Italy ranked first among EU member states for declared imports of existing CBAM-code goods in 2025, accounting for 17.6% of the bloc’s extra-EU total. Published figures put that total at €111.23 billion, making Italy’s share roughly €19.6 billion when calculated using the rounded percentage.
The customs value covers a wide range of materials and includes imports from exempt origins, so it is not a direct estimate of Italy’s CBAM certificate bill. The ranking identifies Italy as a primary research target, but does not establish that every major Italian industrial group is a CBAM declarant.
Imports flow through industrial supply chains
Northern Italy’s engineering, appliances, machinery, automotive components, building-products and metals-processing industries offer several routes for imported materials to reach final users. The especially relevant industrial corridors are Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna, as well as ports serving the Po Valley, where import logistics, manufacturing capacity and networks of small and medium-sized subcontractors coincide.
Steel coil can pass through a service centre for slitting or coating before sale to a fabricator. Aluminium billet or primary metal may be extruded or rolled before delivery to a downstream manufacturer. In these chains, the importer of record may not be the company that determines a product’s specification or production schedule.
However, a company’s presence in these regions or involvement in metals processing does not prove that it sourced a particular CBAM-covered shipment. Identifying companies linked to specific shipments requires matching company names with transaction-level evidence.
Shipment-level data needed to assess exposure
The authorised CBAM declarant has an obligation linked to embedded emissions and the applicable EU allowance price. Its ability to pass on the cost depends on price formulas, product differentiation, supply security and the purchaser’s bargaining strength. Processors with thin margins or slow contract repricing may face pressure even when their own direct CBAM filings are limited.
A useful next dataset would rank Italy’s imports by CN8 code and non-EU origin, then identify major import houses, steel service centres, extruders and documented industrial customer relationships. The analysis would need to distinguish material imported from outside the EU from intra-EU supplies, and separate high-volume products from products with a high price per tonne.
