In brief
- A company set up less than two years ago can no longer import steel, aluminium, cement, fertilisers, electricity or hydrogen from outside the European Union without first lodging a bank guarantee letter in euro, payable on first demand. Order of the Minister of Finance no. 1.188/2026 says how it is calculated, how it is lodged and when it is released.
- The guarantee covers the carbon certificates estimated for the year of the application and for the following year, and is calculated at the certificate price on the day of the decision. On the date the order was published, the only price published by the European Commission was 75.28 euro per tonne of carbon dioxide, so every thousand tonnes of emissions left to pay for means a guarantee of 75,280 euro.
- The money stays tied up for a long time. For a company authorised in 2026, the guarantee is released within 45 days of 30 September 2028, that is by 14 November 2028 at the latest, more than 26 months after it was constituted. The bank has to pay out within no more than 15 days of the State’s demand, while the State takes 45 to release the guarantee.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 769 of 10 September 2026
In force from: 10 September 2026, the date of publication
From 10 September 2026, a young company wanting to bring in Turkish steel, Chinese aluminium or Egyptian fertilisers has to go to the bank first. Order of the Minister of Finance no. 1.188/2026 establishes the financial guarantee the State requires from economic operators that have not been in existence for two years before the year of the application, in order to grant them the status of authorised CBAM declarant. Without that status, goods covered by the mechanism cannot be cleared through customs except below an annual threshold of 50 tonnes. Among the products covered by the mechanism is hydrogen, which in Romania received, a day before this order, its first limit in pipeline gas.
CBAM is the English abbreviation of the carbon border adjustment mechanism, established by Regulation (EU) 2023/956. The idea behind it is simple: a cement plant in the European Union pays for the carbon dioxide it emits, through the certificates of the European trading scheme, while a plant outside the Union pays nothing. That difference in cost makes production move to where nothing is paid, while the emissions stay the same or grow. The mechanism closes the hole: whoever imports cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity or hydrogen into the Union buys CBAM certificates for the emissions embedded in the goods, at the Union carbon price.
From 1 January 2026, the mechanism moved from the reporting phase into the paying phase. From that date, the goods covered may be released for free circulation only by an authorised CBAM declarant, and the authorisation is granted by the competent authority of the State in which the importer is established. In Romania, the competent authority is the Ministry of Finance, through the CBAM and Green Taxes Directorate within the General Directorate for Tax Legislation and Customs and Accounting Regulations, a structure organised by Article VI of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 81/2023.
The authorisation has two substantive criteria: the applicant must not have committed serious or repeated infringements of tax and customs legislation and must have the financial and operational capacity to carry out its obligations. The second criterion is normally verified against the company’s track record. A company set up last month has no track record, and the European regulation does not require one of it: instead, it requires a guarantee. Article 17(5) of the CBAM Regulation says that the competent authority shall request a guarantee from an applicant that was not established throughout the two financial years preceding the year of the application. That is exactly what the order of 10 September 2026 puts into practice.
Whoever does not obtain the status has no fallback. They may import below the de minimis threshold of 50 tonnes a year, introduced in October 2025 through the CBAM simplification regulation, but the threshold does not apply to electricity and hydrogen. They may work through an indirect customs representative, who must itself be an authorised declarant and who assumes the obligations in the importer’s place, at whatever price it asks for that risk. Or they do not import.
What it changes in practice
The guarantee is calculated on two years of estimated imports. Article 3(1) says that the specialist directorate sets the amount as the maximum value of the number of CBAM certificates the declarant will have to surrender for the imports estimated in the calendar year of the application and in the following calendar year. The basis of calculation is the applicant’s declaration on its own responsibility, the model of which is annexed to the order: the estimated quantities, broken down by tariff code and by country of origin.
The applicant does not choose the figures. For emissions, the default values from Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2.621 are used, for the adjustment for free allocation the benchmark values from Regulation (EU) 2025/2.620 are used, and the CBAM factor is the one in Article 10a of Directive 2003/87/EC. That last element matters more than it seems: in 2026, free allocation under the European scheme still covers 97.5% of the benchmark value, and in 2027 it covers 95%. The share of the benchmark emissions actually taxed is small in the first two years and rises sharply after 2029. Since the guarantee is calculated precisely for 2026 and 2027, it is, in absolute figures, far smaller than the carbon cost the same company will be paying four years from now.
