Direct Air Capture Market Snapshot | 2025

Highlights

• A total of 2.47 million tonnes of DAC credits have been contracted between 2022 and 2025-H1, with the first two quarters of 2025 having doubled their 2024 equivalent in contracted volume.
• DAC dominates funding and media attention, yet accounts for only ~8% of contracted durable carbon removal to date. At 1,186 tonnes, around 0.05% of over 2 million contracted DAC credits have been delivered as of mid-2025.
• Just three companies (1PointFive, Climeworks and Heirloom) account for 80% of total DAC credits sold. Climeworks leads with 81% of all tonnes delivered in DAC.
• Microsoft is the leading buyer with 833K tonnes purchased, while Airbus stands at 2nd with 400K tonnes purchased. Frontier has spread purchases across 12 suppliers. In terms of sectors, Software leads in DAC purchases (38%), followed by Transport (17%) and Entertainment (14%).
• Global North suppliers dominate DAC sales. Kenya’s Octavia Carbon is the only Global South DAC supplier with contracted credits. The UK has 42% of unique purchasers but only 0.11% of total tonnes purchased.
• Over $2.3B of private investment (excluding grant funding and M&A) has gone into DAC companies between 2021 and H1 of 2025. Deal sizes in 2025 have been steadily dropping, despite reaching 82% of 2024’s total figure.

Analysis

Direct Air Capture (DAC) has become the poster child of carbon removal, dominating investor portfolios and media coverage alike. The sector has grown rapidly, but the honeymoon is over: investment and sales are falling, while deployments are delayed across almost every company. Expectations are being readjusted, and the key questions are what DAC will need to scale, and what will determine who wins.

Large scale DAC-demand won’t materialize at current costs

Demand is extremely limited above $500/t. 31 DAC companies have made sales, but most have small volumes, and many are using aggressive pricing. For voluntary buyers, DAC is somewhat of a luxury good: compelling stories can carry small volumes, but megatonne-scale demand will require prices below $200-300/t (excluding subsidies). If DAC can’t get there, it will likely be outcompeted by other CDR methods.

Capex, not energy, will decide DAC’s fate

The number one figure to fixate on is the capex cost of installed annual capacity, secondly, the cost of financing (interest rates), and only as a distant third, energy requirements and cost of energy. High energy use can be tolerated if capex is low, but the reverse isn’t true. The crucial issue for DAC is whether the capex number can decline quickly enough. If an initial large-scale design has capex costs of $3,000 per tonne of annual gross capacity, even with aggressive learning curves, it won’t drop low enough to produce $2-300 per tonne removed at scale. There is also not enough demand at today's prices to sustain learning rates. Winners will need to start deploying below $1,000 per tonne of annual capacity for their first large-scale plant. Scale should follow lab innovations, not precede them.

A few winners will remain

Most DAC companies will fold or be acquired. The first part of this decade has been about seeding and testing technologies. All conceivable DAC approaches are being tested: solid sorbents, liquid solvents, electrochemical regeneration, mineral looping, hybrid systems, and moisture-swing. The next few years will separate lab breakthroughs from commercially viable engineering. We may not see a single “winner,” but we will likely see a handful of architectures emerging as frontrunners based on capex cost trajectories, supply chain maturity, and operational simplicity.

Many companies need more cash to deliver on current sales

Early sales from prepurchases and offtakes have provided cash and contractually secured revenue. But it is likely that many DAC companies don’t have enough secured revenue to build at the scale they promised. They will need state support, and to raise equity again in a chillier capital market.

Don’t overfocus on deliveries today

Almost every DAC supplier with a deployment plan has been forced to delay implementation. All in all, only 0.05% of the over 2 million contracted DAC credits have been delivered as of mid-year 2025. Delays are disappointing but not surprising, and do not indicate long-term financial unsustainability. Access to storage is also a bottleneck in the short term, and risks diverting DAC companies' attention from their core business, building capital-efficient capture units. Today’s focus should be on capex cost decrease, not on how many tonnes have been removed.

Investors will decide winners, nudged by buyers

Investors will decide who has the money to continue developing. Grants help, but those who can’t raise the next round go out of business. Investor decisions are also affected by which companies have sales. Demand is not enough to sustain even a minority of DAC players and their scale-up plans, so early-buyers have an outsized role in picking winners.

