UK CBAM Verifiers: Accreditation Status and How to Find One

Zero verification bodies are accredited to verify UK CBAM emissions as of October 12, 2026: UKAS has published no UK CBAM application process, and no public list of UK CBAM verifiers exists.

Last checked: October 12, 2026. This page is rechecked every month and whenever HMRC or UKAS publishes an update.

The legal requirement is already made. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (Emissions and Verification) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/995) come into force on January 1, 2027, the day the tax described in our UK CBAM guide starts. They require every actual emissions figure in a UK CBAM return to be verified by an independent, accredited verifier. The accreditation is the missing piece: UKAS, the UK's national accreditation body, said on October 8, 2026 that its UK CBAM arrangements are still in development.

The five numbers that summarise the position are listed below.

• 0 bodies hold UK CBAM verifier accreditation as of October 12, 2026
• January 1, 2027 is when SI 2026/995 and the HMRC notice made under it take legal effect
• 12 verification bodies hold UKAS accreditation for UK ETS verification, the pool with a scope-extension route under the draft notice
• 3 bodies, EmiCert, Bureau Veritas and SGS, have announced EU CBAM accreditation, a separate accreditation
• 8 CBAM activity groups make up the accreditation scope in the draft notice

Does UK CBAM Require Third-Party Verification?

Yes, but only where an importer uses actual emissions data: regulation 12(1) of SI 2026/995 requires all verified emissions data for a CBAM good to be verified by an independent, accredited verifier, and a return built on default values needs no emissions verifier.

SI 2026/995 was made on September 8, 2026, laid before the House of Commons on September 9, 2026, and comes into force on January 1, 2027. It gives an importer two routes to an emissions figure. Regulation 4 multiplies the weight of the good by a default value set in a Treasury notice. Regulation 5 calculates actual emissions in eight steps from "verified emissions data" for a calendar-year monitoring period.

Regulation 10 treats data as verified only once a verifier has given a verification opinion statement that the data are "sufficiently accurate to be used as verified emissions data". Regulation 17 amends SI 2026/802 so that a return using actual emissions data states "the emissions intensity which must be verified by a verifier".

The three conditions a verifier must meet under regulation 12(1) are listed below.

1. Independence from the importer, from the installation that produced the good and its operator, and from any installation or operator that produced a precursor good
2. Accreditation by an accreditation body to verify the relevant emissions for the type of CBAM good concerned
3. Further standards set out in a notice published by the HMRC Commissioners

Regulation 15(1) defines the accreditation body: it must "be a full member of the Global Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated" and meet the requirements of an HMRC notice. SI 2026/995 names no accreditation body, cites no ISO standard, does not require a verifier to be established in the UK, and creates no HMRC approval step and no HMRC list of verifiers.

The table below separates what the instrument fixes from what it leaves to HMRC notices.

A second verifier role sits outside this page's count. An importer who claims carbon price relief must obtain a carbon pricing verification form completed by a verifier under regulations 7 to 9 of SI 2026/809, whichever emissions route the return uses. That verifier is accredited by a full member of the Global Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated to standards set in a separate HMRC notice, also still in draft, which lists ISO standards and no CBAM activity groups. The zero on this page counts emissions verifiers under SI 2026/995 only.

The UK CBAM Verifier Accreditation Route

A UK CBAM verifier is accredited by an accreditation body, not by HMRC, and the detailed route sits in a draft HMRC notice that has no legal force until January 1, 2027.

HMRC published the Emissions and Verification Force of Law Notice (Draft) on September 9, 2026 and replaced the file on October 9, 2026. The gov.uk publication page states that the notices "have not yet commenced and do not currently have the force of law". Every section reference below (J.2 to J.8, Annex IV) is to that draft and can change before commencement.

Who Accredits UK CBAM Verifiers

Any accreditation body that is a full member of the Global Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated and meets the HMRC notice can accredit UK CBAM verifiers; under the draft notice's same-country rule, a verifier established in the UK would apply to UKAS, which had not opened applications as of October 12, 2026. The Global ACI member directory lists UKAS as a Full Member, checked October 12, 2026.

The draft notice adds that the accreditation body must comply with ISO/IEC 17011:2017 and be peer evaluated for ISO/IEC 17029:2019 and ISO 14065:2020 (section J.2). The route from application to approval under the draft runs in five steps.