The price is that of the certificate, in euro. Article 3(5) refers to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/2.548, which establishes how the price of CBAM certificates is calculated and published. In 2026, the European Commission publishes one price per quarter, calculated from the clearing prices of the auctions of European emission allowances. The first, for the first quarter, was 75.36 euro per tonne of carbon dioxide. The second, published on 6 July 2026, was 75.28 euro. From there on, the arithmetic of the guarantee is a simple multiplication: an estimate leading to 1,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide left for the importer to bear over the two years means a guarantee of 75,280 euro.
There is only one permitted form. Article 5(1) requires a bank guarantee letter in euro, payable on first demand, issued by a financial institution operating in the European Union and made out in favour of the competent authority. The content is set out in paragraph (3): the operator’s details, the subject matter, the risks, the moment of issue and the moment when the liability ends, the sum guaranteed at the level of 100% of the amount established, and the issuer’s irrevocable undertaking to transfer the money within no more than 15 days of the authority’s request, without objection. The letter is sent by post, and the specialist directorate then registers it in the AMM module of the European Commission’s CBAM Registry.
The guarantee is monitored throughout and may be increased. Article 8 places on the declarant the obligation to ensure that the guarantee covers the certificates to be surrendered. The specialist directorate monitors this and, if it finds the guarantee insufficient, requires either an additional guarantee or the replacement of the initial one. The decision is taken on the basis of the actual quantities in the importer’s customs declarations, not on estimates. The penalty for not constituting the adjusted guarantee within the period communicated is the start of the procedure for revoking the authorisation, that is the loss of the right to import.
Release comes late. Release is tied, through Article 7, to 30 September of the second year in which the declarant surrendered certificates, plus 45 days, and it requires the declarant to apply for it, stating all the necessary particulars. The first surrender of CBAM certificates is due by 30 September 2027, for the imports of 2026. The second, by 30 September 2028. A company authorised in the autumn of 2026 therefore recovers its guarantee by 14 November 2028 at the latest.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
Until 10 September 2026 the obligation existed, but the procedure did not. The CBAM Regulation is directly applicable and requires the guarantee from applicants without a track record from the moment the definitive regime began, and Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/486, in force since the spring of 2025, sets out in detail how it is constituted, monitored and adjusted. What was missing was the national part: the concrete form accepted in Romania, the declaration model on which the estimate is made, the address to which the letter is sent and the way decisions are communicated.
The distance can be measured. From 1 January 2026, when the definitive regime began, to the publication of the order, 252 days went by. More telling for new companies is another marker: whoever had submitted an application for authorisation by 31 March 2026 was able to carry on importing in 2026 above the 50-tonne threshold while awaiting the decision. The order comes 163 days after that date, that is after the tolerance window had closed for anyone who made up their mind later.
An obligation of substance changes too, not only one of form. The declaration on one’s own responsibility in the annex did not exist before in Romanian law. It is not a mere estimate: the signatory undertakes to communicate without delay any change in the quantities that would increase the CBAM obligations, which turns the estimate into a declaration under continuous monitoring, penalised indirectly through the adjustment and revocation mechanism in Article 8.
What belongs to European law remains unchanged: who the authorised declarants are, what products fall under the mechanism, when certificates are bought and when they are surrendered. The sale of CBAM certificates begins only on 1 February 2027, so a company constituting the guarantee in the autumn of 2026 ties up money for certificates that are not even on sale yet.
Carbon is not the only cost going up at the border: a water treatment additive imported from China has paid an anti-dumping duty of up to 192.2% since 22 September 2026.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- It unblocks a procedure that was suspended in practice. A new company now has a written path from application to authorisation, with a form, a form of guarantee and a way of communicating decisions.
- The form chosen is the most liquid and the cheapest to obtain for a company without a track record. A bank guarantee letter does not tie up the money in the account entirely, unlike depositing a sum with the Treasury.
- The order expressly accepts issuers from across the European Union, not only banks in Romania, which matters for the subsidiaries of foreign groups.
- Article 4 requires any decision establishing, amending or enforcing the guarantee to state the reasons of fact and of law, so a decision to increase the guarantee can be challenged on its substance, not only on its form.
- The adjustment is made on the actual quantities in the customs declarations, not on estimates revised by the administration, which narrows the margin of appreciation.
What remains a problem
- The guarantee stays tied up for more than two years. For a company authorised in 2026, the interval between constitution and release exceeds 26 months, during which the bank commission and the collateral required by the bank are paid without interruption.
- The order does not take over the European ceiling on the adjustment period. Regulation (EU) 2025/486 says that the period set by the authority may not exceed two months and may be extended to three on a reasoned request; the order reproduces only the obligation and the penalty.
- The 45-day release period has no counterpart in the European regulation, which requires release immediately after 30 September.
- The letter is lodged by post, the only non-electronic step in a procedure that unfolds in an online European registry.
