MACF: publication of default values for financial cost calculation
As part of the simplification of the Carbon Adjustment Mechanism at borders, the European Commission has published the default values to be used for the calculation of CO2 emissions from 2026 onwards.
On 31 December 2025, the European Commission published, in the Official Journal of the European Union (EU 2025/2621), all the default values usable as from 1 January 2026 for the calculation of CO2 emissions, to quantify the cost of MACF for companies that are not able to provide real data.
This 2,400-page text contains a summary table of each product subject to regulation, including the combined nomenclatures specifying the default values of direct and indirect emissions by country of manufacture. The published values include mark-up, expressed as a percentage.
The increase proposed by the European Union was established on the basis of differences between the Union production facilities and an overall EU average, as it was not possible to verify data from third countries during the transitional period. These increases will gradually increase and financially penalize importers who do not put in place the actions necessary to declare real values.
With regard to indirect emissions, which reflect the pollution generated by suppliers' production tools, it was agreed that the default value would be calculated on the basis of the average of the power grid emission factor of the home country over the last five years.
Finally, for complex products whose emissions from input materials must be reported but are not known to the supplier, the default value will be that of the most polluting third country.
All default values will be revised no later than December 2027.
In addition, in order to accompany importers, these values have been incorporated and updated into the calculation tool made available by the Directorate-General for Energy and Climate (DGEC) on thepage dedicated to MACF.