Quarterly tariff-rate quota (TRQ) allocations on a variety of steel product imports into the EU over January-March 2026 have already been exhausted by some suppliers, less than just two weeks into the new reporting period, Fastmarkets learned on Monday January 12.
Flat steel
India has entirely exhausted its allocation for hot-rolled coil for the first quarter of 2026, just nine days after it was renewed. HRC quotas for Turkey and Taiwan were nearly full by January 9, according to European Commission customs data.
Market sources noted, however, that there were plenty of “old tonnages” that buyers did not have an opportunity to clear through customs in October-December 2025 due to high demand, so these volumes had to be transferred for clearance in January.
“We could not customs-clear all [of the HRC that] we booked from Turkey duty-free for the fourth quarter of 2025,” a buyer in southern Europe said.
Quotas allocated to traditional suppliers – Egypt, Vietnam and Japan – were intact (see table) because these three countries have also been subject to an anti-dumping (AD) duty in the EU. Definitive duties against these three suppliers were imposed at the end of September.
For downstream flat steel, a market traditionally more reliant on imports ,the situation was more dramatic.
In cold-rolled coil (CRC), Turkey had nearly fully exhausted its allocation by January 9, while Taiwan’s quota was fully used. And Vietnam had used nearly 80% of its allocation for January-March.
For hot-dipped galvanized coil (HDG), quota utilization was also high (see table).
Tight quotas and the rollout of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) on January 1 have made imports of new steel “extremely difficult” or even “ close to impossible,” trade sources said.
The sources indicated that, on seeking customs-clearance of new imports in January 2026, customs agents requested down-payments to account for CBAM costs.
CBAM implementation was expected to increase import prices on flat steel by perhaps €35-600 ($41-702) per tonne, depending on the country of origin, assuming default emission values are used to calculate the CBAM charge.
“Imports [have] become unmanageable. There is no shortage of coil in the market so far, but domestic mills are definitely a more reliable option,” a buyer in Germany said.
Turmoil with new imports supported a bullish trend in the domestic market, despite stable end-user demand, Fastmarkets understands.
Fastmarkets’ daily steel hot-rolled coil index, domestic, exw Northern Europe, was €635.00 per tonne on Friday, up by €0.75 per tonne from €634.25 per tonne on January 8.
The index was up by €7.50 per tonne week on week and by €12.19 per tonne month on month.
Suppliers in Northern Europe offered HRC scheduled for shipment in February-March at €630-650 per tonne ex-works, while tonnages scheduled for delivery in March-April were available at €650-670 per tonne ex-works, with some mills even giving price idea for the second quarter at €700 per tonne ex-works, market sources said.
Long steel
In the long steel sector, quota uptake was markedly lagging behind that of flat steel products, with CBAM being named as a key obstacle.
Significant quota utilization was seen only in Turkish rebar and wire rod, where 60.5% and 68.4% of the quotas were taken up respectively.
This was followed by Algeria, with 29.4% of rebar quota and 39.9% of wire rod quota taken up.
“In my opinion, quota [take-up] is weak because normally Algerian, Egyptian and Turkish origins are taken up on the first day of the quarter,” one trader said. “What we are seeing now is that there are plenty of tonnages left for all countries and products, because many people are staying away from imports due to CBAM because they do not understand the cost calculations.
“ Domestic flat steel prices in Europe have increased significantly over the past several months,” he added, “while the long steel sector was slow to react, so demand shifted to local suppliers.”
Fastmarkets’ price assessment for steel reinforcing bar (rebar), domestic, delivered Northern Europe, has averaged €607.50 to date in January, versus the average of €603.50 per tonne in December 2025.
The corresponding weekly price assessment for steel wire rod (mesh quality), domestic, delivered Northern Europe, has been €595 per tonne to date in January, versus an average of €591 per tonne in December 2025.
