All CBAM CN codes
CN 7604Covered by CBAMAluminium

CN 7604 under CBAM — Aluminium Extrusions & Profiles

Aluminium bars, rods and profiles

Extruded aluminium profiles, bars and rods — architectural sections, solar-frame profiles, industrial and automotive extrusions. India’s extrusion industry, spread across Gujarat, Maharashtra and the North, exports growing volumes to EU fabricators and solar installers, buying billet from the primary smelters or remelting scrap.

Covered
CBAM status of this heading
1 Jan 2026
Definitive phase — certificates due
€70–80
per tCO₂ — certificate price tracks EU ETS
up to ~40%
typical cost cut with verified actuals
Emission profile

Where the emissions in CN 7604 come from

An extrusion press adds modest energy; the billet it consumes is the precursor that carries the smelting story — coal-power metal at 14–18 tCO₂/t versus hydro at 4–7 tCO₂/t versus scrap-based at 0.5–1.5 tCO₂/t. The EU default value for this heading is deliberately conservative; an extruder’s CBAM outcome is decided by whose billet it buys and whether that smelter’s verified data is on file.

Why we don’t print a default value here

The EU publishes and updates specific default values per goods category separately — quoting a stale number would mislead you. What never changes: defaults are set deliberately high, and the markup escalates from 10% in 2026 to 30% by 2028 for steel and aluminium (free-allowance phase-out runs to 2034). Use the CBAM calculator for a current, product-specific estimate.

What to do

Exporting under CN 7604? Three moves, in order.

  1. 01

    Identify your production route and precursors

    Trace your billet: which smelter or remelter, on what power — that precursor is the bulk of your number. Remelt operations should document their scrap share, which changes the story dramatically.

  2. 02

    Collect the data you already have

    Billet purchase invoices with supplier traceability, remelt-furnace fuel and power records, press and ageing-oven electricity bills, anodising line data where present, production weights.

  3. 03

    File verified actuals, not defaults

    Have the numbers computed to the EU CBAM methodology and verified, then hand your EU buyer’s Authorised Declarant a filing they can use. Verified actuals typically cut the CBAM cost by up to ~40% versus default values — and the default markup only gets worse, escalating from 10% in 2026 to 30% by 2028 for steel and aluminium.

Free this quarter: We cover your first report (April–June 2026) so an inflated EU default never costs you an order. Continue only if you choose to. Free for the April–June 2026 quarter — start your report by 30 September 2026.

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Frequently asked

CN 7604 and CBAM, in plain English

Is CN 7604 covered by CBAM?

Yes. CN 7604 — aluminium bars, rods and profiles, including architectural and industrial extrusions — is a covered good under the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. Any consignment under this heading imported into the EU has carried reporting obligations since the transitional phase (1 October 2023 – 31 December 2025), and since the definitive phase began on 1 January 2026 the EU importer must buy CBAM certificates against its embedded emissions. Solar-mounting profiles and architectural sections bound for the EU import under this heading.

How much CBAM cost does CN 7604 face in 2026?

CBAM certificates track the EU ETS carbon price — roughly €70–80 per tonne of CO₂ in 2026 — so the bill is your embedded emissions multiplied by that price. Aluminium’s bill is dominated by electricity: coal-powered primary metal carries several times the embedded emissions of hydro-powered or scrap-based metal, so two identical consignments can face wildly different CBAM costs. Verified actuals typically cut the cost by up to ~40% versus defaults — use our calculator for a product-specific estimate.

Can an extruder improve its CBAM number without changing smelters?

Two levers exist. First, filing verified actuals for what you already do — your press energy plus your current billet’s real precursor data — beats defaults whenever the chain is cleaner than the conservative assumption. Second, raising the remelt/scrap share in your billet mix genuinely lowers embedded emissions, since scrap-based metal runs at 0.5–1.5 tCO₂/t versus 14–18 for coal-power primary. Many Indian extruders have more of the second lever available than they realise.

Our profiles are anodised or powder-coated. Do finishes complicate the filing?

They add in-boundary stages — anodising rectifier power, coating-oven fuel — that must be included, but they are small next to the billet precursor. The complication is administrative, not economic: the boundary must be drawn correctly so a verifier finds nothing missing. That boundary-mapping is the first step of our engagement.