Three weeks in: what a permitted site has to be doing now

Published 25 October 2026 · every legal claim below checked against the source on 25 October 2026

The duty, in plain words

Since 1 October 2026 the operator of a permitted or licensed site in England or Wales that receives controlled waste must record every load it takes in and send that record to DEFRA through the Report receipt of waste service. England's regulations are SI 2026/729 and Wales's are WSI 2026/105. Both are made law and both came into force on that date, so nothing about the duty depended on an announcement.

Each load goes in within two working days of the waste arriving. Working days means weekdays that are not bank holidays, and the bank holidays differ between England and Wales and the rest of the UK, so a load received on a Friday before a bank holiday weekend is due the following Wednesday, not the Monday.

A mistake in a record is corrected within one month of the operator becoming aware of it. A record that was sent with the wrong code, the wrong weight or the wrong carrier is not left to stand; it is corrected, and the correction has its own clock.

What has not changed

Nothing in these regulations replaces the paperwork you already keep. The Environment Agency said so when the service opened: waste transfer notes, hazardous waste consignment notes, quarterly hazardous waste consignee returns and permit waste returns all continue as before. The digital record is a new duty on top, not a replacement for the old ones. A site that stops keeping transfer notes because it now reports receipts has swapped one breach for another.

Who it does not reach

The duty sits with the site that receives the waste, and only there. A waste carrier, broker or dealer has no reporting duty under these regulations. A producer of waste has none at all. If you carry waste to a permitted site, the site records what it received from you; your own paperwork should match what the site files, and that is where your obligation ends for now.

The government has given October 2027 as the date carriers join the scheme. That is a stated intention and nothing more: no instrument has been made or laid that extends the duty to carriers, so nothing bites for a carrier yet.

Two exceptions differ by nation. In Wales a council facility such as a household waste recycling centre is outside the duty altogether. In England only the household waste residents drop off at such a site is outside it; commercial waste taken in at the same site is in scope. Scotland follows on 1 January 2027 under its own made regulations, SSI 2026/145. Northern Ireland has stated the same target and, at the date this was checked, has made no rule.

If your site has not started

The duty applied from 1 October, not from the day you read this. Every load received since then is a record that is due, and the two working days for most of them have passed. Start now, record from today forward, and work back through the loads already received: a late record is still a record, and a missing one is not.

In England and Wales a failure carries a fixed penalty of £1,000 under Schedule 2 of each instrument. Scotland's made regulations carry no fixed penalty. Read the regulations and the GOV.UK guidance linked below before acting on anything here; they are the source, this is a summary.

What to have in place

One person at the gate or the weighbridge who records each load as it arrives, with the site's permit number, the waste code, the weight or volume, whether it was weighed or estimated, and who brought it. A way to send each record within the two working days without retyping the site's own details every time. A way to find a record a month later and correct it. And the transfer notes, consignment notes and returns you kept before, kept still.

DutyOS does this for a single permitted site and is on GOV.UK's list of software providers for the Report receipt of waste service. DutyOS is not affiliated with DEFRA or the Environment Agency. Every plan starts with 7 days free and you can stop whenever you like.