1. Apply to the accreditation body of the country where the verifier is established (section J.3.1). A foreign body may act only where the home country has no accreditation body, the home body does not qualify, or it does not accredit for CBAM
2. State the requested scope as one or more of the 8 CBAM activity groups in Annex IV
3. Demonstrate competence against ISO/IEC 17029:2019 and ISO 14065:2020 (section J.6.1)
4. Pass the assessment: a document review, an on-site visit to the verifier's premises and witnessed verification work (section J.3.3)
5. Receive the accreditation, issued in English for no more than five years (section J.3.4), with surveillance every year (section J.5.1)

Verifiers already accredited for the UK Emissions Trading Scheme have a shorter path: section J.3.2 lets the accreditation body consider an extension of their existing scope.

Current Accreditation Status

No body holds UK CBAM verifier accreditation as of October 12, 2026, and UKAS has not published an application process. The UKAS technical bulletin of October 8, 2026 says UKAS "is developing the competence framework, assessor capability and accreditation arrangements necessary to support effective verification and accreditation activities" for UK CBAM, and asks interested verification bodies to contact their Assessment Managers.

Selection criteria: a body is listed only when an accreditation body's public register or announcement shows an accreditation for UK CBAM verification. Inclusion is unpaid and is not an endorsement.

HMRC's pages support the zero. The gov.uk CBAM collection linked no register of verifiers on October 12, 2026, and HMRC's record-keeping guidance says "HMRC will publish further detail on verification requirements before 1 January 2027".

Accreditation bodies outside the UK can qualify under regulation 15 as well. We have found no announcement of a UK CBAM accreditation from any of them, but we have not inspected every national register. Verifier accreditations are recorded on this page as they appear; the site's paid email service, CBAM Brief (EUR 199 a month), covers a different set of changes: CBAM certificate prices, default values, CN codes and deadlines.

Which Bodies Are Likely to Verify UK CBAM Emissions

The 12 verification bodies that UKAS accredits for UK ETS verification are the candidate pool for UK CBAM verification, because the draft notice gives UK ETS-accredited bodies an extension-of-scope route. None of them is accredited for UK CBAM, and none is known to have applied.

Selection criteria: a body appears here only if its UKAS schedule of accreditation, downloaded from ukas.com on October 12, 2026, lists the UK Emission Trading Programme, or if the body itself has announced an EU CBAM accreditation. Inclusion is unpaid and is not an endorsement. Every body is a candidate only, and we have no evidence that any has applied for UK CBAM accreditation.

Bodies Already Accredited for UK ETS

Twelve of the 27 validation and verification bodies on the UKAS register hold UK ETS scope, and the table below gives the activity groups on each schedule.

Annex IV of the draft notice sets out which UK ETS activity groups correspond to each CBAM activity group. It also lists a separate scope, group L, for carbon capture, utilisation and storage.

Three bodies (LRQA, BSI and SGS United Kingdom) hold all six sector-specific groups the draft maps to CBAM goods: 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9. Kiwa holds five of the six, DNV and Lucideon three each, and the Bureau Veritas UK branch one. The accreditation body must consider the correspondence, so an extension of scope is not automatic.

The other five hold none of the six. ERM holds the general groups 1a, 1b and 98, the set Annex IV maps to CBAM group IV. Emicert holds group 98 alongside aviation. The three aviation-only bodies hold no UK ETS group that Annex IV maps to a CBAM activity group.

Bodies That Have Announced EU CBAM Accreditation

Three bodies have announced EU CBAM accreditation as of October 12, 2026, EmiCert, Bureau Veritas and SGS, and none of the announcements covers UK CBAM. EmiCert announced on September 23, 2026 that ESYD, the Greek accreditation body, had accredited it for EU CBAM verification; its website gives certificate No. 874-9. Bureau Veritas announced an accreditation for CBAM verification services on September 29, 2026 without naming the accrediting body. SGS announced on October 6, 2026 an accreditation as an EU CBAM verifier from Accredia, the Italian accreditation body.

The Bureau Veritas and SGS announcements do not name the legal entity that holds the accreditation. Neither says it is held by the UK entity on the UKAS schedule above.

All three rest on the companies' own statements. The European Commission's verification page still said on October 12, 2026 that its list of accredited verifiers "will be published on this page". Our tracker of accredited CBAM verifiers follows the EU side country by country.

An EU CBAM accreditation, granted under Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/2551, does not meet regulation 12 of SI 2026/995 by itself. The equivalence clause in the draft notice (section J.2) covers only UK CBAM accreditations issued by other qualifying accreditation bodies.

