period. Spot EUA prices sat around €74 per tonne at the time analysts submitted their April estimates.

The table below sets the two poll rounds side by side.

A roughly €14 cut to the 2027 average is larger, in absolute terms, than the €12 cut applied to 2026, though both represent a comparable 13% reduction from the January estimate. No newer consensus poll covering 2027 has been published as of this writing, so this remains the most current attributed forecast available.

Why Did Analysts Cut Their 2027 Forecasts?

Analysts cut their 2027 EUA and CBAM certificate price forecasts for four attributed reasons, all cited in the reporting around the April 30, 2026 Reuters poll.

1. Policy uncertainty ahead of the ETS review. The Commission adopted a proposal to amend the Market Stability Reserve, COM(2026) 153 final, on April 1, 2026, and a comprehensive EU ETS review was expected on July 15, 2026. Analysts cited this policy overhang as a reason to widen downside scenarios.
2. The Iran-conflict energy shock. A geopolitical energy shock tied to the Iran conflict added volatility to gas, and by extension carbon, prices in the weeks before the poll, according to reporting on the survey.
3. Speculative unwinding. ClearBlue's Yehor Melakh described 2026 price dynamics as "mainly shaped by policy-driven supply changes," pointing to positioning shifts rather than fundamentals as near-term pressure.
4. Demand destruction signals. Macquarie's Serafino Capoferri flagged weaker industrial demand for allowances, consistent with softer EU industrial output feeding through to lower ETS compliance buying.

None of these four factors had resolved by the poll date: the ETS review remained pending, and the MSR proposal was still moving through the legislative procedure, not yet adopted as law.

Did the June 2026 Rally Contradict the April Forecast Cuts?

Prices moved higher, not lower, in the two months after the April forecast cuts. EUA spot prices climbed from around €74 per tonne in late April to above €80 per tonne by June 2026, and the December 2026 futures contract settled at €81.57 on June 23, a four-month high, according to trade press tracking EEX settlement data. The rally does not overturn the April poll: Reuters surveys reflect a point-in-time consensus, and supply-side events that unfolded after April 30 are exactly the kind of development that shifts the next poll round, whenever it is published.

The proximate trigger was the end of Member State Recovery and Resilience Facility (MS-RRF) auctioning under REPowerEU. The European Commission confirmed that the €8 billion MS-RRF revenue target was reached on June 22, 2026, after a cumulative auctioning of 111,455,000 allowances, triggering an immediate suspension. From June 23, 2026, the common auction platform's per-auction volume was cut by 381,000 allowances, from 3,198,500 to 2,817,500 EUA, through August 31, 2026, per the EEX auction calendar. A second REPowerEU leg, targeting €12 billion for the Innovation Fund, was expected to reach its own target around mid-July 2026, which would cut a further 571,000 allowances per auction; treat that additional cut as unconfirmed pending Commission and EEX sources.

What Structural Supply Changes Support Prices Into 2027?

Three confirmed regulatory supply changes, beyond the REPowerEU auction reductions, bear directly on how much EUA and CBAM certificate supply reaches the market through the rest of 2026 and into 2027.

• Market Stability Reserve withdrawal for 2026 to 2027. The Commission published its annual surplus indicator on May 29, 2026: the Total Number of Allowances in Circulation (TNAC) for 2025 stood at 1,023,494,202, and under the buffer rule (TNAC minus 833 million), 190,494,202 allowances will be withdrawn into the MSR between September 1, 2026 and August 31, 2027. That is smaller than the roughly 276 million withdrawn in the prior cycle, but it still removes supply, a structural support heading into 2027.
• 50 million additional allowances for the Social Climate Fund. A revised 2026 EUA auction calendar, implementing the amended European Climate Law, added 50 million allowances to 2026 auctions for the Social Climate Fund, with 10 million of that total deducted from Member State volumes, effective June 1, 2026, per the EEX calendar cited above. This is a modest net addition working against the MSR withdrawal and the RRF cuts.
• A proposal to stop MSR invalidation above the 400-million buffer. On April 1, 2026, the Commission adopted COM(2026) 153 final, proposing that allowances held in the MSR above a 400-million threshold no longer be automatically cancelled but retained as a buffer. The Commission argues continued invalidation would raise prices "both today and in the future" once the market tightens in the 2030s. This remains a proposal in the ordinary legislative procedure as of July 2026, not yet adopted.