Policy winds are chilling, not killing

The U.S. has dominated DAC, both in company activity and investment, with some European firms relocating to access generous subsidies. But that environment is changing. While the important 45Q tax credit remains, the planned DAC hubs could be on the chopping block. That would mean we are unlikely to see more large-scale DAC facilities being built, but on the other hand, only a few DAC companies would be affected. If U.S. federal support wanes, companies will adjust. Some are moving to Canada where DAC companies can get generous tax rebates. More state support mechanisms are needed though to get DAC through the next phase.

In short, DAC is moving from hype to hard reality. The next few years will reveal which technologies and players can survive that transition. The following chapters give a holistic snapshot of where DAC stands today and how far it has come.

Market Dynamics

Transaction Volume

Tonnes Contracted

Looking at purchases from 2022 to H1 of 2025, the total volume of DAC credits has varied significantly year by year, with 467K tonnes purchased in 2022 to just over 1M tonnes in 2023, then down 20% in 2024 to 841K tonnes. That said, the first two quarters of 2025 have doubled their 2024 equivalent in contracted volume. However the trend for DAC is that annual purchases seem to be dominated by single purchases in a given quarter during that year, particularly by Microsoft. Examples include:

• Airbus’ 400K purchase from 1PointFive in Q1 2022
• Microsoft’s 315K purchase from Heirloom
• Amazon’s 250K purchase from 1PointFive in Q3 2023
• Microsoft’s 500K purchase from 1PointFive and Google’s 100K purchase from Holocene (now Oxy Low Carbon) in Q3 2024

Contracted Tonnes Delivered

A total of 1186 tonnes has been delivered by 6 DAC suppliers since 2023, of which 81% came from Climeworks. The 1,186 tonnes represents 0.05% of all tonnes contracted by DAC companies since the start of 2022.

Purchasers

Purchaser Leaderboards

Corporate Purchaser Leaderboard

Looking specifically at corporate purchasers and buyers clubs, the top 14 DAC purchasers have bought 2.28M tonnes since 2022. Microsoft, having purchased 833K tonnes from 5 DAC suppliers, tops the chart, outpacing both Airbus at 400K tonnes purchased from 1PointFive, and Amazon’s 250K. Frontier buyers have spread their purchases more widely, buying 166k tons from 12 different DAC suppliers.

Big tech, finance and airlines dominate DAC purchases. While 7 of the 14 top DAC purchasers are from the USA, other countries featured on the leaderboard are Switzerland, Japan, Canada and Germany. Five of the 14 DAC purchasers have only purchased DAC in their CDR portfolio.

DAC Business Cases

For most large corporate purchasers, their DAC purchases are to neutralize residual emissions. DAC’s ability to deliver scientifically verifiable and measurable permanent carbon removal, lowers the reputational risks of purchasing carbon credits. DAC can also supply CO2 for the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and other products. Offtake agreements with these purchasers tend to concentrate on a few of the well-funded suppliers with commercial-scale plans. For buyer clubs like Frontier and Milkywire, the goal is to provide catalytic purchases to expand the portfolio of direct air capture technologies. Their purchases are spread among smaller, early-stage DAC startups often as pre-paid contracts. The small pre-purchase deals are meant to prove the concept and fund pilot facilities. That revenue has gone to building and testing technologies, not large-scale CO₂ capture and storage. Commercial plants can cost hundreds of millions, and financing depends on solid offtake agreements. High credit prices limit such deals, which in turn limits the capital needed to build at scale, a financing Catch 22, now compounded by policy uncertainty and shifting market expectations.

Purchaser Country Leaderboard

Looking beyond top purchasers and at the total number of purchasers, orders, and tonnes globally by country, the United States tops the chart in total tonnes contracted with 1.5M tonnes or 58% of the total DAC market. This is not surprising, given that 7 of the top 14 purchasers are headquartered in the U.S. With only two purchasers, Airbus and Capgemini, France comes in second in terms of total tonnes purchased at 413K or 16.3% of total, followed by Canada with 6 purchasers and 9 orders at 64K or 2.5%. The U.K., although only accounting for 0.11% (2.8K) of total DAC tonnes purchased, leads in the number of unique purchasers, accounting for 42% of all purchasers with 46 orders.

