Carbon credit prices vary from a few dollars per tonne to hundreds of pounds, depending on what you are buying. For a UK business looking at nature-based carbon, the latest reported 2025 averages were £28.32 per tonne for Woodland Carbon Code Pending Issuance Units and £39.57 for Peatland Code units. Across the much broader voluntary carbon market, MSCI’s global carbon-credit index averaged $3.50 per tonne in 2025, rising to $6.80 for projects it rated BBB and above.
Those figures answer the headline question, but they also show why price per tonne can be a poor way to choose a carbon project. It is also not the same as an internal carbon price, which a company sets for its own decisions.
If three suppliers quote £8, £28 and £55, there is a strong temptation to treat them as three prices for the same commodity. Quite often they aren’t. The project type may differ, the carbon may not be at the same stage of delivery, the vintages may be years apart and one proposal may involve removals while another is based on avoided emissions.
That is the part I would establish before spending much time arguing about the price.
Carbon credit prices in 2026
| Carbon market or credit type | Latest useful price evidence | What the figure covers |
|---|---|---|
| Global voluntary carbon market | $3.50/tCO₂e | MSCI Global Carbon Credit Price Index, 2025 average |
| Higher-rated voluntary credits | $6.80/tCO₂e | MSCI BBB-and-above index, 2025 average |
| UK woodland carbon | £28.32/tCO₂e | Woodland Carbon Code Pending Issuance Units, 2025 average |
| UK peatland carbon | £39.57/tCO₂e | Peatland Code Pending Issuance Units, 2025 average |
The UK figures are particularly useful because they are based on reported transactions rather than an indicative supplier price. But even here there is no neat national tariff.
The difference between the highest and lowest reported Woodland Carbon Code prices in 2025 was £112.50 per tonne. For Peatland Code units the spread was approximately £75. The Peatland Code also warns that its £39.57 average came from a relatively small sample and was influenced by three large transactions at unusually high prices.
So £28.32 tells you something useful about the UK woodland market. It does not tell you what a particular woodland project ought to cost.
How much does a carbon credit cost in the UK?
If you are budgeting for UK nature-based carbon, £25 to £40 per tonne is currently a more useful starting reference than the very low global averages, based on the reported Woodland Carbon Code and Peatland Code markets.
There are some important limits to that comparison.
More than 99% of the Woodland Carbon Code units transacted are Pending Issuance Units, or PIUs. At least 99% of reported Peatland Code transactions are also PIUs. These represent future carbon delivery rather than carbon that has already been verified and issued as a final unit.
That distinction matters much more than it sounds.
If a company pays £28 for a woodland PIU, it is helping finance woodland carbon expected to be delivered later. It has not bought the same thing as a verified Woodland Carbon Unit representing carbon already sequestered.
There isn’t yet enough reported transaction data for the Woodland Carbon Code to publish an average price for those verified units.
I would therefore be wary of anybody describing £28 as simply “the UK carbon credit price”.
UK woodland carbon prices have risen steadily
There is useful price history behind the latest Woodland Carbon Code figure.
| Year | Average Woodland Carbon Code PIU price |
|---|---|
| 2020 | £11.01 |
| 2021 | £15.41 |
| 2022 | £19.27 |
| 2023 | £24.24 |
| 2024 | £26.85 |
| 2025 | £28.32 |
The reported volume has moved around considerably over the same period, so I wouldn’t extrapolate a neat annual growth rate from those numbers. What is clear is that the reported average has risen from £11.01 to £28.32 in five years.
For somebody budgeting a UK woodland purchase today, the older £10 to £15 figures still floating around online aren’t much use.
Why do carbon credit prices vary so much?
The quickest answer is that carbon credits aren’t interchangeable commodities in the way the tonne label suggests.
When I look at a quotation, I want to know which project the units come from and what has actually happened there. After that I will look at the vintage, the programme and methodology, whether the units are issued or still represent future delivery, and what happens to them when the buyer completes the purchase.
This is where an apparently cheap quote often changes shape.
A procurement sheet might show:
- Supplier A: £9/tCO₂e
- Supplier B: £31/tCO₂e
The £9 offer naturally looks attractive. But if it turns out to be an older avoided-emissions vintage and the £31 offer is a recent nature-based removal, the company isn’t deciding whether to pay £9 or £31 for the same thing.
It is choosing between two different forms of climate finance.
That distinction ought to be settled before price starts driving the decision.
Carbon removals generally command higher prices
One of the clearest price differences in the voluntary carbon market is between credits representing removals and those representing emissions reductions.
