CBAM reporting software: every CBAM obligation on one record
CBAM lands six separate obligations on a single deadline. Bindu keeps them on one record: the declarant authorisation, the activity data from each installation, the verifier report, the emissions figure, the annual declaration and the certificate surrender, each with its evidence, its owner and its date. Built for EU importers of the six covered sectors: cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity, and hydrogen.
Reporting has run since October 2023. Since 1 January 2026 the definitive regime applies: only an authorised CBAM declarant may import in-scope goods, the financial obligation has started, and the first annual declaration and certificate surrender fall due on 30 September 2027, covering 2026 imports. The number those filings ask for is scattered across every plant that made your goods, which makes CBAM a data problem before it is a customs one. Bindu is where that data is held: one record per filing, with every obligation, its evidence and its date on it.
What CBAM asks of an importer
The obligation follows the goods. Import cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity or hydrogen into the EU, each sector defined by CN code in Annex I, and the carbon embedded in them carries a price at the border, the same price a European plant pays. The one exemption is small: below 50 tonnes of imports a yearyou are out of scope, a threshold that, on the Commission’s own estimate, excuses about 182,000 importers while keeping over 99% of the embedded emissions in scope. The threshold does not apply to electricity or hydrogen: those two sectors carry the obligation from the first import, whatever the tonnage. Whether a specific code is caught is a fixed list, not a judgment call: read how the whole mechanism works.
What you owe comes in three parts. An annual declaration of embedded emissions to the CBAM Registry, due the following 30 September, filed by an authorised declarant. Certificates, one per tonne of embedded CO2, priced off the EU ETS auction, with at least 50% of the running total held each quarter and the rest surrendered once a year. And the audit trail: every figure traceable to the installation that emitted it, kept until the end of the fourth year after the declaration.
What the software does today, and what it does not
Bindu’s CBAM software is a record, not a calculator. Opening a CBAM filing gives you the six obligations as a checklist: authorised declarant status, the activity data from each installation, the verifier report, the embedded emissions figure, the annual declaration and the certificate surrender. Each row carries its own evidence, its owner and its date, the blocking ones are marked, and the record’s audit log is append-only and hash-chained, so what was known on any given day stays readable for the four years the regulation asks for.
What Bindu does not do yet, stated plainly so you can plan around it. It does not compute the embedded emissions per tonne under Annex IV: you bring that figure, and the record holds it with its working and a note of whether it came from actual data or a default. It does not connect to the CBAM Registry, so you file the declaration yourself; Bindu holds what the declaration needs and tracks the 30 September date. And it does not buy, hold or surrender certificates: the quarterly hold and the annual surrender are tracked as dated obligations, not traded on your behalf. The calculator and the Registry connector are on the roadmap, without a date attached. The CBAM page walks the same seven steps in more detail.
Actuals against defaults
A declaration built entirely on the Commission’s default values is a legal declaration. It is rarely a cheap one: the defaults are set conservatively, so the fallback almost always costs you more than the real number, and from 2027 the default is the exception rather than the rule. Verified actual data from the installation takes precedence, and it is the route that rewards the right suppliers, because you pay for the real carbon and a producer who decarbonised undercuts one who did not. Collecting actuals is the unglamorous part: reaching plants, chasing activity data, getting it in front of an accredited verifier. Bindu does not make those calls for you. It holds the record of them, so you can see which installations have answered, which are still open, and which lines are still running on a default. Where a plant does not answer, the defaults keep the declaration legal, at the conservative price.
For teams that import, not measure carbon
Bindu’s CBAM software is for teams whose job is moving goods: import and customs managers, procurement, the trade-compliance desk of a group that suddenly owns a carbon obligation. It assumes no emissions expertise on your side: the record tells you which obligation is next, what evidence it wants, and when it is due, in customs vocabulary rather than carbon-accounting vocabulary. You still own the filing. The price is published, not quoted: €999 a quarter, €199 a filing. That is €3,996 a year. Onboarding starts with a demo on your own shipments.
Sources
Frequently asked questions.