What Does the July 2026 ETS Phase 5 Proposal Mean for the Forecast?

A new forecast driver arrived on July 17, 2026, when the Commission published COM(2026) 616, the ETS Phase 5 revision proposal. Two of its elements point toward supply-side loosening relative to the assumptions behind the existing forecasts: 15% of the phased-out free allocation for CBAM sectors would return from 2028, and the Market Stability Reserve intake rate would be halved to 12%. The proposal would also extend the free allocation phase-out to 2038, slowing the CBAM phase-in. The full package and its CBAM consequences are covered in EU ETS Phase 5 revision slows the CBAM phase-in.

EUA prices traded at around €80 to €82 per tonne in the days after the announcement, close to the late-June levels reached after the REPowerEU auction cuts. COM(2026) 616 is a proposal in the ordinary legislative procedure (co-decision), with agreement targeted for early 2027: none of its supply-side changes apply yet, and the April 30 Reuters poll predates it entirely. It is the clearest candidate to move the next consensus round, because every published 2027 forecast was built before the proposal existed.

The following week delivered the market's fuller verdict. The December 2026 EUA contract spiked to €86.63 per tonne intraweek on July 22 and closed July 24 at €83.40, up 5.14% week on week, as traders judged the proposal less bearish than feared; it then settled back to €81.26 by July 31, per the Captured Carbon Week 31 review and Advantag's weekly market reviews. EU ETS auctions across July 23 to August 5 held a band of roughly €79 to €86 per tonne, well above the €75.28 Q2 2026 certificate price, pointing to a materially higher Q3 2026 certificate price when the Commission publishes it on October 5, 2026. That developing gap is tracked week by week in Q3 CBAM certificate price tracking above Q2.

Into mid-August, the market held those levels. The December 2026 contract closed at €83.29 per tonne on August 7, up €2.03 week on week per Advantag, and traded near €82.01 on August 14 per TradingEconomics (€82.74 on August 13, per Prestige), keeping to a band of roughly €81 to €84 per tonne across August 6 to 15. That band sits above the April poll's €80.61 average forecast for 2026, and the confirmed withdrawal of 190,494,202 allowances into the Market Stability Reserve between September 2026 and August 2027 begins cutting auction supply from September, a structural support any next poll round would need to weigh. The mid-quarter position is assessed in Q3 CBAM certificate price mid-quarter check.

For importers hoping the proposal itself lowers CBAM costs, early analyst readings point the other way. Carbon Pulse reporting from August 3, 2026 and an OPIS/McCloskey analysis carried by Eurometal the same day both conclude that the proposed free-allocation slowdown offers importers little near-term cost relief. Under the proposal, free allocation for CBAM sectors would stand at 59% in 2030 against 51.5% under current law, and at 27% in 2033 against 14%. Those figures describe a proposal under negotiation, not adopted law, and the attributed analyst view is that certificate budgets for the next few years should not be built on the assumption of relief from it.

How Will Weekly CBAM Pricing From 2027 Affect the Forecast?

From January 1, 2027, the CBAM certificate price shifts from a quarterly average to a weekly average of EU ETS auction closing prices, under Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2548. In 2026, the CBAM certificate price is a quarterly average, which smooths out short-term spikes like the June 2026 rally. From 2027, that smoothing narrows to a single week, so the published price will track the underlying EU ETS auction price far more closely and can move noticeably week to week.

This matters for reading the €93.29 forecast correctly. A poll figure is an annual average, not a fixed number importers will see on any single week's CBAM Registry publication. Once weekly pricing takes effect, the actual price for a given week's purchases could sit well above or below the annual consensus. Budgeting against the annual average alone understates the week-to-week variability importers will face once quarterly smoothing ends.

What Would the 2027 Forecast Mean for Certificate Costs?

