How to check a waste carrier's registration number

Published 13 October 2026 · every legal claim below checked against the source on 13 October 2026

What changed

Nothing new, and that is the point. The duty to check sits in section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the duty of care that binds anyone who produces, carries, keeps or disposes of waste. The statutory code of practice for England and Wales puts it in one sentence: "You should check whether a person or business is authorised to take waste before you transfer your waste to them."

What has changed is how easy the check is. Every regulator now runs a public register you can search in under a minute, and from 1 October 2026 a permitted site in England and Wales files the carrier's registration details on every load it receives, so a wrong or lapsed number is now a record in a regulator's database rather than a line on a pad.

Where to look, by nation

A carrier registered in one nation can work across the border. The Environment Agency's register page says that carriers and brokers registered in Scotland or Wales are also authorised to operate in England. So check the register of the nation that issued the number, not the one where the waste is.

England: the Environment Agency's public register of waste carriers, brokers and dealers, on environment.data.gov.uk. Search by business name, registration number, address or postcode, and filter by upper or lower tier. A result shows the business name, the registration number, the company number and the expiry date.

Wales: Natural Resources Wales's public register. It lets you filter by registration number, registered business name, address, postcode, tier, operator type, company registration number and expiry date.

Scotland: SEPA's register of waste transporters and brokers. Search by authorisation number, holder name, trading name or business address. A result shows the authorisation number, its status, the holder, the trading name, the address and the expiry date.

Northern Ireland: the DAERA public registers, one for upper tier and one for lower tier carriers, reached from the DAERA registered waste carriers page.

All four addresses are in the sources below.

What a number looks like, and what the tiers mean

In England a registration number starts with CB. The upper tier numbers on the live register read CBDU followed by digits. GOV.UK's registration page says that when you register "you'll be told whether your registration is 'upper tier' or 'lower tier'".

Upper tier is the one that matters for a business taking your waste away. It covers carrying, buying, selling or brokering waste produced by others. Lower tier covers a business that carries only its own waste, not construction or demolition waste, and is not a broker or dealer. An upper tier registration is renewed every three years, so the expiry date on the register is the thing to read, not just the presence of a name.

What a number alone does not tell you

A number on a van, an invoice or an email is a claim. The register is the check. Four things to read on the result:

The name on the register matches the business you are dealing with, not a similar one.

The tier is upper if they are taking waste you produced.

The expiry date is in the future.

The address is theirs. If a carrier gives you a number that returns somebody else's business, stop.

Keep a note of what you checked and when. The code of practice expects you to be able to show you took reasonable steps, and a screenshot of the register result with the date on it is the cheapest evidence there is.

When it bites

The duty of care bites now and always has. There is no new deadline attached to checking a carrier.

One change is coming in England only. From 22 July 2027 carrier, broker and dealer registration under the 1989 Act is replaced by environmental permits, under regulations made on 22 July 2026. That is not a day on which every registration ends. Under the transitional rules an existing registration runs to its own scheduled expiry date, and a business not registered at all must hold a permit from that day. For most carriers the date that matters is the one on their own certificate. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland keep their registration regimes.

Until then the check is the same as it was last year: find the register, type the number, read the expiry date.

The same check runs inside DutyOS when a carrier enters its number. Customers can watch it in the Video walkthroughs inside their account.