CBAM Non-Compliance Penalties: The Exact Numbers Every Exporter Must Know

CBAM penalties are not vague regulatory warnings. The regulation specifies exact amounts per tonne of CO₂ that go unpaid — and understanding these numbers is often the most effective way to help your EU buyer understand why getting your verified emissions data is worth the investment.

The standard penalty — certificate shortfall

Under Article 26(1) of Regulation (EU) 2023/956, if an authorised declarant fails to surrender sufficient CBAM certificates by the annual deadline (31 May of the year following import), the penalty is €100 per tonne of CO₂e for which certificates were not surrendered.

This is a per-tonne penalty — not a flat fine. Consider a practical example: an EU buyer imports 10,000 tonnes of steel with a specific embedded emissions figure of 1.615 tCO₂e/t. Their total certificate obligation is approximately 4,038 tCO₂e (before phase-in factor). If they fail to surrender the required certificates, the penalty on the shortfall is €100 per tonne — potentially hundreds of thousands of euros on top of the cost of the certificates themselves.

The severe penalty — unauthorised imports

If goods are imported by a party that is not an authorised declarant — either because authorisation was never obtained or was revoked — the penalty is significantly higher: €300 to €500 per tonne of CO₂e embedded in the imported goods. This is 3 to 5 times the standard penalty and applies to the total embedded emissions of the shipment — not just a shortfall.

Authorisation can be revoked by the competent authority for repeated non-compliance, providing false or inaccurate emissions data, or failure to maintain the required financial security.

What triggers these penalties

Three situations create penalty exposure for your EU buyer:

1. Missing the certificate surrender deadline. Certificates must be surrendered by 31 May each year. Late surrender — even by one day — triggers the €100/tCO₂e penalty on the outstanding amount.
2. Declaring inaccurate emissions data. If a CBAM declaration is submitted using incorrect SEE data — including inaccurate data provided by the exporter — and this results in a certificate shortfall, the penalty applies to the gap between what was declared and what was actually owed.
3. Importing without authorisation. Operating as an unauthorised importer of CBAM goods triggers the €300-€500/tCO₂e penalty on the full embedded emissions content of all imported goods.

The exporter's role in protecting your buyer

Your buyer's penalty exposure is directly linked to the quality of emissions data you provide. Exporters who supply verified SEE data — prepared under a documented monitoring plan and verified by an accredited third party — eliminate the risk of inaccurate declarations caused by data quality issues on the supply side.

Exporters who allow their buyers to use EU default values accept that their buyer will carry higher costs and higher penalty risk. EU default values, which carry a mark-up penalty of 10% above an already high benchmark, are not verified data — and a buyer relying on defaults cannot demonstrate compliance through actual measurement.

Providing verified data is a risk management service

When you provide verified SEE data to your EU buyer, you are not just helping them calculate a number. You are reducing their regulatory exposure, improving their cash flow planning, and protecting the commercial relationship against the risk of a penalty event that could sour a long-term supply partnership.

The cost of preparing verified data — monitoring plan, data collection, accredited verification — is typically a fraction of one year's penalty exposure for a buyer importing at commercial volumes.

Calculate your buyer's certificate obligation and penalty exposure using the DeCarbonPro Gap Analysis tool.