Mid-quarter check: the Q3 CBAM certificate price is tracking six to eight euros above Q2

The Q3 2026 CBAM certificate price is tracking roughly €6 to €8 above the Q2 price of €75.28/tCO₂e at the quarter's halfway mark, on a cbamguide.com estimate built from published auction settlement data. EUA benchmark settlements held a band of roughly €81 to €84 between August 6 and August 15, 2026, after July settlements of €81 to €86. No official or third-party quarter-to-date figure exists: the number that counts arrives only when the European Commission publishes the official Q3 price, due October 5, 2026. For importers of steel, cement, aluminium, fertilizers, electricity, and hydrogen budgeting certificates ahead of the February 1, 2027 sales opening, the mid-quarter picture points to the first materially higher quarterly price of the definitive phase.

Where the Q3 price stands at the halfway mark

The Q3 2026 CBAM certificate price is running roughly €6 to €8 above the Q2 price of €75.28/tCO₂e, a cbamguide.com estimate derived from published auction settlements: Dec-26 EUA settlements ran €81 to €86 in July and €81 to €84 in the first half of August. The official price is the weighted average of all EU ETS auction clearing prices recorded between July 1 and September 30, 2026, set by Article 22(1a) of Regulation (EU) 2023/956, inserted by the Omnibus amendment (Regulation (EU) 2025/2083). The Commission publishes it in the first calendar week after the quarter closes, due October 5, 2026. Until then every quarter-to-date figure, including ours, is an estimate, and six weeks of auctions can still move the average.

The estimate extends the trend documented on August 5, when auctions had cleared roughly €79 to €86 five weeks into the quarter. The table below places the mid-quarter picture against the two published quarterly prices.

The CBAM certificate price tracker carries the live ETS price against the published quarterly averages, and the price tracker tool sends an email alert the day each official figure lands.

What EUAs did between August 6 and 15

EUA Dec-26 futures closed at €83.29/t on August 7, 2026, up €2.03 on the week, per Advantag's weekly review of August 10, then drifted to roughly €82.01 by August 14, per TradingEconomics. Prestige Business Solutions' market update of August 14 recorded the contract at €82.74/t on August 13, up €0.75 on the day. The EUA price in August 2026 has therefore stayed inside a roughly €81 to €84 band, never approaching the €75.28 Q2 reference.

Four data points explain why the band is holding.

• Dutch TTF front-month gas jumped 3.3 percent on August 12, 2026 to €60/MWh, its highest level since July 24, per an Investing.com report of that date.
• EU gas storage stood 59.12 percent full, a historic low for August, per Gas Infrastructure Europe data cited in the same report.
• Carbon Pulse reported analysts warning that Europe's hottest summer in at least 15 years has left the gas market exposed ahead of winter.
• Investment funds' net long EUA position rebounded in the week ended August 7 after hitting a 10-week low, per Quantum Commodity Intelligence's commitment-of-traders coverage.

Expensive gas supports the carbon price because it keeps coal generation competitive, and coal burn needs more allowances per megawatt hour than gas.

Supply tightens from September as the MSR absorbs 190 million allowances

Auction supply falls from September 2026 because the Market Stability Reserve absorbs 190,494,202 allowances between September 2026 and August 2027, per the revised EU ETS auction calendars the Commission published on July 30, 2026. August supply is already thin: the summer schedule runs at roughly 9.1 million EUAs per week, about half the normal pace. The same calendar publication set the 2027 series at 339.5 million EUAs on the common auction platform, starting January 7, 2027. Fewer allowances at auction while gas-driven demand holds is the structural argument for the Q3 average staying above Q2 through September.

Germany's separate national scheme shows what firm demand against fixed supply looks like. In the final weeks of the €65 fixed-price rule for national nEZ26 allowances, 111 bidders bid 535 million allowances in the week to August 7, 2026 for an allocation rate of 3.99 percent, per Advantag, which expects the final nEZ26 auction to take place on September 2, 2026. The national allowances sit outside the EU ETS and do not feed the CBAM certificate price, but the oversubscription shows how much carbon cost German buyers are locking in while the fixed price lasts.

What a six to eight euro gap means for certificate budgets

A Q3 average landing €6 to €8 above Q2 adds roughly €3,000 to €4,000 per quarter to the certificate bill of a typical blast furnace steel importer bringing in 10,000 tonnes. That importer carries roughly 20,000 tCO₂ of embedded emissions per quarter, which at the 2.5 percent CBAM factor for 2026 translates into 500 certificates. At the Q2 price of €75.28 the quarterly cost was €37,640; at €81.28 to €83.28 the identical shipment costs €40,640 to €41,640. That is an illustration, not a forecast: only the published weighted average counts. The cost side is already visible upstream, where Salzgitter's half-year results credit CBAM with lifting EU steel prices and cutting imports.

Three preparation steps follow for compliance teams:

1. Model the 2026 liability with a Q3 scenario range of €81 to €84 rather than the €75.32 average of the two published quarters, using the CBAM cost calculator to test both ends.
2. Plan cash for February 1, 2027, when CBAM certificates can first be bought against the 2026 liability due with the September 30, 2027 declaration.
3. Prepare for the pricing regime change: from January 1, 2027, Article 22(1) switches the certificate price to a weekly average of EU ETS auction closing prices, and the CBAM certificate price forecast for 2027 collects what analysts expect under that regime.

The purchase and buyback mechanics themselves may still change: the Commission's certificate consultation closed on August 6 with 93 submissions pressing for revisions before sales open.

The UKA discount to EUAs widens to roughly 17 percent

UKA Dec-26 closed at £60.50/t on August 7, 2026, per Advantag's August 10 review, then slipped to £59.02/t by August 13, equivalent to €69.04 and a €13.70 discount to the EU benchmark, per Prestige Business Solutions. That discount is roughly 17 percent, against about 10 percent at the start of 2026. No UK-EU ETS linkage negotiation news emerged during the August recess. Until linkage lands, exporters selling into both markets face the two-regime exposure mapped in the UK CBAM and EU CBAM double-payment analysis, and a widening spread changes that arithmetic quarter by quarter.

Balkan power trade is still running below 2025 levels

Western Balkan power-exchange volumes remain below 2025 levels as CBAM reshapes regional power trade, per Carbon Pulse's Central and Eastern Europe roundup of August 6, 2026. Carbon Pulse also covered, on August 11, a report estimating that CBAM could cut Bosnia and Herzegovina's GDP by up to 0.7 percent by 2035 if the country does not introduce domestic carbon pricing. Electricity is the sector where the certificate price bites fastest, because CBAM electricity imports are priced on default emission factors unless the five criteria for using actual emissions are met. The Energy Community's Q2 CBAM electricity report documented the second-quarter picture for the same markets.

What happens next

Six weeks of auctions remain in the quarter. The September supply cut from the MSR and the winter gas risk argue for the €81 to €84 band holding, while a gas-price retreat is the clearest path back toward the Q2 level. The Commission publishes the official Q3 price on October 5, 2026 and the Q4 price on January 4, 2027, closing out the four quarterly inputs to the first annual declaration, due September 30, 2027. The CBAM certificate price tracker carries the official figure the day it is published.