- There is no deadline at all for the administration: none for checking the letter, none for registering it in the registry, none for replying to the application for release.
- The form in the annex requires the quantities in tonnes and allows three country columns for each year, which covers neither imports of electricity, measured in megawatt hours, nor any importer with more than three sources.
Practical advice
- Check first whether you are below the threshold. If you import in total less than 50 tonnes a year of cement, iron and steel, aluminium or fertilisers, you do not need the status of authorised declarant and therefore no guarantee either. The threshold does not apply to electricity and hydrogen, where authorisation is required from the first unit imported.
- Calculate the guarantee before you go to the bank. Multiply the estimated quantities by the default emission values for the tariff code and country of origin, subtract the adjustment for free allocation, then multiply the result by the CBAM certificate price published by the European Commission. At 75.28 euro per tonne, a thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide means 75,280 euro to cover.
- Do not overestimate your imports in the declaration in the annex. The estimate does not oblige you to import, but it directly increases the guarantee you tie up at the bank. Underestimating has a different cost: it triggers the adjustment under Article 8 and, if you do not respond in time, the revocation procedure.
- Ask the bank for a letter containing all six elements in Article 5(3), including the express waiver of the benefits of discussion, objection and division and the undertaking to pay within 15 days. A standard tender guarantee letter does not contain these clauses and will be rejected.
- Discuss the duration of the letter from the outset. If you are authorised in 2026, the cover has to run beyond 14 November 2028. A letter issued for 12 months commits you to successive extensions, each with a new commission.
- Send the letter by post with acknowledgement of receipt and keep the proof. The order lays down no period within which the administration confirms receipt or registration in the CBAM Registry, and the proof of dispatch is the only document that belongs to you.
- Do not wait for the guarantee to release itself. Article 7(2) requires you to apply for it, after 30 September of the second year of surrender, stating all the necessary particulars. An application not filed means bank commission still being paid.
- If the issuing institution is outside Romania, ask the bank for written confirmation that the letter complies with Article 211(b) of the Code of Fiscal Procedure, to which the order refers. This is the point at which the text contradicts itself, and where a written clarification from the specialist directorate spares you a rejection.
Frequently asked questions
What is CBAM, in fact?
Who does this order concern?
Why is it new companies in particular that have to lodge a guarantee?
What happens if I do not obtain the status of authorised declarant?
How much does the guarantee cost?
Can I give cash instead of a bank letter?
When do I get my guarantee back?
What happens if the State asks me to increase the guarantee?
From when does the order apply?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Article 7, the period for releasing the guarantee. The order provides for release „în termen de 45 de zile”, within 45 days, after 30 September of the second year of surrender and, in paragraph (2), requires the declarant to apply for release itself. Article 17(7) of Regulation (EU) 2023/956, to which Article 1 of the order itself refers, provides that the competent authority releases the guarantee immediately after that date, without a prior application. The regulation is directly applicable, so the same operator has two answers to the question of when the cost of the guarantee ends: on 1 October or on 14 November, and the 45-day difference is paid in bank commission.
- Article 5(1) against paragraph (3), through the reference to the Code of Fiscal Procedure. Paragraph (1) accepts a letter issued by a financial institution operating in the European Union, with no further condition. Paragraph (3), however, requires the same letter to comply with Article 211(b) of Law no. 207/2015, a text providing that a letter issued by a financial institution outside Romania must be confirmed and accepted by a credit or insurance institution in Romania. An applicant arriving with a letter from a bank in Germany cannot tell whether the confirmation of a Romanian bank is required of it or not, and that confirmation has a cost and a timeline of its own.
- Letter d) of Article 5(3), the end of the bank’s liability. The letter must state the moment when the credit institution’s liability ends, „respectiv termenul prevăzut la art. 7”, namely the period laid down in Article 7. Article 7, however, gives not a date but a period running from a future and uncertain event, the second year in which the declarant actually surrendered certificates. At the moment the letter is issued, the bank has no date to enter, and three variants can be argued from the text: 30 September of that year, the 45th day thereafter, or the day of actual release.
Editorial analysis
The order solves a real problem and solves it simply. From 1 January 2026, a new company in Romania could not be authorised as a CBAM declarant without a guarantee, because the European regulation requires one, but neither could it constitute the guarantee, because nobody had established the form, the estimate model and the circuit of decisions. The ten articles close the gap without inventing obligations on top of European law, and the choice of a bank guarantee letter payable on first demand is the right one: it is the most liquid instrument for the State and the least burdensome for a young company, which cannot afford to deposit the sum with the Treasury.
