CCL Price Increases 2026: A Complete Timeline of Every Notice

How to read this page

This page records what laminate makers announced during 2026, when they announced it, which grade it applied to, and how it reached the price of a bare board. It is maintained as a reference rather than as news, and it is dated at the top so that a reader can tell how current it is.

Three cautions apply to every number below, and ignoring them is how the same figure gets quoted in two incompatible ways.

First, the published series measure different things. A market average including tax is not a maker's list price for a named grade, and neither is a pre-tax figure from a bank's commodity team. When two sources report 240 and 380 for the same month, they are usually describing different products, not contradicting each other.

Second, an announcement date is not an effective date. A notice issued in late September may apply from the first of October, and a price agreed on a contract may not reach a small buyer for weeks.

Third, a laminate price is not a board price. Laminate is one input, and its share of a finished board varies from under 20 percent to nearly 50 percent depending on construction. The translation is worked through below.

The price, in one table

The table collects the reference points that buyers actually use, with the series identified for each. Read the third column before comparing the second.

The gap between 240 and 380 is the single most common source of confusion in this market. It is not a data error. One number is an average across commodity grades including tax; the other is a list price for a high-end thin-glass product. A buyer comparing quotations anchored to different series will conclude that one supplier is 50 percent expensive when the two are pricing different materials.

The timeline

What follows is ordered by announcement, with the grade and the effect noted where it is known. Entries are added as notices are published.

Two patterns are visible in the sequence. The rounds became larger rather than smaller, which is unusual: a normal cost cycle produces a spike followed by partial retreat as demand responds. And the increases were selective. One maker raised thin-glass product and explicitly held thick-cloth low-grade prices, which is not the behaviour of a market where everything is scarce.

The four inputs behind the notices

A laminate price is the sum of a few inputs, and each has its own constraint. Understanding which one is binding tells you whether a round is a cost pass-through or a capacity allocation.

Glass cloth

This is the binding constraint in 2026. The fine glass fabrics used in high-performance laminates are woven on specialised looms with multi-year lead times, and reports during the year put loom deliveries as far out as 2031 and 2032. Prices reflect that: the widely used 7628 fabric moved from about 3.9 CNY per metre in September 2025 to 13.5 to 14 CNY per metre in October 2026, an increase of roughly 258 percent, with thinner fabrics projected higher still by year end.

Copper foil

Copper foil follows its own market, and the processing fee for 18 micron foil reportedly rose more than 30 percent during the year. Foil cost sits inside the laminate price rather than alongside it, which is why a copper rally appears in a laminate notice with a lag rather than on the same day.

Resin and prepreg

Prepreg is laminate minus the final cure, and it is priced separately in some supply relationships. The November round priced prepreg 25 percent above laminate's 15 percent, which is a signal about resin and about the cost of running a treater line, not only about glass.

Energy and conversion

Laminate manufacture is energy intensive, and conversion cost rises with utilization. When every press is full, there is no spare capacity to absorb a bad batch, and yield losses are passed through rather than absorbed.

Which grades are actually affected

A single percentage for the whole market is misleading, and the difference is large enough to change a sourcing decision.

The consumer segment is the one buyers misread most often. Because some low-end product was being discounted in the same months that high-end product rose 15 percent, it is possible for two buyers in the same country to report opposite market conditions and both be right.

Why there has been no correction

In previous cycles, a laminate spike of this size would have been followed by a correction within a few quarters, as fabricators destocked and demand responded to price. Three structural differences explain why that has not happened.

Capacity arrives slowly. Laminate lines are press-limited, and the presses used for advanced material are made by very few suppliers, with lead times measured in years. New capacity is concentrated in 2027 to 2029.

Demand is not price-elastic in the usual sense. A high-speed board inside a server or a switch is a small fraction of the system cost, so a doubling of laminate price barely changes the decision to build it. When demand does not respond to price, supply has to do the adjusting, and supply cannot move quickly.

