Steel: new EU requirements for importers

Brussels – Improving the transparency and traceability of steel products imported into the EU. These are the objectives of the implementing act—a non-legislative act designed to ensure that European Union laws are applied uniformly across all Member States—adopted today (31 August) by the European Commission. The act sets out the type of documentation that importers must provide to prove the so-called “country of smelting and casting” for the 26 categories of steel products covered by the EU steel regulation. 

The term “smelting and casting”  refers to the country in which steel or pig iron is first melted and subsequently cast into its solid form. EU legislation requires companies to provide information on where these two stages take place for steel imported into the EU. Drawn up on the basis of the results of a targeted consultation with stakeholders, today’s legislation refers to the documentation already used “in normal day-to-day transactions,” as the Commission explained in a press release. According to the EU executive, as well as ensuring that “the requirements do not place an excessive burden on industry,” the “smelting and casting” criterion will help to combat potential circumvention. 

Adopted on 1 July 2026, the EU Steel Regulation was designed to protect the European steel market from the distorting effects of global steel overcapacity, in particular from non-EU markets such as China and from the growing number of trade-restrictive measures in third countries. The new measures set duty-free quotas of 18.3 million tonnes per year and introduce a 50 per cent duty on imports exceeding these quotas for 26 categories of steel products imported into the EU. The traceability requirement, designed to enhance the transparency of the steel supply chain within the Union, applies to all origins, except EEA countries—the European Economic Area (EEA), which comprises the Member States of the European Union and Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway, which are part of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA)—which nevertheless remain subject to the “smelting and casting”  requirements. Member States unanimously supported today’s implementing act on 19 August, and it will enter into force on 1 October 2026.