The delay, however, can be measured. The definitive CBAM regime began on 1 January 2026, so the order comes 252 days after the obligation to hold a guarantee became operative. The marker that hurts is a different one: until 31 March 2026, an application for authorisation once submitted allowed imports to continue in 2026 while awaiting the decision. The order appears 163 days after that window closed, that is precisely for the category of companies that did not manage to register in time and that, between April and September 2026, had no way of importing above 50 tonnes and no way of being authorised either. The minister’s signature is dated 2 September, publication 10 September, so the eight days between them explain nothing of the gap.
The second observation calls for arithmetic. The order says that the guarantee is established „în baza prețului certificatelor CBAM în vigoare la momentul stabilirii garanției”, on the basis of the CBAM certificate price in force at the moment the guarantee is established, a wording that suggests a current price. In 2026 there is no such thing. The European Commission publishes a single price per quarter, calculated retrospectively: 75.36 euro per tonne for the first quarter, 75.28 euro for the second, published on 6 July 2026. On the date of the order, the only available price was 66 days old, and the next one was not due until 5 October. From 2027, the price becomes weekly. A guarantee fixed in September 2026 on a July price stands until November 2028, an interval over which its benchmark will have changed more than a hundred times. Add to that the fact that the sale of CBAM certificates begins only on 1 February 2027: the company ties up money for certificates that are not yet on sale.
The third observation comes out of comparing the deadlines the act imposes on each side. The bank must transfer the sum within no more than 15 days of the authority’s mere request, without delay or objection. The administration takes 45 days to release the guarantee, although the European regulation requires it to do so immediately. The ratio is three to one in the administration’s favour, and in the rest of the order deadlines for the administration are absent altogether: Article 6 says that registration in the CBAM Registry is made „ulterior verificării”, after verification, of the letter, without saying within what time, while Articles 3 and 8 leave the administration to set the applicant’s deadlines, without taking over the two-month ceiling that Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/486 imposes on adjustment and without mentioning the declarant’s right to ask for an extension to three months. What the order does reproduce is the penalty, revocation of the authorisation. A reader relying on the Romanian text alone would believe that a ten-day deadline is enforceable and that the loss of the authorisation is inevitable.
The last point is the form. The annex requires the quantities „în tone”, in tonnes, but electricity, a product covered by CBAM and one to which the 50-tonne threshold does not even apply, is measured in megawatt hours. The table has three country columns for each of the two years, so an importer with four sources does not fit into it, it has no total row and no box at all for the resulting amount of the guarantee. And the only means of transmission provided for, the post, is non-electronic in a procedure that unfolds entirely in an online European registry.
What should be changed
- Aligning Article 7 with the period in the regulation. Release should be made immediately after 30 September of the second year of surrender, of the authority’s own motion, without an application. Effect: the conflict with the directly applicable rule disappears and, with it, the bank commission paid for nothing for 45 days by every company authorised under this regime.
- Clarifying the reference to Article 211(b) of the Code of Fiscal Procedure. The order should say explicitly that letters issued by financial institutions in other Member States do not need the confirmation of a bank in Romania. Effect: a subsidiary with a group bank in another Member State no longer pays twice for the same instrument and no longer risks having its application rejected on a point of form.
- Entering a certain expiry date in the guarantee letter. Letter d) of Article 5(3) should refer to a date that can be calculated at issue, for example 30 November of the year following the second surrender. Effect: the bank can issue the instrument, and the State is not left uncovered in the interval between the expiry of the letter and formal release.
- Taking over the European ceiling on the adjustment period. A paragraph in Article 8 saying that the period communicated does not exceed two months from the request and may be extended to three months on a reasoned request. Effect: the declarant knows its rights without opening the European regulation, and the administration can no longer set a short period followed straight away by revocation.
- Deadlines for the administration. No more than 15 days for checking the letter and registering it in the CBAM Registry, and the same interval for deciding on the application for release. Effect: the procedure becomes symmetrical, and the importer can plan the date from which it is entitled to clear goods through customs.
- Redrafting the annex. A unit-of-measurement column instead of the fixed reference to tonnes, an unlimited number of rows for the countries of origin, a total row and a box for the resulting amount of the guarantee. Effect: the form covers imports of electricity as well, and the applicant sees for itself the figure it will be taking to the bank.
- Electronic lodging of the letter. Transmission by electronic means, with a qualified electronic signature, alongside the postal option. Effect: the only step on paper in a procedure that closes in an online European registry is removed, and the road to authorisation is shortened by a few days.
Original text of the legal act
The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.
The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania
Official Gazette of Romania no. 769 of 10 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 116 KB the act starts on page 14
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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.