CBAM Default Values 2026: India Aluminium, Cement, Fertilisers

When an EU importer cannot get verified actual emissions from the producer, CBAM charges the good at a default value: an official figure in tonnes of CO2e per tonne of product, set per CN code and country of origin. For Indian exporters of aluminium, cement and fertilisers, that number decides what your EU buyer pays when you send no data.

The values come from Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2621, Annex I, as corrected by Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1740, which applies retroactively to 1 January 2026. The tables below are read directly from the Commission's corrected workbook (version 2, dated 6 August 2026). Steel has its own worked cost example.

Aluminium from India

For aluminium, indirect emissions are not part of CBAM, so the default is direct emissions only. Values rise with the degree of processing: unwrought metal is the lowest, and sheet, foil and containers the highest.

Cement and clinker from India

Cement defaults include a small indirect component for the electricity used. The workbook rounds each figure, so direct plus indirect can differ from the total in the last digit.

Fertilisers from India

Fertilisers cover 27 CN codes for India. The most traded are below; nitrogen-heavy products such as ammonia and ammonium nitrate carry the highest values.

Hydrogen (CN 28041000) from India has a default value of 14.03 tCO2e per tonne, direct only.

The mark-up, year by year

In the definitive period the default is increased by a mark-up, so it costs more each year to rely on it instead of real data.

Worked example: 500 tonnes of unwrought aluminium

An Indian smelter ships 500 tonnes of unwrought aluminium (CN 7601) to an EU buyer and supplies no actual data. On the default value, embedded emissions are 500 × 1.87 = 935 tCO2e. With the 2026 mark-up of 10% the importer declares 1,028.5 tCO2e; the same shipment in 2028, at 30%, is 1,215.5 tCO2e.

What the importer then pays depends on the certificate price and the free-allocation deduction, which shrinks each year. The steel example works through both.

When the default stops applying

• The importer can declare actual embedded emissions instead, if the producer supplies them and an accredited verifier has verified them.
• Actual data removes the mark-up and replaces the national default with the installation's own intensity.
• Precursors count: aluminium products made from purchased unwrought metal carry that metal's embedded emissions too, so ask your suppliers for theirs.
• Importers bringing in 50 tonnes or less of CBAM goods a year are outside the obligation; most regular industrial buyers are above it.

ZeroCarbon's CBAM module looks up these default values by CN code and country of origin, compares them with an installation's actual data, and prepares the communication file an exporter sends to the EU importer.