Ecosystem Marketplace found that removal credits were on average 381% more expensive than reduction credits in 2024, up from a 245% premium the previous year. Removal projects accounted for only around 5% of transaction volume.
That premium reflects both demand and restricted supply.
For nature-based removal, there is also a real project cost underneath the carbon price. Woodland has to be established and maintained. Nurseries, planting, land management, monitoring, local teams and verification all cost money, often long before the resulting carbon is finally delivered.
At the engineered end of carbon removal, costs can be far higher again.
This is why I don’t find a generic question such as “Can you get us credits for under £10?” particularly useful until I know what the business has decided it wants to fund.
Carbon credit quality is increasingly affecting price
Price differences are also emerging between projects assessed as stronger and weaker on integrity.
MSCI’s index for projects rated BBB and above averaged $6.80 per tonne in 2025, up from $5.60 the year before. Its lower-rated index moved in the opposite direction. By the end of 2025, the premium for the higher-rated group was around 360%.
I wouldn’t use that to choose a project by price. It does tell us something about where buyers are putting their money.
If a supplier is asking materially more for one project, I want to be able to find the reason in the project rather than in the sales pitch.
Sometimes you can. Stronger monitoring, removal rather than avoided emissions, recent delivery, scarce supply or a project with characteristics buyers particularly value can all affect the number.
If I cannot find the explanation, the premium doesn’t become persuasive simply because somebody calls the credit “premium”. Our guide to choosing high-integrity carbon credits sets out the checks I would make on the project itself.
Vintage can have a surprisingly large effect
Older credits can trade at substantial discounts.
MSCI’s analysis during 2025 found an average price uplift of around 18% for each newer vintage year in the data it examined, with older REDD+ vintages contributing significantly to the difference.
Vintage isn’t a quality score. But it is something I would expect to see in a serious carbon-credit proposal.
If a supplier quotes a price without identifying the vintage, ask for it.
That one question can explain a surprisingly large part of the apparent bargain.
Carbon credit prices are not the UK ETS carbon price
This is another easy source of confusion in search results.
The UK Emissions Trading Scheme is a regulated compliance market. Businesses covered by the scheme trade UK Allowances. Voluntary carbon credits are a separate market used to finance climate projects outside that compliance mechanism.
The UK ETS Authority set the carbon price for use in civil penalties in the 2026 reporting year at £49.41 per tonne, while secondary-market allowance prices move continuously. That figure should not be used as a benchmark for what a voluntary woodland, peatland or international carbon credit ought to cost.
If you see articles describing “the UK carbon price” without saying which market they mean, check before using the number.
Why two suppliers can quote different prices for the same credit
Even identical project and vintage combinations don’t necessarily trade at one price.
The voluntary market still relies heavily on brokers, bilateral deals and over-the-counter transactions. MSCI found an average 11% price variation for the same project and vintage in its 2025 analysis.
There can also be differences in what the supplier is doing around the transaction.
One quotation might cover sourcing, registry work, retirement and reporting. Reporting there means the paperwork behind the purchase, not a statutory disclosure. Where a business is large enough to report under SECR, the thresholds and what has to be published are set out separately, and no part of that cost belongs in a price per tonne. Another may show a lower headline tonne price and charge for some of that work elsewhere.
For a meaningful corporate purchase, I would want the quote to make clear what the company is buying, how many tonnes are involved, what happens to the units and the total amount payable.
UK VAT is now part of that calculation too. HMRC brought most qualifying voluntary carbon-credit transactions within the scope of VAT from 1 September 2024, subject to specified exceptions.
What should a business pay for carbon credits?
There isn’t much value in setting an arbitrary company rule such as “we pay £20 a tonne” before deciding what £20 is supposed to buy.
For UK woodland or peatland, the current reported figures suggest starting a budget around the high £20s to £40 per tonne and then looking at actual projects.
For international credits, there are still much cheaper units available. If the company specifically wants carbon removals, recent delivery or projects with stronger evidence and wider nature or community outcomes, it should expect the shortlist to look different.
I have seen the price question become much easier once the buying brief is clear.
The business doesn’t need to specify every technical detail at the outset. It does need to know whether it is looking for removal or something broader, whether future delivery is acceptable, how much evidence the procurement team expects to retain and what the company intends to say about the purchase afterwards. Our guide to carbon credits for business covers how that brief fits the wider carbon plan.
Then you can ask a sensible question about price.
How C Level prices carbon credits
C Level doesn’t use one standard price and apply it indiscriminately across carbon projects.
The quotation depends on the actual project and carbon being offered: what type of outcome it represents, its current status, available volume, commercial terms and the evidence accompanying the purchase.