The mix has shifted. Capacity that would have served commodity grades has been redirected to high-value product, which tightens the commodity market without a single dollar of new demand for commodity boards.

The reasonable planning assumption for 2027 is therefore a higher plateau rather than a return to the 2025 base, with the possibility of further rounds if the high-end shortage continues.

What a laminate notice actually contains

Most buyers see the percentage and nothing else. The rest of the notice is where the money is, and it is usually four or five sentences.

A buyer who reads only the percentage will be surprised by the second notice. A buyer who reads the order-in-hand rule can sometimes place volume ahead of an effective date, which is a legitimate and finite saving.

• The grade or grade range. A notice for thin-glass high-end product does not apply to thick-glass commodity product, even from the same maker, and one 2026 round explicitly excluded the latter.
• The percentage and the basis. Fifteen percent on what: the previous list price, the last invoiced price, or a formula tied to glass and copper? A percentage applied to a different base produces a different number.
• The effective date, and the order-in-hand rule. Whether orders already acknowledged are repriced, and from which shipment, decides whether you have a window or not.
• Allocation language. If the notice includes quantity limits per customer or a lead-time extension, it is not only a price change. Price changes are negotiable; allocation is not.
• Validity of the new price. A notice that raises 15 percent and states the price holds for thirty days is telling you another round is possible.

The prepreg trap

Prepreg is priced separately from laminate in many supply relationships, and it is the line buyers forget.

In the November 2026 round, one major maker reportedly raised laminate 15 percent and prepreg 25 percent. Prepreg is the material between inner layers, so its weight in a construction rises with layer count and with the number of bonding plies. A four-layer board uses relatively little; an eight- or ten-layer board with a symmetrical build-up uses a great deal.

The arithmetic consequence is that a high-layer-count board can see a larger effective material increase than a four-layer board, even though the laminate percentage is identical. A supplier who applies only the laminate figure to a ten-layer quotation is understating the change, and a buyer comparing two such quotations may be comparing two different omissions.

There is a second reason prepreg matters. Availability of specific prepreg styles constrains lamination scheduling, so a prepreg shortage shows up as a lead-time extension before it shows up as a price. When a fabricator asks whether a stackup can be adjusted, the honest answer is usually yes within a defined window, and that conversation is worth having early rather than at the lamination stage.

How a small buyer experiences this market differently

The published prices describe a market between large buyers and laminate makers. A buyer ordering fifty boards lives in a different one, and the difference is systematic rather than unfair.

Large fabricators buy laminate on contract, with volumes agreed quarterly and prices tied to a formula. They may be supplied at the contract price for weeks after a market round. A smaller buyer purchases through distribution, at spot, in minimum quantities of tens of sheets, and sees the round immediately.

That means two buyers can report different experiences in the same month and both be accurate. It also means that comparing a quotation from a large fabricator with one from a small fabricator is not only a comparison of efficiency; it is a comparison of two different positions in the supply chain.

There are three practical responses available to a small buyer. Share a panel where the construction allows it, so that material is bought in a production quantity rather than a sample quantity. Consolidate orders so that one material purchase covers several builds. And accept a slightly longer delivery window in exchange for scheduling into an existing panel run, which is often the cheapest concession a fabricator can offer.

None of these closes the gap with a contract buyer. They reduce it, and they cost nothing but planning.

One industrial board through 2026

The tables above describe the market. This one describes a board. It is an illustrative four-layer industrial control board at 1,000 pieces, and the numbers are rounded to show the mechanism rather than to predict a quotation.

The board is 22 percent more expensive in November than in January, and the material line accounts for most of the difference: 3.40 of the 4.35 increase. Process costs moved about 5 percent, driven by copper and energy rather than by labour.

Two observations follow. First, a buyer negotiating labour or margin in this environment is negotiating over 6.40 out of 24.15, while 7.60 is set by a market the fabricator does not control. Second, the same percentage increase applied to a twelve-layer board with a lower material share would produce a smaller total change, which is why portfolio-level surcharges misprice the range.

