The cheapest line in a carbon credit quote is often the oldest one. A 2016 credit can cost considerably less than a 2024 credit of the same project type, and buyers rightly ask why. Is the carbon credit vintage a quality signal, or just a date?
The answer decides whether you accept older vintages when you compare offers, and which vintage limit you write into your procurement or claims policy. This guide explains what the vintage tells you, why the market discounts older credits, where the year does say something about quality and which rules set a limit.
The short answer. The vintage is the year the reduction or removal happened. The tonne itself does not age, so an older vintage is not lower quality by definition. But older credits are more often issued under methodologies that have since been replaced or were not approved by the ICVCM, buyers pay less for them, and some frameworks only accept recent vintages. Treat an older vintage as a question to ask, and set a vintage limit that fits how you will report and claim.
What a carbon credit vintage is
The VCMI defines the vintage as “the year in which the emission reduction or removal took place”. It is one of three dates on every credit, and they are easy to mix up:
Vintage: when the tonne was reduced or removed.
Issuance date: when the registry issued the credit, after monitoring and third-party verification. The VCMI Claims Code notes that verification can take two to three years.
Retirement date: when the credit is cancelled in the registry for your claim, ideally in your company’s name.
An illustrative example for a reforestation project:
Date | Year | What happened |
|---|---|---|
Vintage | 2022 | The trees removed the CO2 counted in this batch |
Verification and issuance | 2024 to 2025 | An auditor verified the monitoring report; the registry issued the credits |
Retirement | 2026 | You retired the credits for your 2026 reporting |
So a credit can be “new” on the market and still carry a vintage of several years ago. With verification taking two to three years, a gap of several years between vintage and purchase is normal. A quote should list the vintage per batch, as question 16 in our list of questions to ask every carbon credit supplier recommends.
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Why older vintages are cheaper
Older vintages trade at a discount, and the gap has grown. In a June 2025 analysis, MSCI found “around 18% price uplift per year for newer vintages”, driven by a widening gap between credits from after 2019 and older vintages, particularly lower-rated REDD+ credits from 2012 to 2018.
Three reasons come up most often:
Reporting logic. Companies prefer credits whose vintage sits close to the year of the emissions they report. Demand concentrates on recent vintages, and older stock is left over.
Methodology changes. Many older credits were issued under methodologies that have since been tightened or excluded from the CCP label. The market prices that in.
Policy limits. Buyers’ own claims policies, tenders and compliance schemes often exclude vintages older than a set number of years, which shrinks the pool of willing buyers for old credits.
That is why vintage is one of the eight reasons quotes differ in our guide on why carbon credit quotes differ so much. An attractive price on an old vintage is usually pricing a different product than a recent one.
Does an older vintage mean lower quality?
Not by itself. Additionality, permanence, conservative quantification, leakage and verification decide whether a credit represents a real tonne. None of these depends on the calendar year. A tonne of CO2 avoided in 2018 has the same climate effect as a tonne avoided in 2025, and some argue an earlier tonne is worth more because it has been out of the atmosphere longer.
Where the year does correlate with quality
The vintage still says something, because of what tends to come with an older vintage:
The methodology version. The ICVCM lets programmes apply the CCP label only to credits issued under a CCP-Approved methodology. Verra’s legacy REDD+ methodologies (VM0006, VM0007, VM0009, VM0015 and VM0037) were excluded from assessment, so credits issued under them cannot get the label; projects can move to the new VM0048 methodology after a requantification.
The project type. In August 2024 the ICVCM decided that credits from the existing renewable energy methodologies would not receive the CCP label, because those methodologies were not robust enough in showing additionality. The decision covered around 236 million unretired credits.
What has happened since. A forest project with a 2015 vintage may have had a reversal, a baseline revision or a critical rating since then. The newer verification reports and ratings tell you how the project has held up.
Questions to ask about an older vintage
Which methodology and version were the credits issued under, and is that version CCP-Approved?
Why were these credits not sold or retired earlier?
Has the project been rated since, and has the rating changed?
Has the project had reversals, buffer pool contributions or baseline changes since this vintage?
Does the vintage fit the year you will report the credits against?
Our guide on reviewing a carbon credit portfolio covers similar checks for credits you already hold.
Where vintage rules apply
In the voluntary market, vintage limits mostly come from frameworks and from buyers’ own policies. These are the ones you are most likely to meet:
Framework | What it says about vintage |
|---|---|
CORSIA, first phase (2024 to 2026) | Only reductions or removals between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2026, from projects whose first crediting period started on or after 1 January 2016 (Verra summary of the ICAO rules) |
SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0 (C45.2 and C46.1) | Removals must “deliver verified mitigation outcomes measured in tCO₂e within the same reporting period” as the emissions they cover |
ICVCM CCP label | Tied to the programme and the methodology the credits were issued under, so vintage matters through the methodology version |
VCMI Claims Code | Companies report the vintage of every credit they use, next to project ID, methodology and host country |
Your tender or claims policy | Whatever limit you set; a window of a few years before the delivery year is common |
The SBTi rule matters most for Category A companies, which must support removals from 2035. Read literally, an old removal credit does not cover this year’s emissions; check how your validator applies it. Our guide to SBTi carbon removal requirements explains the 2035 ramp. For communication, report the vintage next to every contribution claim, so readers can see when the impact took place.
How to set a vintage limit for your purchases
Start from what you report. If you claim credits against a reporting year, choose vintages close to that year. For SBTi removals, match the reporting period.
Set a window of several years. Multi-year verification means a strict “same year” rule leaves little supply. A window of a few years before the delivery year is workable for most project types. Regreener’s quote comparer flags vintages more than seven years before the year you need the credits as a point to check.
Allow exceptions on evidence. An older vintage issued under a current, CCP-Approved methodology version can be a reasonable purchase. Write down the condition.
Ask for the vintage per batch. A mixed delivery of several vintages should show the price and volume per vintage.
Compare like with like. Compare recent vintages with recent vintages, so the vintage discount does not decide the choice for you.
Tip from Bernard de Wit, Co-founder of Regreener: “When an older vintage shows up in a quote, the first thing we look at is the methodology version. If the credits were issued under a version that still holds up today, the year matters less than most buyers think. If they come from a version that has since been replaced, the discount is telling you something, and you should know what before you sign.”
Every project Regreener offers is assessed against our 100+ datapoint quality framework before it reaches a client, whatever its vintage.
Check the vintages in your quotes
Regreener’s free quote comparer lets you enter up to five offers and compare them on an all-in price per tonne, with older vintages flagged as a point to check. It does not rank offers or pick a winner, and your offer details stay in your browser.
If you would like a counter-offer to compare against, ask a Climate Strategist; we reply within 48 hours on working days.
