# Who is on a CBAM verification team that visits our plant?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/cbam-verification-team-who-comes

At least one CBAM lead auditor, who directs the work and signs the statement. CBAM auditors and technical experts join where your plant needs them, for example for continuous emission monitoring or a disputed CN code. A separate independent reviewer checks the file before it is issued and is never part of the team.

## The lead auditor runs the engagement

Every CBAM verification is carried out under the responsibility and direction of one CBAM lead auditor. This is a senior person, authorised to sign verification statements for the verification firm, and required to communicate effectively in English. A team can be just this one person, but then the lead auditor must hold every competence your plant needs alone.

Put your most senior data person opposite the lead auditor. Questions about scope, findings and the timeline go through them.

## Auditors and technical experts, if your plant calls for them

The verifier decides the team size before signing the contract and during its strategic analysis of your plant. CBAM auditors work under the lead auditor's supervision. A technical expert is brought in for one subject and supplies information to the team, under the lead auditor's direction.

- Continuous emission monitoring (CEMS) on a stack: the Commission says a CEMS expert may be needed.
- Heat, waste gases or captured CO2 moving between processes or to another site.
- A CN classification that is exceptionally contentious: a customs expert.
- Other subjects the guidance names: sector technology, IT systems, language, specific standards or calibration equipment.

## Someone who speaks your plant's language

At least one person on the team must be able to speak and write the language needed to interview your staff and explain findings. The firm may hire an interpreter instead, but stays responsible for the translation. The report itself must be in English.

## The reviewer you will not meet

After the team drafts its report, an independent reviewer at the verification firm checks the team's competence, the risk analysis, the evidence and the opinion. This person must not be on the team or do any verification work for your installation. If the reviewer sends the file back, the lead auditor fixes it and the changes are reviewed again, so allow time for this before your buyer's deadline.

## Extra faces on site

- An evaluator from the verification firm who watches its auditors at work. The guidance says this includes going to the operator's site.
- Assessors from the EU accreditation body, observing a witness audit. Accreditation usually includes at least one witness audit at a real installation, and annual surveillance includes more. Your plant may be the one they watch.

## People kept off your team

- Staff who gave your company consultancy on monitoring and reporting within a set period, which the guidance puts at two years at least.
- A team member holding shares in your company, or who worked for you before: the guidance names both as possible risks to impartiality.
- A lead auditor who has already led five consecutive years of your verifications. That one is a hard rule.

## What Senseible does here

A small team gets through your plant faster when every figure already points to its bill, meter reading or lab report. Senseible's CBAM Suite keeps that trail for each line of your operator report. We build it from your records, check every figure in-house, and an accredited verifier we partner with signs it off. Have your own verifier? Send it to them.

- [Prepare your CBAM file](https://senseible.earth/cbam-suite)
- [What the verifier checks on site](https://senseible.earth/answers/what-cbam-verifier-checks-during-site-visit)
- [Hindi records, English report](https://senseible.earth/answers/cbam-verifier-language-hindi-records-english-report)
- [Lead auditor rotation after five years](https://senseible.earth/answers/cbam-lead-auditor-rotation-five-years)
- [Checks a verifier makes before accepting](https://senseible.earth/answers/cbam-verifier-pre-contract-checks-before-accepting)

Sources: [European Commission, Guidance on CBAM verification and accreditation (24 August 2026), sections 4.14, 8.1, 8.2, 9.2.1 and 9.3.1, Table 5, Annexes II and III](https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/document/download/030fe146-38e5-46b8-82b5-5f72da089a7b_en?filename=GUIDANCE%20ON%20CBAM%20VERIFICATION%20AND%20ACCREDITATION%20FOR%20VERIFIERS%20AND%20NATIONAL%20ACCREDITATION%20BODIES.pdf)

Last reviewed 2026-11-03.