Q3 2026 CBAM certificate price: €82.32/tCO₂e, the first material rise of the definitive phase

The European Commission has published the third quarterly CBAM certificate price: €82.32 per tonne of CO₂ equivalent. This is the official Q3 2026 price, published on October 5, 2026, and it applies to all certificates covering imports of steel, cement, aluminium, fertilizers, electricity, and hydrogen made between July 1 and September 30, 2026.

The new price sits €7.04 above the Q2 2026 price of €75.28/tCO₂e, a rise of 9.35 percent, and €6.96 above the Q1 price of €75.36/tCO₂e. After two quarters that landed within eight cents of each other, the third data point of the definitive phase breaks the stability pattern. The CBAM certificate price tracker and the CBAM cost calculator have been updated with the official figure.

How the Q3 2026 price was calculated

The Q3 2026 CBAM certificate price is €82.32/tCO₂e, calculated as the quarterly average of the EU ETS auction clearing prices recorded between July 1 and September 30, 2026, with each auction weighted by the volume of allowances sold. The legal basis is Article 21(1a) of Regulation (EU) 2023/956, inserted by the Omnibus amendment (Regulation (EU) 2025/2083), with the calculation and publication mechanics set by Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2548. The Commission's certificate price page states the timing rule plainly: "Each quarterly price in 2026 will be calculated by the Commission during the first calendar week following the end of the relevant quarter."

The averaging explains why the official figure lands below the headline EUA levels of September. Spot and futures prices spent the final weeks of the quarter in the mid-to-high €80s, but the quarterly average also carries the July and early-August auctions that cleared in the low €80s and below. Importers pay the published average, not the September peak.

What drove the Q3 average €7 above Q2

Three forces pushed the Q3 average to €82.32: an EUA rally that peaked at a nine-month high, a structural cut in auction supply, and a tight gas market. Each is documented in the quarter's market coverage.

• EUA prices rallied through the quarter and touched an intraday high of €88.53 on September 14, 2026, a nine-month high, before easing into the quarter's close.
• The Market Stability Reserve absorbs 190,494,202 allowances between September 2026 and August 2027, per the revised EU ETS auction calendars EEX published on July 30, 2026, so auction supply tightened from September 1.
• Dutch TTF gas held around €60/MWh in mid-August with EU storage at 59.12 percent, a historic low for the month, per Gas Infrastructure Europe data; expensive gas keeps coal generation competitive, and coal burn needs more allowances per megawatt hour.

Supply falling while gas-driven demand held is the same structural argument laid out in the mid-quarter check of August 15, and the quarter resolved in that direction.

How the cbamguide.com estimates scored

The August estimate contained the official number; the late-September revision overshot it by 18 cents. Both calls are on the record, and both deserve a plain accounting.

The August band, built from auction settlements running €81 to €84 through the first half of the quarter, held. The September revision, made after the €88.53 mid-September high, extrapolated the rally too far: the official average came in 18 cents below the revised band's floor. The lesson for anyone tracking the quarterly average is that a late-quarter spike moves the average less than it moves the headline, because ten weeks of auctions are already in the denominator.

What €82.32 means for importers

The Q3 2026 price is the reference value for all certificates attributable to third-quarter imports, and at the 2.5 percent CBAM factor for 2026 the net cost impact stays small. A blast furnace steel importer bringing in 10,000 tonnes with approximately 20,000 tCO₂ of embedded emissions carries a Q3 liability of 500 certificates at €82.32 each, a cost of €41,160 for the quarter. The identical shipment cost €37,640 in Q2, so the price rise adds €3,520, about 35 cents per tonne of steel.

The table below shows the gross certificate cost per tonne of product at €82.32, before free-allocation adjustment, alongside the net 2026 cost after the 2.5 percent CBAM factor.

The gross column is the number that matters for planning beyond 2026, because the CBAM factor climbs each year as free allocation phases out. The net column is what the 2026 declaration actually prices. CBAM certificate purchases against the 2026 liability open on February 1, 2027, and are priced at these official quarterly averages, not at daily spot prices.

Published and pending 2026 certificate prices

Three of the four quarterly inputs to the first annual declaration are now fixed, and the running 2026 average across the three published quarters is €77.65/tCO₂e. The table below collects the published and pending prices.

Each quarterly price applies only to that quarter's imports. The first annual CBAM declaration, due September 30, 2027, covers all of calendar year 2026 and uses all four quarterly prices.

What happens next

The Q4 2026 price publishes on January 4, 2027, completing the four quarterly inputs to the first declaration. From 2027 the pricing regime changes: the Commission states that "From 2027 onwards, the Commission will calculate and publish weekly prices", under Article 21(1) of Regulation (EU) 2023/956. Compliance teams that currently check the certificate price four times a year will track a figure that updates 52 times a year.

The purchase window follows shortly after. The Commission's price page confirms that "all CBAM certificates will be purchased on the common central platform from February 2027 onwards", pursuant to Article 20 of Regulation (EU) 2023/956. Between now and then, the live ETS price against the published quarterly averages shows where the Q4 average is heading, and the CBAM certificate price forecast for 2027 collects what analysts expect under the weekly regime.