The 50-tonne threshold survives: Commission assessment finds 0.87% of emissions exempted

The CBAM de minimis threshold of 50 tonnes stays in place. The European Commission published its De Minimis Threshold Assessment on September 30, 2026, finding that the single mass-based threshold exempts 0.87 percent of the emissions embedded in imported CBAM goods, below the 1 percent statutory ceiling. The result means the roughly 90 percent of former CBAM reporters who fall under the 50-tonne de minimis rule keep their full exemption from authorization, certificates, and declarations, and no delegated act adjusting the threshold follows from this assessment.

The assessment arrived 153 days after its legal deadline of April 30, 2026, and the Commission published the result as a notice without an accompanying report, methodology note, or dataset. Both points drew immediate criticism in the trade press.

What the assessment found

The Commission's assessment finds that the 50-tonne single mass-based threshold exempted 0.87 percent of embedded emissions in the period from April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026, which keeps the exemption below the 1 percent limit and leaves the threshold unchanged. The legal basis is Article 2a(3) of Regulation (EU) 2023/956, inserted by the Omnibus amendment (Regulation (EU) 2025/2083), under which, in the wording of the Commission's notice, "the Commission shall assess whether the single mass-based threshold (currently 50 tonnes) applies to no more than 1% of the emissions embedded in the imported goods and processed products."

The table below summarizes the published parameters of the assessment.

One feature of the data period deserves attention. The 12-month window ends on March 31, 2026, which is exactly the import data the Commission would have used had it met the April 30 deadline. Nine of the window's twelve months fall within the transitional period and only the last three within the definitive phase, so the 0.87 percent figure rests largely on transitional-period reporting data rather than on verified definitive-phase declarations.

What would have happened above 1 percent

A breach of the 1 percent ceiling would have sent the Commission back to the recalculation methodology in Annex VII, point 2 of the regulation, with a delegated act lowering the threshold required only where the recalculated value deviates from 50 tonnes by more than 15 tonnes. The Commission's notice confirms the mechanism: under Article 28, the Commission adopts delegated acts to amend the single mass-based threshold when the recalculated threshold deviates from the applicable one by more than 15 tonnes.

The 15-tonne deviation band builds a buffer into the system. Even a result slightly above 1 percent would not automatically have moved the threshold, because the recalculated value must land below 35 tonnes before an adjustment is triggered from the current 50. At 0.87 percent, with headroom of 0.13 percentage points under the ceiling, neither condition comes close to being met. Importers who structured their 2026 sourcing around the 50-tonne line face no change for the current compliance year, and the next scheduled review point is the April 30, 2027 assessment.

The stability matters because the de minimis is the only small-importer relief left standing in the EU's trade and carbon framework. Commissioner Šefčovič confirmed on September 1 that there will be no SME exemption from the Steel Regulation tariff, pointing SMEs to the 50-tonne CBAM threshold as their single form of relief. Had this assessment forced the threshold down, small importers would have lost ground on both fronts at once.

Delivered 153 days late, without a published methodology

The assessment was due by April 30, 2026 under Article 2a(3), which requires the Commission to assess the threshold by April 30 of each calendar year on the basis of import data for the preceding 12 months, and it arrived on September 30, 153 days late. Steel News, the trade publication of the Gerber Group, set out the criticism in an October 5 analysis: the notice came with "no report, no methodology note, no dataset," and neither the notice nor DG TAXUD's CBAM pages contain a working paper explaining which emissions values were applied or how many importers the underlying data cover.

The publication's sharpest line targets the format rather than the delay: "A number without an explanation is not an assessment. It is a claim." The contrast with importer obligations is the recurring theme of the criticism. The same authority that publishes its own statutory assessment five months late demands day-precise compliance from declarants, under penalties of €100 per tonne CO₂e for authorized declarants and €300 to €500 per tonne for unauthorized importers.

For importers, the missing methodology has one practical consequence: there is no published figure for the recalculated threshold under Annex VII, point 2. Whether the data would support a threshold of 48, 55, or 62 tonnes is unknowable from the notice, which makes it harder for near-threshold importers to anticipate the direction of the 2027 assessment.

What importers near 50 tonnes should do now

Importers whose annual CBAM imports run between 30 and 50 tonnes should keep monitoring their cumulative mass exactly as before, because the assessment changes nothing about how the threshold operates. The exemption survives, and so do all of its sharp edges.

The 4 operating rules for near-threshold importers remain the ones that applied before the assessment.

1. Count all four covered sectors together. The 50 tonnes apply cumulatively across iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, and cement, not per product category. You can confirm whether a product counts using the CN code lookup.
2. Never count on a threshold for electricity or hydrogen. Both are outside the de minimis entirely, and any import volume triggers full obligations.
3. Track the running annual net mass after every customs clearance. Crossing 50 tonnes activates obligations for the full calendar year, with no retroactive exemption for the first 50 tonnes.
4. Apply for authorization before the crossing, not after. Processing takes up to 120 days, so an importer approaching the line in Q4 2026 is already late.

The full obligation chain that activates above the threshold, from authorization through certificates to the September 30, 2027 declaration, is laid out in the CBAM guide for importers.

What happens next

The next de minimis assessment is due by April 30, 2027, based on import data covering April 2026 through March 2027, and it will be the first test of the threshold against a full year of definitive-phase import flows. That window falls entirely within the definitive phase, with none of the transitional-period reporting data that dominated this round. A result above 1 percent, combined with a recalculated threshold more than 15 tonnes below 50, would trigger a delegated act lowering the limit, with scrutiny rights for Parliament and Council before it takes effect. Until then, the 50-tonne rule stands as published, and the open question is not the number but whether the Commission will show its working next time.