Digital waste tracking from 1 October 2026
From 1 October 2026, every load booked in at a permitted or licensed waste site in England and Wales has to end up in the government's Digital Waste Tracking Service. For the site receiving it, the paper trail on its own no longer meets the duty.
Same weighbridge, same gate routine, just a digital record where the paper one used to be. The work is mostly getting your data straight once so the daily recording is quick.
Who has to record what, and when
Three dates matter. Only one of them is the one most carriers think applies to them.
Permitted and licensed waste receiving sites must record every load they receive in the Digital Waste Tracking Service. This is in law, not consultation.
Receiving sites in Scotland and Northern Ireland follow three months later, under their own regulations and guidance.
Phase 2 is planned, not yet in statute. In practice a carrier's deadline is October 2026: a permitted site needs enough correct information to record the load, so a carrier arriving with a lapsed registration, a vague description or missing codes risks being paused or refused at the weighbridge.
Key rules from October 2026
- Within 2 working daysEach movement has to be recorded in the service within two working days of it happening.
- £26 a yearRegistration fee per organisation account, not per site, charged annually from when the service becomes mandatory. Current figure.
- Approved software onlyDefra publishes a list of software providers that have passed its Production Approval Tests. Check yours is on it.
- Phase 1 scopePermitted and licensed receiving sites. Sites operating under a waste exemption come in a later phase.
- No new carrier numberSites record the carrier by its existing carrier registration number. Carriers cannot enrol in the service themselves yet.
- Defra helplineDigital waste tracking software helpline 03000 203781, Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm.
Site, carrier or producer: what October means for you
If you run a receiving site
Transfer stations, treatment and recycling sites, scrap yards, landfill, quarries and restoration sites taking inert material. From 1 October 2026 you record every incoming load. This is the statutory phase.
If you produce waste
Your own phase comes later. Expect your carriers and sites to start asking for tidier information from October, because they now have to record it.
If you're a carrier, broker or dealer
You have no statutory duty until the planned 2027 phase, and "ready" for you in 2026 does not mean buying software. It means the sites you tip at can record your load from the first day: your registration live and matching what the Environment Agency holds, the right waste code and description, weights, vehicle registration. Get any of it wrong and the load can be paused at the gate.
Defra plans to bring carriers into the service in testing stages ahead of the planned October 2027 date; the operators who use that year will be the ones already working digitally when it lands.
What gets a load paused at the gate
Most paperwork problems come back to four things. Under digital tracking each one is either caught at entry or shows up as a gap in the record Defra holds.
Details that don't match the register
Trading names, old addresses, a missing or wrong carrier registration number. The site can't record what it can't match.
Digital: the carrier is pulled from the public register, with its registration status shown.
Vague descriptions and wrong codes
"Mixed waste" or "rubbish" tells the site nothing about what's on the vehicle, and the wrong six-digit code can send a load to the wrong place.
Digital: search by code or plain description, with the official wording shown alongside.
Missing weights, signatures, dates
A blank weight, a note nobody signed, a date that doesn't match the booking. Small on the page, expensive at the gate.
Digital: the record can't complete without them, and the time of entry is stamped for you.
Records in five places
Cabs, spreadsheets, inboxes and filing cabinets. When the regulator asks for two years of notes, someone has to find them.
Digital: one record per load, searchable by any reference, held in one place.
Watch a load being received and recorded
Site, waste, transporter, destination, confirm. The record goes to Defra and the reference comes back. This is the whole thing.
Demonstration account with sample data. Each step is written out here for your gatehouse and office staff.
Our Defra-approved route
We use specialist, Defra-integrated software and we set you up on it. It fits round the way your site already works rather than making you change it, and the record goes straight to Defra with the tracking reference coming back to the load.
Capture
Record the load as part of the normal gate routine, live as the vehicle arrives or later from the paper note. The details you already collect, entered once.
Verify
Carrier registration, site permit and waste code are checked before the record goes anywhere, so problems surface at the gate rather than at audit.
Submit
The record goes to Defra's service and comes back with a reference you can point to. Corrections go the same way, as a revision, with the history kept.
Find it again
Search by carrier, waste type, site, date or any reference number you hold, and pull the evidence for a movement in seconds.
Nothing to install, one place for every site
It runs in a browser on a phone, tablet or computer, alongside whatever weighbridge or office system you already have, with no local IT to look after. Every site you operate sits under one account, with separate access for yard staff, office and compliance, so a group with several permits manages them all in the same place.
Checked before it goes
Registered carriers and environmental permits are pre-loaded from the public register and refreshed daily, so a lapsed registration or an invalid waste code is caught while the vehicle is still on site, and renewals are flagged before they expire, not after. Permit details are checked at set-up so the streams you take regularly match what the site is authorised to accept. Regular carriers' details are suggested from their recent loads.
Weight, references and returns
Weighed it? Record the actual weight. No weighbridge? Container type and fill level are turned into an estimated tonnage using the Environment Agency's own conversion factors for that waste code, flagged as an estimate in the Defra record. The paper transfer note and your weighbridge ticket number sit alongside the record, so you can find a movement by any reference you hold. A dashboard of the month's movements and the quarterly tonnage roll-up and export come from the same data. No second spreadsheet.
Free trial ahead of the deadline
A free trial is currently available so you can run real loads through it before October and have the routine settled before it counts. Ask us and we'll set out what it means for your site.
Want to see the approval for yourself? Defra keeps a public list of approved software providers. Ask and we'll send you the reference so you can check it independently.
