Is your site in scope for Digital Waste Tracking? Permits, licences and exemptions

The quickest way to tell whether Digital Waste Tracking applies to your site is to look at your permit. The obligation to report receipt of waste follows the environmental permit or waste management licence — so if your site is authorised to receive or accept waste, it is almost certainly in scope. Here is how the line is drawn, which site types are caught, and the handful of exemptions.

Is my site in scope for Digital Waste Tracking?

Digital Waste Tracking (DWT) is DEFRA's government service that replaces paper waste transfer notes and consignment notes with a single digital record of each waste movement. The first mandatory duty falls on the receiver — the site that accepts the waste — which must submit a Receipt of Waste for each load. The scoping test is not what you do with the waste once it arrives; it is whether your authorisation lets you receive it in the first place.

Because the duty is tied to the permit, you do not have to guess. If a permit or licence authorises your site to accept controlled waste, the operator is in scope. If your activity sits under a registered exemption rather than a permit, check the specific carve-outs below — but assume a permitted receiving site is caught.

Which site types are in scope — and which are out?

Nearly every kind of permitted site that takes waste in is covered. The table maps the common site types against the receipt-of-waste duty.

If your site does not appear above but holds a permit or licence that lets it receive controlled waste, treat it as in scope and check against the primary sources. The duty follows the permit, not the label on the gate.

What are the exemptions?

Digitally excluded person

This mirrors the long-standing "digitally excluded" concept in the Environmental Protection Act 1990 — someone who, for reasons such as disability, age, remoteness or lack of internet access, cannot reasonably be expected to use an online service. Where it applies, that person is exempt from registration and fees. It is an individual circumstance test, not a general opt-out for firms that would rather not go digital.

Waste disposal authority receiving household waste from a domestic property

A waste disposal authority (for example, a council running a tip that takes household waste directly from residents) receiving household waste from a domestic property is exempt from registration and fees for that activity. Note the limits: it is the authority role, and specifically household waste from a domestic property — commercial or trade waste arriving at the same site does not fall under this exemption.

The receipt-of-waste duty follows the environmental permit or waste management licence. Any permitted or licensed site that receives controlled waste is in scope, except a digitally excluded person and a waste disposal authority receiving household waste from a domestic property. Registration is £26 a year per organisation — per permit-holding entity.

Who registers — the Operator, not the group

The responsibility rests with the Operator: the permit-holding legal entity named on the environmental permit or waste management licence. That matters most in corporate groups. There is no centralised, group-level registration — each permit-holding company registers individually, and pays its own £26 per year registration fee.

Each received load must be reported within 2 working days of arrival. So once an Operator is registered, every one of its permitted receiving sites needs a way to capture and submit receipts within that window — at the weighbridge or the gate.

When does the duty start?

The timing is set by nation. In England and Wales the receipt-of-waste duty has applied since 1 October 2026. Northern Ireland and Scotland follow from 1 January 2027. Waste carriers, brokers and dealers are a separate, later tranche — they come into scope from October 2027, so a receiving site is caught well before the vehicles that deliver to it.

How to work out if your site is in scope

• →Does your site hold a permit or licence to receive waste? If yes, the operator is in scope — register and report.
• →Which legal entity holds the permit? That Operator registers individually; groups do not register centrally.
• →Does an exemption apply? Only a digitally excluded person, or a waste disposal authority receiving household waste from a domestic property, is exempt from registration and fees.
• →Which nation is the site in? England and Wales since 1 October 2026; Northern Ireland and Scotland from 1 January 2027.
• →Can you report within 2 working days? Every received load needs a Receipt of Waste submitted inside that window.

ComplyWaste captures each receipt at the weighbridge and files it to DEFRA Digital Waste Tracking for you — see how the receipt-of-waste record works.

This guide is general information about Digital Waste Tracking, not legal advice. Check your obligations against the primary sources below and, if in doubt, your environmental regulator.