EU ETS Maritime · Deep dive
EU ETS cost for shipping: allowances, price and the phase-in
What the EU ETS costs a ship: allowances due from verified emissions, voyage share and phase-in, times an illustrative EUA price, with the 2024–2026 cost ramp.
The EU ETS pillar explains what the maritime ETS covers and how many allowances a voyage generates. This page answers the question that follows in every budget meeting: what does that cost, and why does the bill for the same voyage rise from one year to the next. The answer has two parts of very different character. The allowance obligation — how many EUAs are due — is fixed by the Directive and computed by Carbonlogy's engine from verified emissions, the voyage share and the phase-in fraction; the verifier recomputes it every time this site is built. The cost multiplies that obligation by the EUA market price, which no regulation fixes and which moves every trading day. Every euro figure on this page is therefore shown against an explicitly illustrative price, and should be read with the current market price substituted.
The obligation, in one section
Article 3ga decides which voyages count and for how much Dir. 2003/87/EC · Art. 3ga : voyages between two EEA ports and time at berth count in full, voyages between an EEA port and a third-country port count for half, and voyages that never touch an EEA port are out of scope. Article 3gb then phases the surrender obligation in over the 2024 and 2025 reporting years, reaching the full amount from 2026 Dir. 2003/87/EC · Art. 3gb . Verified emissions, multiplied by the voyage share and the year's phase-in fraction, give the allowances due — one allowance per tonne. The pillar walks through each element; the fractions themselves are the coefficient set below, read by the same calculation the product runs.
| Year | Chargeable fraction |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 0.4 |
| 2025 | 0.7 |
| 2026 | 1 |
The cost layer
Turning allowances into euros is one multiplication, and the second factor is the one the Directive leaves to the market.
- Allowances
- EUAs to surrender for the year (verified emissions × voyage share × phase-in — the formula above) [EUA]
- PEUA
- market price of one EU allowance — NOT a regulatory constant; it moves daily. Illustrative in any example; substitute the current market price [EUR/EUA]
EUA prices fluctuate: they are set by auction and secondary trading, they have moved by tens of euros within a year, and the price on the day allowances are bought is what the company pays. The worked scenario below uses an illustrative price so the arithmetic can be followed, and labels it as such; it happens to match the indicative default Carbonlogy ships with, which each deployment overrides with its own configured level and the platform marks "indicative" wherever it appears. Neither figure is a regulatory constant, and neither belongs in a coefficient table.
The phase-in ramp — a worked scenario, not a regulator figure
This scenario is hypothetical twice over. No regulator publishes an allowance calculation, so the allowance counts are the engine's, verified against the compliance-data package at every build; and the euro figures further depend on an illustrative price that nothing verifies or could verify. What the example shows is the shape of the ramp: the same voyage, repeated three years running, owes more each year not because the ship emits more but because the phase-in fraction rises — and from 2026 the bill is the full voyage-share obligation at whatever the market price then is.
Allowance cost of one hypothetical voyage, 2024 to 2026
Hypothetical scenario — no regulator publishes this figure, and the EUA price is a market price, not a constant: the same EEA-inbound voyage as the pillar's example (a 50,000 GT ship emitting 10,000 tCO₂ on a voyage from a third-country port) is repeated in 2024, 2025 and 2026. The allowances due are computed by the compliance engine from the Directive's voyage share and phase-in; the euro figures multiply them by an ILLUSTRATIVE price of 70 EUR per allowance — substitute the current market price.
- Gross tonnage
- 50000 GT
- Voyage scope
- EU_INBOUND
- Voyage CO₂ (each year)
- 10000 tCO₂
- Geographic scope share
- 0.5
- Phase-in fraction 2024
- 0.4
- Phase-in fraction 2025
- 0.7
- Phase-in fraction 2026
- 1
- Illustrative EUA price — market input, not a coefficient
- 70 EUR/EUA
- 2024 — allowances due10000 × 0.5 × 0.4 = 2000 EUA
- 2024 — cost at the illustrative price2000 × 70 = 140000 EUR
- 2025 — allowances due10000 × 0.5 × 0.7 = 3500 EUA
- 2025 — cost at the illustrative price3500 × 70 = 245000 EUR
- 2026 onwards — allowances due (full phase-in)10000 × 0.5 × 1 = 5000 EUA
Last reviewed · Carbonlogy Compliance Team
How Carbonlogy applies it
For every voyage, Carbonlogy computes the allowances due from the voyage's MRV scope and the emission year's phase-in fraction, then prices them at the deployment's configured EUA level — a commercial assumption, labelled indicative on every screen, that a market feed can replace without changing the calculation. The fleet's exposure for the year accrues as voyages are verified, so the figure is visible while allowances are still being bought rather than on the surrender date. Ships and voyages outside the scope are shown as out of scope with the reason, not as a zero cost.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does the EU ETS cost per tonne of CO₂ for ships?
It depends on the EUA market price, which the Directive does not fix. The cost per tonne emitted is the allowance price multiplied by the voyage's geographic share and by the year's phase-in fraction, so a voyage between an EEA port and a third-country port costs half the allowance price per tonne once the phase-in is complete, and a smaller fraction of that in 2024 and 2025. Use the current market price, not a fixed figure.
- Does the EU ETS phase-in reduce the allowance price?
No. Article 3gb reduces the number of tonnes for which allowances must be surrendered in the 2024 and 2025 reporting years; every allowance is still bought at the full market price. The phase-in ends with the 2026 reporting year, so a budget built on a 2024 bill understates the steady-state cost.
- When do shipping companies pay for EU ETS allowances?
Allowances for a reporting year are surrendered by 30 September of the following year, under Article 12(3) of the Directive, so the cash for emissions in one calendar year leaves in the next. Companies buy the allowances earlier on the market or at auction, at whatever price applies then.
- Is the EU ETS cost separate from the FuelEU Maritime penalty?
Yes. The EU ETS prices verified emissions through allowances; FuelEU Maritime imposes a separate penalty on a ship's greenhouse-gas intensity deficit, which can be reduced by pooling under Article 21 of that Regulation. Both apply to the same ship in the same year, and reducing one does not reduce the other.
Sources cited
- [1]Directive 2003/87/EC (EU ETS), as amended by Directive (EU) 2023/959 — Article 3ga — scope of application to maritime transport (voyage shares: 100 % intra-EEA and at berth, 50 % to/from third countries)EUR-Lex
- [2]Directive 2003/87/EC (EU ETS), as amended by Directive (EU) 2023/959 — Article 3gb — phase-in of surrender requirements (40 % of 2024, 70 % of 2025, 100 % from 2026)EUR-Lex
- [3]Directive 2003/87/EC (EU ETS), as amended by Directive (EU) 2023/959 — Article 12(3) — surrender of allowances for the previous year's verified maritime emissions by 30 SeptemberEUR-Lex
- [4]Regulation (EU) 2023/959 — maritime extension of the EU ETSEUR-Lex
- [5]Regulation (EU) 2023/1805 (FuelEU Maritime) — Article 21 — pooling of compliance: same verifier, one pool per ship per period, validity (positive total; no deficit ship worse off; no surplus ship into deficit), recorded in the FuelEU database by 30 AprilEUR-Lex
All citations checked automatically · updated 2026-08-28