Steel imports to the EU in early 2026 became a bottleneck: some quotas for the first quarter were exhausted within a few days.
As Fastmarkets learned on Monday, January 12, some suppliers have already exhausted quarterly tariff quotas (TRQs) for imports of various types of steel products into the EU in January-March 2026, which occurred less than two weeks after the start of the new reporting period.
Sheet metal
India has completely exhausted its hot-rolled coil stocks for the first quarter of 2026, just nine days after they were extended. According to European Commission customs data, by January 9th, the HRC quotas for Turkey and Taiwan were almost filled.
However, market sources noted that there were many "old shipments" that buyers were unable to clear in October-December 2025 due to high demand, so these volumes had to be transferred for customs clearance in January.
"We were unable to clear all[of the HRC that]goods that we ordered duty-free in Turkey for the fourth quarter of 2025," said a buyer from Southern Europe.
The quotas allocated to the traditional suppliers – Egypt, Vietnam and Japan - remained unchanged (see the table), as these three countries are also subject to EU anti-dumping duties. The final duties against these three suppliers were imposed at the end of September.
The situation was more dramatic in the rolled steel market, which is traditionally more dependent on imports.
For cold-rolled metal (CRC), Turkey had almost completely exhausted its quotas by January 9th, while Taiwan's quota had been fully utilized. And Vietnam used almost 80% of its quotas in January-March.
For hot-dip galvanized roll (HDG), quota usage was also high (see table).
Tight quotas and the introduction of the EU Carbon Border Regulation Mechanism (CBAM) on January 1 have made importing new steel "extremely difficult" or even "almost impossible," trade sources said.
The sources indicated that when applying for customs clearance of new imports in January 2026, customs agents requested advance payments to cover CBAM costs.
It was expected that the introduction of CBAM would lead to an increase in import prices for flat rolled products by about 35-600 euros (41-702 dollars) per ton, depending on the country of origin, provided that standard emission values are used to calculate CBAM collection.
"The import[have]become unmanageable. There is no shortage of rolls on the market yet, but domestic mills are certainly a more reliable option," said a German buyer.
The turmoil with new imports has supported the bullish trend in the domestic market, despite stable end-user demand, according to Fastmarkets.
Fastmarkets Daily Hot Rolled Steel Roll Price Index for Domestic Consumption in Northern Europe (exw) in