Software that keeps the source data for a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism declaration in one place. Bindu opens a CBAM record carrying the six obligations as a checklist: authorised declarant status, the activity data from each installation, the verifier report, the embedded-emissions figure, the annual declaration and the certificate surrender. Each row holds its own evidence, owner and date, and the record's audit log is append-only and hash-chained. It holds the per-installation trail until the end of the fourth year after the declaration year, the retention the EU CBAM Regulation asks for. Bindu does not compute embedded emissions, connect to the CBAM Registry, or trade certificates; you bring those and the record holds them.
Source: EUR-Lex: EU CBAM Regulation
Importers of the six covered sectors: cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity, and hydrogen, each defined by its CN code. Since 1 January 2026 only an authorised CBAM declarant may import in-scope goods. Below 50 tonnes of imports a year most goods fall out of scope. The threshold does not apply to electricity or hydrogen: those two sectors carry the obligation from the first import, whatever the tonnage.
Source: EUR-Lex: EU CBAM Regulation
Activity data from each installation that made the goods: direct emissions, the electricity behind them, and any carbon price already paid at origin. From that, embedded emissions are computed per tonne, direct plus indirect for cement and fertilisers, and the carbon price already paid is deducted. Each line also carries its CN code, and the declaration is filed under the declarant's EORI.
Source: EUR-Lex: EU CBAM Regulation
Yes. The Commission's default values are the legal fallback where installation data is missing, and they stay available. They are set conservatively, and the mark-up on them rises over time, roughly 20% in 2027 and 30% from 2028, so a declaration built on defaults almost always costs more than one built on verified actual data. The fallback does not go away; it just gets steadily more expensive, which is why actual figures win. Actuals also reward the right suppliers, because you pay for the real carbon.
Source: EUR-Lex: EU CBAM Regulation
For the numbers, yes. What a spreadsheet cannot do is defend a 2026 declaration into 2030: Bindu's record keeps every figure against its evidence, its owner and its date in an append-only, hash-chained audit log, marks the blocking items, and holds the per-installation trail until the end of the fourth year after the declaration year. The arithmetic is the easy part; the defensibility is the product.
Source: EUR-Lex: EU CBAM Regulation
The EU CBAM Regulation lets an indirect customs representative hold the CBAM authorisation, so a broker can file. What stays with you either way is the data: collecting emissions figures from the installations that made your goods, the cost of defaults when suppliers do not answer, and the record behind each declaration that has to stand until the end of the fourth year after the declaration year. Bindu keeps that record whoever presses file.
Source: EUR-Lex: EU CBAM Regulation
Published pricing, not an enterprise quote: €999 a quarter, €199 a filing. That is €3,996 a year. You keep the filing; Bindu keeps the record behind it. Onboarding starts with a demo on your own shipments.
No. The EU CBAM Registry is the Commission's own portal, and the annual declaration is submitted there by the authorised declarant. Bindu is the system of record behind it: it assembles and holds the activity data, verifier reports, embedded-emissions figures and evidence, so whoever files has a defensible, audit-logged source for every number they enter. You file in the Registry; Bindu keeps the record that proves what you filed.
Source: European Commission: Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism
Bindu's accelerator is document upload with prefill: drop an invoice, supplier emissions sheet or verifier report and the figures land on the matching obligation for a person to confirm, instead of being retyped. It is not a black-box feed into the CBAM Registry, and it does not compute embedded emissions for you. What it automates is the assembly and the audit trail; a person still confirms every number and files it, which is what a defensible declaration needs.
Source: European Commission: Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism
A CBAM certificate matches one tonne of embedded CO2, priced on average EU Emissions Trading System auction prices, so the cost tracks the carbon market rather than a fixed rate. Certificate sales start in 2027 for 2026 emissions, and declarants surrender certificates against the embedded emissions in the annual declaration, less any carbon price already paid at origin. Bindu holds the emissions and carbon-price evidence behind that surrender figure; it does not buy, hold or trade certificates for you.
Source: EUR-Lex: EU CBAM Regulation
Collect the installation data once. Defend every declaration after.
Bindu keeps the activity data, the verifier report, the emissions figure and the certificate dates on one record, each with its evidence and its owner, so nothing is reconstructed at the deadline.
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