A vehicle registration was sent for a means of transport other than Road
The vehicle registration field is only for road transport. The receipt named another means of transport, such as Rail or Other, and still carried a registration.
The message DEFRA sends
If carrier.meansOfTransport is not "Road" then carrier.vehicleRegistration is not applicable
The usual cause
- The registration was filled in from an earlier row or a default.
- The means of transport is wrong, and the load did go by road.
How to fix it
- If the load went by road, change the means of transport to Road and keep the registration.
- If it did not, leave the vehicle registration out of the receipt altogether. Sending it empty or as null still gets this message.
Fix the value in your software or spreadsheet, then send the receipt again.
Sources
- DEFRA waste-movement-utils on GitHub: the shared validator code that DEFRA's receipt services pin, published under the Open Government Licence
- DEFRA waste-tracking-service on GitHub: the Receipt API specification
The message wording and the formats listed come from DEFRA's validator code, version 1.18.0, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. The causes and fixes are our reading of its rules.
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Start on the free plan
CarrierNote is on the GOV.UK software provider list, connected to DEFRA's Digital Waste Tracking service. Receiving sites are in scope from October 2026 and carriers from October 2027, and you can be recording to DEFRA's standard from your first load, whenever you start.