Welcome to our dedicated webpage for entities under the administration of the Netherlands. Here you can find general information regarding the implementation of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) for Aviation.
The EU ETS has already played a significant role in reducing the aviation sector's carbon footprint by over 17 million tonnes annually. Apart from market-based measures like the EU ETS, operational improvements, such as upgrading air traffic management technologies, procedures, and systems, also contribute to lowering aviation emissions.
The legislation was established in 2008 and initially applied to flights within, to, and from the European Economic Area (EEA) - consisting of EU Member States, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. The European Court of Justice has confirmed that this approach aligns with international law.
However, the EU limited the scope of the EU ETS to flights within the EEA (intra-EEA) to support the development of a global measure (CORSIA) by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). CORSIA, the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation, is a global scheme to offset CO2 emissions by aviation since 2021. CORSIA covers flights to and from the EEA (extra-EEA).
Furthermore, the EU has a linking agreement in place with Switzerland. The agreement allows aircraft operators to report (verified) emissions and surrender corresponding allowances in scope of the CH ETS via their EU ETS emissions report.
Participants and obligations
Determining who is your competent authority
For aircraft operators with an Aircraft Operating Certificate (AOC) issued by an EU member state, the issuing member state is your competent authority for the EU-ETS, CH-ETS and CORSIA.
For aircraft operators with an AOC issued by a third country, the competent authority for the EU-ETS and CH-ETS will be an EU member state and will be assigned according to the EU member state to which the most flights were flown in the preceding year. The European Commission publishes a list with attributions on a yearly basis. The list can be found here. For CORSIA the competent authority is the issuing country for your AOC.