How UK CBAM Verification Differs From EU CBAM Verification

UK CBAM verification runs between the verifier, the installation operator and the importer with no central register, while EU CBAM verification runs through EU national accreditation bodies and the CBAM Registry.

The table below compares the two regimes; UK entries marked "draft" come from the HMRC notice.

The draft notice also sets a materiality level of 5% of the total emissions intensity (section J.7.10) and three outcomes: verified as satisfactory, verified as satisfactory with comments, or a negative verification opinion statement (section J.8.1).

Our guide to CBAM verification covers the EU process for readers who file in both markets, and the EU CBAM guide explains the mechanism as a whole.

Can One Verification Serve Both Regimes?

No, not automatically: an EU CBAM verification report does not turn emissions data into "verified emissions data" under regulation 10 of SI 2026/995, which needs an opinion statement from a verifier accredited for UK CBAM. Nothing in SI 2026/995 or the draft notice accepts an EU report in place of a UK one.

One verification body can serve both regimes once it holds both accreditations. The reports still differ in scope: a UK report covers direct emissions only and follows UK commodity codes and the monitoring-period rules of regulation 9, while an EU report adds indirect emissions for cement and fertilisers.

The functional unit is close but not identical. Both regimes use the tonnes of goods produced under one commodity code, and the tonnes of clinker contained for the same four cement codes. The UK System Boundaries Document uses kilograms of nitrogen contained for all fertilisers. Article 4 of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2547 does so for CN codes 2808 00 00, 2814 and 3105 and uses supplementary units for other fertiliser codes.

An importer left without a UK-verified figure falls back on UK CBAM default values.

What to Ask a Verifier Before the 2027 Accounting Period

Ask these six questions before the first accounting period opens on January 1, 2027.

1. Ask which accreditation body will accredit the firm for UK CBAM and whether it has registered its interest
2. Ask which of the 8 CBAM activity groups it will request, and check them against your goods
3. Ask whether it has advised your supplier on its monitoring plan, which the draft notice treats as an unacceptable risk to impartiality (section J.6.10.2)
4. Ask when it can make the physical site visit to each installation
5. Ask whether it issues a good-specific verification summary for each good you import
6. Ask which monitoring period it will verify

Question 3 has a practical consequence: under the draft notice, a verifier that has advised a supplier on its monitoring plan is not treated as impartial, so that help comes from a separate firm. The UK CBAM services directory lists named advisers, customs brokers and software vendors with the scope each one states.

No public fee data exists for UK CBAM verification as of October 12, 2026. Cost drivers are the number of installations, travel for site visits, the precursor chain and the number of activity groups.

Our guide on what to ask a CBAM verifier covers the equivalent EU engagement.

Frequently Asked Questions About UK CBAM Verifiers

Is UKAS Accrediting UK CBAM Verifiers Yet?

No. As of October 12, 2026, UKAS has published no application process for UK CBAM accreditation. Its technical bulletin of October 8, 2026 says the arrangements are in development and that "Further communications will be issued as accreditation requirements, application processes and implementation arrangements continue to develop".

Does a UK CBAM Verifier Have to Be Based in the UK?

No. Regulation 15 of SI 2026/995 accepts any accreditation body that is a full member of the Global Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated and meets the HMRC notice. Under the draft notice a verifier applies to the accreditation body of the country where it is established. Four of the 12 bodies UKAS accredits for UK ETS verification have addresses in France, Germany or Greece.

When Does Verified Data Have to Exist for the First UK CBAM Return?

Before the first return, which covers the 2027 accounting period and is due by May 31, 2028. For goods imported before January 1, 2028, regulation 9(2) allows the monitoring period to be the most recent calendar year with verified data out of the import year and the year before it, or the year of production. The return itself is covered in UK CBAM reporting.

Where Will the List of UK CBAM Verifiers Be Published?

SI 2026/995 creates no HMRC list. The draft notice (section J.4.3) requires each accreditation body to publish, at least once a year, a list of the verifiers it has accredited for CBAM. For UK-established verifiers that points to the UKAS register, and this page records the first entry when it appears.

Can an EU CBAM Accredited Verifier Verify UK CBAM Emissions?

Not on its EU accreditation alone. The verifier needs an accreditation for UK CBAM from a qualifying accreditation body, for the CBAM activity group of the goods concerned. The wider differences between the two systems are set out in UK CBAM vs EU CBAM.