That matters particularly with nature-based projects. The buyer isn’t financing an abstract tonne. The money supports real project activity, which can include planting, field staff, land management, monitoring, community organisations, verification and long-term project administration.
For a business comparing options, we can provide current project availability and pricing rather than asking you to make a decision from a generic market average. You can see the carbon projects we support or ask us what is available now.
Carbon credit price FAQs
There is no universal value. One carbon credit represents one tonne of CO₂e, but voluntary credits trade at very different prices depending on project type, vintage, delivery status and demand.
Yes. Credits at or below a few dollars per tonne have existed in the voluntary market.
That is not where I would begin a corporate buying exercise. If your brief calls for a particular type of removal or a recent UK nature project, a $1 credit is unlikely to be the same product at a spectacular discount.
There are fewer of them, buyers are actively seeking them, and many removal projects are expensive to develop and operate.
Ecosystem Marketplace found a 381% average removal premium in its 2024 market data.
Nobody can give you a reliable single forecast for the whole voluntary market because there isn’t one homogeneous market.
The more useful question for procurement is whether prices and availability are changing in the particular project category you intend to buy. UK woodland PIU prices, for example, rose from £11.01 in 2020 to £28.32 in 2025.
They often are compared with broad global voluntary-market averages. UK Woodland Carbon Code and Peatland Code reported averages are currently well above MSCI’s $3.50 global index.
For businesses specifically wanting UK-based nature restoration, that global average is not a terribly useful purchasing benchmark.
Use a range, not a single number.
If you are still at budgeting stage, decide first what sort of credits the business is prepared to buy. A budget for recent UK nature-based removals will look very different from one built around older international avoided-emission credits.
The mistake is fixing the price before fixing the brief.
Sometimes because there is a lot of supply. Sometimes because the vintage is old. Sometimes because the project type attracts less buyer demand.
And sometimes because the credit is simply not comparable with the ones you have been looking at.
If a quote is dramatically below everything else on your shortlist, I would ask the supplier to explain the difference rather than congratulate procurement on the saving.
They can.
A larger commitment may improve commercial terms, particularly if it gives a project certainty over future sales. But I would be suspicious of anybody offering a mechanical “20% off at 10,000 tonnes” without discussing which project and which vintages are actually available.
Not necessarily.
Buying carbon credits directly can remove part of the intermediary margin, but it can also mean taking on work that a specialist supplier would otherwise handle: project assessment, contracting, registry administration, retirement, documentation and ongoing reporting.
For a sophisticated buyer with its own carbon team, direct procurement may make sense. For somebody making one purchase a year, the cheapest route on paper can become quite labour-intensive.
Ask.
There is no benefit in comparing £24 with £28 if the £24 quote turns into £30 once the transaction is complete. I would want the supplier to show the total cost of buying the stated number of tonnes and completing whatever registry and retirement work has been agreed.
No.
I would pay more where I can see what the extra money buys. I would not treat the price itself as evidence of integrity.
Sources and methodology
The UK figures are reported transaction averages published by the Woodland Carbon Code and the IUCN UK Peatland Programme. The global figures are index averages published by MSCI. They measure different markets and are not directly comparable with one another. The supplier quotations used as examples in this article are illustrative and are not C Level prices.
- Woodland Carbon Code, UK carbon prices. Source for the 2025 average of £28.32, the year-by-year averages from 2020, the £112.50 spread and the share of transactions that are Pending Issuance Units. View the prices.
- IUCN UK Peatland Programme, UK peatland and woodland carbon prices continue to increase in 2025. Source for the Peatland Code 2025 average of £39.57, the approximate £75 spread and the caution about sample size and three large transactions. View the announcement.
- IUCN UK Peatland Programme, UK carbon price index. The programme’s standing price information for Peatland Code units. View the index.
- MSCI, 2025 Global Carbon Credit Market: Year in Review. Source for the $3.50 global index average, the $6.80 average for credits rated BBB and above, the vintage uplift and the variation in price for the same project and vintage. View the review.
- MSCI, Carbon Credits Come of Age in 2025. Source for the rise from $5.60 to $6.80 for higher-rated credits and the widening gap against lower-rated credits. View the commentary.
- Ecosystem Marketplace, State of the Voluntary Carbon Market. Source for the average price premium of removal credits over reduction credits, and for the share of transaction volume that removals represent. View the analysis.
- UK Government, UK ETS carbon price for use in civil penalties, 2026. Source for the £49.41 figure and the purpose it serves. View the determination.
- HMRC, Revenue and Customs Brief 7 (2024): VAT treatment of voluntary carbon credits. Source for the change of treatment from 1 September 2024 and the exceptions that remain outside the scope of VAT. View the brief.