Three questions this timeline cannot answer

A record of what happened is not a forecast, and it is more useful if the limits are stated.

It cannot tell you when the cycle turns. The date of the last notice is not a signal about the next one, and a month without an increase in this market has so far been a pause rather than a peak. Anyone offering a month is guessing.

It cannot tell you whether your grade is covered. Grade coverage is decided by the notice text and by your material specification, and the two do not always align. The only reliable check is to match your specified grade against the notice, which is why the grade column above exists.

It cannot tell you what your supplier will do. A fabricator facing a 15 percent material round in the same week it quoted you has three options: absorb it, requote, or shorten validity. Which one it chooses is a commercial decision, and it is worth asking about directly rather than inferring from the last invoice.

What the record can do is place a number. If a supplier says material is up 40 percent, the tables above allow a buyer to ask which series, which grade and which period, and to see whether the answer is consistent. That is a small advantage, and in a market where quotations are compared across three different bases, it is usually decisive.

What it does to a bare-board price

The translation from laminate to board is arithmetic, and it is worth doing once per part number rather than arguing about it.

Take a four-layer, 1.6 mm industrial control board with a material share of about 30 percent of the board price, and a laminate round of 15 percent. The board price rises by around 4.5 percent. The same round on a prepreg-heavy eight-layer board with a 35 percent material share, plus a 25 percent prepreg increase, moves the board price by roughly 8 percent. A twelve-layer HDI board with 20 percent material share moves by around 3 percent.

That is why a supplier who applies one surcharge across a portfolio is not describing the market. The material share is the multiplier, and it varies by a factor of two across a normal product range.

The second-order effect is more important than the arithmetic. When material moves this fast, the validity of a quotation becomes the binding constraint rather than its number. A price that is 4 percent higher and holds for thirty days is worth more than a price that is 4 percent lower and expires in a week. Our analysis of quote validity ↗ works through that trade-off in detail.

Four ways to use this page

A timeline is only useful if it changes a conversation. Four uses are practical.

Anchor a quotation. Ask a supplier which of these reference points their price is anchored to, and on what date it was checked. The answer places their number on the table above, and a number that cannot be placed is a number to treat with caution.

Challenge a blanket surcharge. If a supplier applies 15 percent across every part number, compare their portfolio against the grade table. Some of those parts should be moving 3 percent and some 9 percent.

Time a purchase. Where a further round has been notified but not yet effective, the window between announcement and effect is real. Purchasing inside that window is a legitimate cash decision, not a market bet, provided you have somewhere to store the boards.

Set a planning price. For 2027 budgeting, use the higher reference points rather than the current spot price, and state the assumption in the budget. A budget that assumes a correction nobody has evidence for will be revised twice.

What to watch next

Four indicators have led the price in 2026, and all of them are observable without a subscription.

Glass cloth pricing for the 7628 and 1080 fabrics is the earliest signal, because it moves before laminate notices. Copper foil processing fees follow the copper price with a lag of a few weeks. Press and loom delivery lead times indicate whether the supply response is real. And the announcements of the largest three or four laminate makers, rather than the average of the market, set the direction.

A single month of stability is not a turning point. In this cycle, the reliable signal would be a maker cutting list price, which had not happened at the commodity level as of the date on this page.

Methodology and corrections

Figures are compiled from maker notices, distributor communications and trade reporting published during 2026, including bank research that is publicly summarised. Where a source is a single report, the entry says reported. Where sources conflict, both are shown with their series identified rather than averaged.

Where this page is wrong, it will be corrected rather than quietly revised: substantive changes are recorded here with a date. Buyers relying on a specific figure for a contract should verify it with the supplier, because a page cannot carry the authority of a signed notice.

The material side of board selection, including which grades exist and when a higher grade is justified, is set out in the materials index ↗. The tariff question, which sits on top of material cost for exports to the United States, is covered in the November 10 action list ↗.