Purchaser Sector

In terms of total volume of DAC credits purchased, software dominates with 38% of all purchases, which is 2.2x the next largest sector, transport at 17% of tonnes purchased, followed closely by CDR intermediary at 14% and retail at 10%.

In terms of the number of different purchasers, the largest number of different purchasers come from finance (29%) closely followed by software (25%). The next is Other sectors at 17% and then services at 13%.

Suppliers

Supplier Leaderboards

Supplier Leaderboard by Tonnes Sold

Supply is highly concentrated, with the top 3 suppliers of DAC - 1PointFive, Climeworks and Heirloom - accounting for over 80% of total DAC tonnes contracted between 2020 to H1 of 2025. Texas-based 1PointFive leads the suppliers leaderboard with 1.3M tonnes, comprising 52% of all DAC credits sold. Climeworks leads in tonnes delivered, at just over 1000 tonnes from both its Orca plant and its Mammoth plant. Climeworks also led in the number of deals, with 421 orders from companies and individuals. In contrast, 11 of the top 15 suppliers only have single-digit orders.

Supplier Country Leaderboard by Tonnes Sold

Overall 31 suppliers from 10 countries have sold just about 2.4M tonnes through 680 orders between 2020 to H1 of 2025. 4/5 (80%) suppliers are headquartered in either North America or Europe. Just over half of the DAC suppliers are U.S. based and another ⅓ (33%) in Europe, with U.S. suppliers accounting for 81% of all tonnes sold and 18% by their European counterparts, 99% combined. Kenya, represented by Octavia Carbon, is the only Global South country with contracted DAC CDR tonnes.

Suppliers by Technologies

Among the known technologies used by the 31 companies, half are either low-temperature regeneration technologies and electrochemical regenerations. Together, these two dominant forms of DAC account for 28% of total tonnes sold, led by Climeworks and Phlair. While high-temperature DAC, led by 1PointFive and Heirloom, makes up 70% of total tonnes sold. Other DAC technologies, made up of 11 DAC suppliers, account for only 1% of total tonnes sold.

Pricing

DAC Removal Pricing

Investment

Private Investment in DAC

More than $2.3B of private investment (excluding grant fundings and M&As) has gone into DAC companies between 2021 and H1 of 2025. Climeworks and 1PointFive, make up for over $1.4B or 60% of the total. While the annual total dollar amount invested has been falling since 2022, and almost down by half from 2023 to 2024, the number of DAC startup investments announced have been rising from 2021 to 2024, and almost doubled from 2023 to 2024. The first half of 2025, has already seen 10 DAC startups funding with a total that’s en route to be on par with the total in 2024.

Notes on the Data

• Data Sources: All of the data used in preparing this report is based on reported transactions, including public announcements, direct submissions by suppliers and purchasers through the CDR.fyi Portal, and integrations with ecosystem service providers. See Methodology for additional details on our approach. To provide feedback on the CDR.fyi data model, reach out to us at partners@cdr.fyi.
• New CDR.fyi Method Definitions: We recently updated our method definitions to increase clarity for novice buyers, while maintaining higher levels of granularity for suppliers and experienced purchasers. The CDR.fyi Direct Air Capture Market Snapshot 2025H1 report reflects the new method definition. Contact us at team@cdr.fyi if you have any questions about the new method classifications.

CDR.fyi tracks carbon removal purchases & deliveries with a permanence of hundreds to thousands of years. For any corrections or questions, contact team@cdr.fyi. For data licensing & partnership inquiries, contact partnerships@cdr.fyi.

Acknowledgments

Thank you for exploring the CDR.fyi Direct Air Capture Market Snapshot 2025H1 report. For access to further information, kindly contact us at partners@cdr.fyi.

Data, analysis, and content for the CDR.fyi DAC Market Snapshot 2025H1 was provided by Tank Chen, Jason Grillo, Robert Höglund, Maximilian Olmos van Velden, and Soren Vines.

Many thanks to Jack Andreasen Cavanaugh, Jason Hochman for giving initial feedback, and to Phil De Luna for providing his review and comments, which helped shape this final analysis.

Cover Image by Tank Chen; with elements from Third Way.

CDR.fyi PortalCDR.fyi Portal

Join over 1,000 companies and sign up for the CDR.fyi Portal to gain FREE ACCESS to durable CDR market insights.