The record moves. The duty doesn't.
Most of the information is what's on the paper transfer note today: what the waste is, how much, who brought it, where it came from and where it's going. What changes is that the receiving site makes that record digitally, it goes to Defra, and a tracking reference comes back.
Everything underneath stays as it was. Your duty of care, the six-digit waste code and description, the carrier's registration, the weighbridge, your permit conditions. None of that is replaced. It's recorded in a different place.
Right on the day, not tidied up later
The regulator can look at a live digital record whenever it chooses. The data has to be right on the day the load arrives, not squared away before an inspection.
The part that usually catches sites out isn't the day-to-day recording. It's everything sitting in spreadsheets, inboxes and cabs across more than one process or site. When a permit renewal date lives in someone's inbox instead of one place, it lapses before anyone notices.
Compliance first, software second
Software records the load. It doesn't tell you whether your permit, your waste codes and your paperwork are right in the first place. That's our side of it, and it's what you still need whichever software ends up at your gate.
Readiness review
Where you stand against 1 October 2026: what your current process already covers, what doesn't yet exist, and what the regulator will expect to see. Short, written, and yours to keep whatever you decide to do next.
Data clean-up
The waste codes and standard descriptions for the streams you take regularly, your permit and licence details as the Environment Agency holds them, the registration numbers of the carriers who deliver to you. Getting these right once is what makes the daily recording quick.
Set-up and walk-through
We set your sites up on the route, run the first loads through with you, and walk your weighbridge, gatehouse and office staff through what they'll see, using your own loads rather than sample data.
Keeping it right
Permit renewals, changes in the streams you accept, Environment Agency correspondence, and the questions the digital record throws up once you're live. Multi-disciplined compliance teams, on the end of a phone.
IWS is itself a registered waste carrier, broker and dealer (CBDU648262). We work under the same rules we set you up for.
Straight answers
Do we need new hardware or anything installed?
No. It runs in a web browser on the computer, tablet or phone you already use at the gatehouse or in the office. Your weighbridge carries on as it is. You do need a data connection to send the record to Defra; if your gatehouse signal is patchy, see the next answer.
What happens if the gatehouse loses signal, or Defra's service is down?
The duty is to record within two working days, not at the moment the vehicle arrives. If the connection drops, carry on with the weighbridge and the paper note as you do now, and make the record when it's back, that day or the next. If your site's signal is unreliable as a rule, tell us and we'll build the routine around it rather than around the gate.
Our weighbridge supplier says they'll handle digital tracking. Do we still need you?
Maybe not for the recording itself. Almost certainly for what sits behind it: the codes, permits and carrier registrations the record is built from, and the duty-of-care questions the regulator asks about. If your supplier's integration is ready and tested before October, use it; we'll still review your data and your routine. If it isn't ready, our route runs alongside your weighbridge in the meantime. The weight and ticket number are typed into the record, a couple of minutes a load; the carrier, site and codes are already held, so nothing else is re-keyed. Don't let a supplier's roadmap become your deadline plan.
What does the free trial include?
The software route, on your own sites with your own real loads, free while the trial runs ahead of the deadline, so the routine is settled before it counts. Our readiness review and data clean-up are separate from the software trial. Ask us and we'll set out plainly what's included and what's charged before you commit to anything.
Isn't there a spreadsheet option?
Defra has said an interim spreadsheet submission route is expected to stay available until at least October 2027, under review. It is a way of submitting, not a delay to the duty. The record still has to be made within two working days from 1 October 2026, and a spreadsheet gives you none of the daily registration checks or the carrier and code lookups.
Can't we just type each load into Defra's own web portal?
You can, and for a site taking a handful of loads a week it may be all you need. Every movement is typed in by hand, every field, every time, and a mistyped registration or waste code goes into the legal record as typed. Beyond a few loads a week most sites find the time adds up quickly.
We haven't got a weighbridge. Can we still comply?
Yes. The regulations accept an estimated weight where an actual one isn't available. On our route, container type and fill level are converted to an estimated tonnage using the Environment Agency's own factors for that waste code, and the record is flagged as an estimate when it goes to Defra.
What if a record needs correcting after it's been sent?
It's corrected as a revision. The change goes to Defra the same way the original did, the revision is accepted or queried, and the full history stays with the movement. Nothing is deleted or overwritten.
What about hazardous waste?
Phase 1 is about receiving sites recording the receipt of waste, hazardous and non-hazardous alike. Consignment note paperwork continues until Defra replaces it through the later phases of the rollout. The digital record captures the hazardous components with exact concentrations, so "greater than" estimates on a paper note won't carry across.
We're a carrier, not a site. Why does October 2026 matter to us?
Because the sites you tip at have to record your load from that date and need enough correct information to do it. If your registration has lapsed, or the details you give don't match what the Environment Agency holds, the load may be paused or refused. Your own statutory date is planned for October 2027, but your effective one is the same as the site's.
How do we know the software is Defra-approved?
Defra publishes its list of software providers that have passed its Production Approval Tests. Ask us and we'll send you the government reference so you can check it yourself rather than take our word for it.
What does it cost?
Charges are based on the number of movements you complete each month, and a free trial is currently available ahead of the deadline. Ask us and we'll set out what it means for your site in plain figures.
Where do you stand for 1 October 2026?
Tell us your organisation, the site and a telephone number. We'll come back with a straight view of what you already have covered and what needs doing.
Email us about your site Call 0114 244 2640
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Page last reviewed 5 September 2026.