If the €93.29 forecast holds, the net CBAM certificate cost for a tonne of BF-BOF steel in 2027 would be approximately €9.33, up from roughly €3.75 to €4.03 at 2026 prices, because the CBAM factor itself rises from 2.5% in 2026 to 5% in 2027 under the free-allocation phase-out schedule. The table below applies the 2027 CBAM factor to the forecast price across three sectors.

Net cost = emission factor × forecast price × 2027 CBAM factor (5%). These figures use the April 2026 Reuters consensus forecast, not an official Commission-published price; treat them as a planning scenario, not a guaranteed cost.

Even a forecast that moves by €14 per tonne, as the 2027 number did between January and April 2026, changes the net certificate cost for BF-BOF steel by roughly €1.40 per tonne at the 2027 CBAM factor, a small absolute swing today that grows every year the CBAM factor climbs toward 100% in 2034.

How Should Importers Use This Forecast for Budget Planning?

Importers should treat €93.29 as the midpoint of a range, not a single budgeting number, because the ETS Phase 5 revision proposal (COM(2026) 616), the MSR invalidation proposal, and REPowerEU auction volumes were all still unresolved as of August 5, 2026. Three practical steps follow.

1. Build a scenario range, not a point estimate. Pair the low end of recent forecasts (the €80.61 2026 average) with the high end of the pre-cut estimates (€107.29 for 2027) to bound a realistic range, and run both through the CBAM calculator against your own import volumes.
2. Track the published price, not just the forecast. The forecast is a planning input; your actual obligation is set by the quarterly average published through the CBAM Registry in 2026 and the weekly average from 2027, both trackable through the CBAM price tracker.
3. Size the certificate budget against the quarterly holding requirement. Certificates must cover at least 50% of cumulative embedded emissions at each quarter-end under the quarterly holding rule, so forecast swings hit interim purchases throughout the year, not just year-end certificate surrender.

Certificate sales do not open until February 1, 2027, through the CBAM Common Central Platform, so no importer is exposed to the 2027 price directly until then. The forecast matters now because supplier negotiations and 2027 budget cycles are typically set before certificates go on sale.

Frequently Asked Questions About the CBAM Price Forecast 2027

Is the 2027 CBAM Price Forecast an Official EU Figure?

No. The €93.29 figure is a Reuters poll of 10 independent analysts, published April 30, 2026, not a Commission number. The Commission does not forecast future prices; it only publishes the price actually realized each quarter (2026) or week (from 2027) after EU ETS auctions clear, under Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2548. Treat analyst forecasts as planning inputs and Commission-published figures as the only legally applicable prices.

Will the CBAM Certificate Price Be Higher in 2027 Than in 2026?

Analyst consensus says yes. The April 2026 Reuters poll puts the 2027 average at €93.29 per tonne against an €80.61 average for 2026, a roughly 16% increase. That said, both figures are forecasts, not settled outcomes, and the June and late-July 2026 rallies already show market prices moving above the April 2026 forecast trajectory within weeks of the poll.

Why Did EUA Prices Rally in June 2026 Despite Lower April Forecasts?

The rally followed confirmed supply cuts, not a forecast revision. REPowerEU's MS-RRF auctioning ended June 23, 2026, after hitting its €8 billion revenue target, cutting per-auction volumes by 381,000 allowances through August 31. Combined with the confirmed 190,494,202-allowance MSR withdrawal for September 2026 to August 2027, tighter near-term supply pushed spot and futures prices higher even as the April poll's policy uncertainty remained unresolved.

Could the 2027 Forecast Be Revised Again Before Certificate Sales Open?

Yes. Reuters and other providers periodically resurvey analyst panels. The co-decision negotiations on the ETS Phase 5 revision proposal (COM(2026) 616, published July 17, 2026), the MSR invalidation proposal's progress through Parliament and Council, and the second REPowerEU auction cut are all pending developments that could move the next published consensus before certificate sales begin February 1, 2027.

Forecast figures on this page are attributed to the named analysts and official EU sources cited above and reflect information available as of August 15, 2026. Verify current CBAM certificate prices through the CBAM certificate price tracker and the official CBAM Registry before making compliance or budgeting decisions.