Demand for SAF
certificates is not a forecast.
It is a legal calendar.
European law has established a timetable for minimum SAF shares through 2050.
Missing it costs more than meeting it. That is the engine underneath this market.
2% today → 70% by 2050
2025
2%
2030
6%
2035
20%
2040
34%
2045
42%
2050
70%
ReFuelEU Aviation sets a legally binding minimum share of sustainable aviation fuel in fuel supplied at EU airports, rising on a fixed schedule. The UK is on a parallel path to roughly 22% by 2040, and Asian markets are moving from initial 1% targets toward 3–5%.
Globally, SAF is still around 1% of aviation fuel today. The gap between 1% and 70% is the market.
Every percentage point of mandated blend is a step change in certificate volume.
Source: ReFuelEU Aviation Regulation (EU) 2023/2405. As of July 2026.
The cost of not complying is designed to exceed the cost of complying
Fuel suppliers that fall short of their blend obligation face fines of at least twice the price gap between sustainable and fossil jet fuel, calculated on the volume of the shortfall.
The mechanism is deliberate. It removes the option of treating the mandate as a target to be missed cheaply, and it puts a hard floor under willingness to pay for compliant supply and the certificates that evidence it.
ReFuelEU Aviation Regulation, penalty provisions. As of July 2026.
Governments are funding the other side of the gap
Mandates create the obligation. Public funding closes the economics. Across the major aviation markets, several billion dollars in grants and tax credits are currently directed at SAF production and deployment.
Programme
Value
US / Clean Fuel Production Credit, IRC §45Z
$1.00 / gal
US / FAA FAST grants
$244.5M
EU / Innovation Fund
~€40bn
UK / Advanced Fuels Fund
£135M
JP / Green Innovation Fund
¥2tn
CA / Clean Fuels Fund
C$1.5bn
§45Z: clean fuel production credit, reduced from $1.75 / gal. IRS, current.
FAA FAST: Fueling Aviation's Sustainable Transition, awarded 2024. US DOE / FAA.
EU Innovation Fund: includes €153M allocated to synthetic SAF. European Commission.
UK AFF: £135M, with a further £63M committed to 2026. UK DfT, 2022–25.
Japan GIF: NEDO / METI.
Canada CFF: NRCan, to 2030.
All figures as of July 2026.
This is a moving policy landscape
Support mechanisms are revised, extended, and retired. The US §40B blender's tax credit, worth $1.25–1.75 per gallon, expired at the end of 2024. In the UK, the Green Fuels, Green Skies programme closed after allocating £15M in 2021. The §45Z credit that replaced §40B was itself set below the rate of the programme it succeeded.
We track these changes because they move the price of a certificate. Anyone quoting you a static number for this market is quoting you a number that has already changed.
Rising blend, rising certificate volume
Each increment in the mandated blend increases the volume of SAF supplied, and with it the volume of certificates issued against that supply. Demand for those certificates comes from two directions at once: fuel suppliers meeting an obligation, and corporates buying down aviation emissions in their own reporting.
Both of those buyers need a way to transact that does not depend on a bilateral contract negotiated from scratch.