How to register for Digital Waste Tracking (Report receipt of waste)

If you operate a permitted or licensed site that accepts waste in England or Wales, you have had to use Digital Waste Tracking since 1 October 2026. Registration is done by the permit holder, on DEFRA's Report receipt of waste service, using an organisation account — not a personal one. Here is exactly how to register, what it costs, and what to do with the API code you get at the end.

How do I register for Digital Waste Tracking?

Digital Waste Tracking (DWT) is the government service that replaces paper waste transfer notes. The receiver side — recording waste that arrives at a permitted or licensed site — is live and mandatory now: since 1 October 2026 in England and Wales, and from 1 January 2027 in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Carriers, brokers and dealers do not come into scope until October 2027. If you receive waste, registration is the first thing to do.

Who has to register?

Whoever holds the permit is the party that registers. If your business runs several permitted sites under the same organisation, you register once as that organisation — the £26 fee and the registration cover all of its sites, not one per gate. The API code you receive is the organisation's code.

Who is exempt from registering and paying?

Two parties are exempt from both registration and the fee:

• →A digitally excluded person — someone who, for genuine reasons, cannot reasonably use the digital service.
• →A waste disposal authority receiving household waste from a domestic property.

How do I register, step by step?

The registration itself is short. Work through it in order:

• →1. Go to the service. Open DEFRA's Report receipt of waste guidance on GOV.UK (linked in the sources below) and start the service.
• →2. Sign in with an organisation account. Use your organisation's Government Gateway or GOV.UK One Login. If you only have a personal account, create an organisation account first — do not register the permit under a personal login.
• →3. Identify the permit holder. Register as the legal entity named on the environmental permit or waste management licence — the sole trader, company, partnership or LLP.
• →4. Accept the terms. Read and accept DEFRA's terms of use for the service.
• →5. Pay the £26 annual charge. One charge per organisation, covering all of its sites. The first annual payment is due by 31 January 2027.
• →6. Collect your API code. DEFRA issues an API code to your organisation. This is what authenticates every receipt you submit — keep it secure.
• →7. Start recording receipts. Enter receipts directly on the service, or give your API code to your waste software so it submits automatically. Either way, each receipt is due within 2 working days.

What do I need to register?

Digital Waste Tracking registration costs £26 a year per organisation — not per site — and the first payment is due by 31 January 2027. You register the permit-holding organisation on DEFRA's Report receipt of waste service using an organisation account, then receive an API code to submit each receipt within 2 working days of waste arriving.

What do I do with the API code?

Entering receipts by hand on the service works, but for a busy weighbridge it is slow and error-prone. Connected software lets you capture the receipt once at the gate and submit it automatically with your API code injected behind the scenes — so a single code covers every load without anyone retyping it into a government portal.

The 2 working day clock excludes weekends and bank holidays and starts the day after the waste is received. See the two-working-day rule for how to count it, and portal vs software for how the two ways of submitting compare.

Can my software provider register for me?

This is the single most common misunderstanding at onboarding. Because the account and its API code are bound to the permit holder's identity, there is a human step only the permit holder can do: registering the organisation and accepting the terms. No vendor — ComplyWaste included — can do that part for you.

But that is the only manual step. After you paste your API code into connected software, the software handles every submission from then on: capturing the receipt, validating it, and filing it with DEFRA inside the 2-working-day window. You register once; your software files forever after.

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