Digital Waste Tracking: what changes for receiving sites in October 2026

From 1 October 2026, every waste receiving site in England and Wales that holds an environmental permit or waste management licence must record every incoming load of waste digitally. Paper-only records won't be enough. The legal requirement comes from the Digital Waste Tracking (England) Regulations 2026, made under Section 58 of the Environment Act 2021. It applies to transfer stations, materials recovery facilities, scrapyards, landfills, household waste recycling centres, and any other site that needs a permit or licence to receive waste.

This article covers what the change means in practice, what data you'll need to capture, and what you can do now to prepare.

Who is in scope

Phase 1 of Digital Waste Tracking covers operators of permitted or licensed waste receiving sites. DEFRA's own estimate puts that at around 12,000 sites across the UK. If your site physically receives waste and needs a permit or licence to do so, you're in scope. The size of your operation doesn't matter.

Sites operating under registered exemptions are not included in Phase 1. DEFRA has said they'll be brought in later. Scotland and Northern Ireland follow a separate timeline, with their mandate starting in January 2027.

Phase 2, covering waste carriers, brokers, and dealers, is planned for October 2027.

What changes on the ground

The collection and movement of waste doesn't change. Carriers still collect, and waste transfer notes still travel with the load. What changes is what happens when waste arrives at your site.

Instead of filing a paper record, you'll need to submit a digital record to DEFRA's Digital Waste Tracking Service for every load you receive. The service returns a Waste Tracking ID for each accepted submission, and that ID becomes your proof of compliant recording.

For most sites, this means your weighbridge process or goods-in workflow picks up an extra step. Structured data goes to DEFRA's system, and a tracking reference comes back.

You don't have to do it the moment the lorry tips. The deadline is the end of the second working day after the day the load arrived, and weekends and bank holidays don't count towards it. Our post on the two-working-day rule covers where that clock starts and which days count towards it.

What data you'll need to submit

Each submission covers one waste movement and includes several required fields. None of this is new to anyone who fills out waste transfer notes. The difference is that the data must be structured and validated before it reaches DEFRA's system.

The key fields include the EWC code (the six-digit European Waste Catalogue number that identifies the waste type), the carrier's details, a waste description, the weight, and the container type. You'll also need a recovery or disposal code that describes how the waste will be treated. For hazardous waste, add hazardous property (HP) codes. Where persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are present, the relevant POPs data is required too.

DEFRA publishes approved reference lists for EWC codes, HP codes, POPs names, container types, and disposal and recovery codes. Software that connects to the service can import these lists automatically, which cuts out the risk of submitting a code that doesn't exist.

How you submit: the Receipt of Waste API

DEFRA has built the service around an API-first model. The Receipt of Waste API is the primary route for submitting data. It's designed so that waste management software can send records to DEFRA automatically, without operators needing to log into a separate portal or re-key information.

Earlier plans for a manual GOV.UK-style portal and CSV uploads were scaled back after user research showed they were too time-consuming for the volume of data involved. A spreadsheet submission route does exist as a temporary bridge, but DEFRA has been clear that it's a stopgap, not a long-term option. It's expected to remain available until at least October 2027 and then be withdrawn.

In practical terms, this means most sites will need software that connects to the API. If your current system already handles weighbridge tickets or waste recording, your provider may be building an integration. If it doesn't, you'll need a standalone tool that can submit to DEFRA on your behalf.

What you can do now

The public beta has been open since 28 April 2026, and any permitted or licensed receiving site can register and start submitting data now. Submitting practice records is the fastest way to find problems in your workflow before October.

Here's where to focus your preparation:

Check your software. Ask your waste management software provider for its results on DEFRA's Production Approval Tests (PAT), the test scenarios DEFRA publishes for software that sends receipts to the service. DEFRA doesn't mark these tests. Each provider runs them and checks its own results, and DEFRA's terms say it has to share them with its customers, including any scenario its software doesn't pass or support. Software that can't handle a load you take in may fail on live submissions, and a failed submission means the movement isn't recorded, which is a compliance breach.

Get your data right. The most common submission errors are wrong or outdated EWC codes, missing carrier details, and incomplete hazardous waste fields. If your team currently writes free-text waste descriptions on paper notes, you'll need to move to structured codes. Start mapping your regular waste streams to their correct EWC codes now.

Train your weighbridge team. The people recording waste at the gate are the ones who'll use the system day to day. Give them time with the software before October, not on the day itself.

Register on the service. If you haven't yet, register your site on DEFRA's Digital Waste Tracking Service. Registration is a prerequisite for submitting data, and doing it early means one fewer thing to sort in October.

Why this matters beyond compliance

DEFRA's stated aim is to give regulators a near-real-time view of waste movements across the UK. The Environment Agency estimates that waste crime costs the economy around £1 billion a year. Paper records that can be lost, falsified, or never produced have made enforcement difficult. A digital trail makes it far harder for rogue operators to misdescribe waste or dump it without a record.

For legitimate operators, that's good news. A system that catches bad actors also protects the businesses doing it properly.

---

CarrierNote is on the GOV.UK software provider list for Digital Waste Tracking. It records your waste receipts, validates the data, and submits to DEFRA for you. See how it works at carriernote.co.uk/receiving-sites.

Sources

• Digital waste tracking service, DEFRA policy paper, updated 2026-02
• Environment Act 2021, Section 58, the legal basis for electronic waste tracking
• Digital waste tracking goes live, Environment Agency, 2026-04-30
• Digital waste tracking: where we've been, what we've built, and why the market is our primary user, Defra digital blog, 2026-05-28
• Receipt of Waste API specification, Defra developer documentation
• API terms of service, Defra developer documentation, the PAT results and ongoing compliance terms
• PAT self-service interpretation guide, Defra developer documentation