Cap-and-Invest auctions & market

To participate in an auction or to trade allowances, businesses and individuals must set up an account in the Compliance Instrument Tracking System Service (CITSS).

CITSS is an online platform that's used for greenhouse gas cap-and-trade programs like the ones in California, Québec, and now Washington. CITSS provides accounts for market participants to hold and trade compliance instruments.

CITSS is used to:

• Register entities participating in Washington’s Cap-and-Invest Program
• Track the ownership of compliance instruments
• Enable and record compliance instrument transfers
• Help entities stay in compliance with program requirements
• Help keep the market functional, safe, and secure

You can find resources, trainings, and forms needed to register in CITSS and participate in auctions on our auctions trainings and resources page.

The number of current and future vintage allowances to be sold at each 2023 quarterly auction will be published in an Auction Notice at least 60 days before each auction date. We will also include information about how many no‑cost allowances are being sold by consignment on behalf of electric and natural gas utilities.

Starting in 2024, we will publish the dates and number of allowances to be sold at each quarterly auction for that year by Jan. 15. You can read these notices in the "Notices and reports" section at the bottom of this page.

The number of allowances offered for sale will vary from auction to auction, depending on a few key factors:

• The allowance budget for the year.
• The number of allowances to be allocated at no cost to EITEs, electric utilities, and natural gas utilities.
• Allowances deposited into the Emissions Containment Reserve, Allowance Price Containment Reserve, and Voluntary Renewable Electricity Reserve.

The total allowance budget for 2023 is 63,288,565 allowances. We announce the number of allowances to be offered for sale at 2023 auctions in our Public Auction Notices, which are posted in the "Notices and reports" section at the bottom of this page at least 60 days prior to the auction date.

Yes. There are limits to how many allowances anyone can buy or hold in their accounts. Different limits apply to businesses that need them to cover emissions versus businesses or individuals that are buying them as an investment.

Purchase limits help ensure that auctions are competitive and that no single entity can buy up more than their fair share, and holding limits prevent allowance hoarding.

Ecology may provide a limited exemption to this holding limit to businesses that demonstrate that they need additional allowances to cover their emissions for that year. For more information about this limited exemption, please contact RegistrarCCA@ecy.wa.gov.

Every dollar of state revenue generated by the quarterly auctions will support new investments focused on improving access to clean transportation, clean energy, increasing climate resilience in our ecosystems and communities, and addressing environmental justice and health equity issues across Washington.

The law also requires that a minimum of 35% of this revenue go to projects that benefit the communities in Washington that historically bear more than their fair share of the burdens of climate change, and that 10% go to projects with tribal support.

The Legislature will decide the specific programs and projects to receive auction revenue; Ecology doesn't control how these funds are invested.

You can learn more on our Auction proceeds webpage.

At the end of 2023, Ecology issued a notice that the full APCR allowance supply would be available over the course of the first compliance period (2023-2026) and confirmed that until a linkage agreement decision is made, we'll only offer APCR allowances at the first-tier price.

The total supply of APCR allowances that can be made available each year is partially frontloaded, with higher volumes available in the early years of the first compliance period:

• 2023: 8 million
• 2024: 7 million
• 2025: 3 million
• 2026: ~700,000 

The number of APCR allowances offered at each auction is determined by the number of allowances left in each year’s designated APCR budget according to the APCR supply guidance for 2023-2026 (issued November 2023), in addition to any APCR allowances left over from the previous year. The total number of allowances available for each auction will be published in the auction notice, released 60 days before each auction. 

For the most updated information on auction notices, please see the notices and reports section below. 

As clarified in our 2022 rulemaking, the same holding limits apply to APCR allowances as to the current-year allowances offered at regular quarterly auctions. 

This means that the number of APCR allowances purchased by an entity during a 2024 APCR auction will count against the 2024 holding limit, which is 3,338,122 allowances. 

Ecology may provide a limited exemption to this holding limit to businesses that demonstrate that they need additional allowances to cover their emissions for that year.

For more information about this limited exemption, please email RegistrarCCA@ecy.wa.gov. 

An allowance "vintage" refers to the year it comes from. For example, the allowance budget for 2023 is roughly 63 million allowances, so any of those allowances sold at 2023 auctions would be "vintage 2023."

Generally, businesses must cover their emissions with allowances from that same vintage year or any earlier year, but they can’t use "future vintage" allowances. So 2024 emissions require vintage 2023 or 2024 allowances, but emissions from 2030 can be covered with allowances from any year between 2023 and 2030.

The role of vintages in meeting an entity's compliance deadlines is outlined in more detail in the Program compliance section further down the page.

APCR allowances have no vintage, meaning they can be used to cover emissions from any year and any compliance period.

No. Because APCR allowances are taken from the regular annual allowance budgets for 2023-2030, they're still "under the cap," meaning the APCR can provide cost-containment for businesses while still keeping Washington on track toward a low-carbon future.