Verifiers get their keys: the CBAM registry opens to verification bodies
On 28 August the European Commission published the procedure and user manuals that let accredited CBAM verifiers access the CBAM registry, with access available from 1 September. It sounds administrative. It is actually the moment the scheme’s verification machinery switches on.
Why registry access matters
Readers of our August coverage will recall the rule buried in the Commission’s verifier guidance: a verifier must be registered in the CBAM registry before it can issue a valid verification report. Accreditation alone is not enough. Until last week there was no published route for verifiers to get in, which meant the chain from emissions data to verified report to certificate surrender had a missing link. DG TAXUD has now supplied it, setting out how verification bodies request access, what documentation they need, and how they will operate inside the system.
For importers the timing is worth pausing on. Certificate sales open in February 2027, and the first surrender deadline of 30 September 2027 covers everything imported during 2026. The declarations behind those surrenders must rest on verified data or defaults. Verified data is cheaper, and it is now formally possible to produce it: accredited, registered verifiers working to the reasonable assurance standard the Commission set out in August.
A capacity question
The practical concern is numbers. National accreditation bodies are still working through their first CBAM verifier applications, and the pool of accredited bodies is building country by country. Every authorised declarant relying on actual data will want a verifier’s signature in the same twelve-month window. Anyone who has lived through an audit season knows how that ends for the businesses that book late.
What to do now
If you import covered goods, ask your intended verifier two questions: are you accredited for CBAM, and are you registered in the registry? A yes to both puts you in the front of a queue that will only lengthen. Then look upstream. A verifier working to reasonable assurance, with a 5 per cent materiality line, will test your suppliers’ monitoring plans, meter records and precursor data, so the preparation work sits with them as much as with you. Suppliers who tidy their data now will pass through verification quickly; those who wait will find findings and corrections landing at exactly the moment their customers need signed reports.
The verification era we have been writing about all year has stopped being a future event. The standards are published, the registry is open, and the inspectors have their access badges.
CBAM-Assured trains the people who compile CBAM data and the people who verify it, aligned with the IACBAM 3006 competence standard. Contact us to get verification-ready.