For permitted sites that receive waste
Record every load you receive, and send it to DEFRA on time.
From 1 October 2026 every permitted site in England and Wales must record each load of waste it receives and report it within two working days. DutyOS captures the load at the gate or the weighbridge, checks it against DEFRA’s own rules before it goes anywhere, and counts the clock down for you.
Free until 1 October 2026, then from £19.99 a month per permitted site. No commission, cancel any time.
What changes on 1 October 2026
- Every load received must be recorded on DEFRA’s Digital Waste Tracking Service within two working days of the day after it arrives.
- Mistakes must be corrected within one month of becoming aware of them.
- In England and Wales a breach carries a £1,000 fixed penalty.
- Scotland follows from 1 January 2027, and Northern Ireland is working to the same date.
- The duty lands on the site receiving the waste — not on the producer, and not yet on the carrier, whose phase is expected in October 2027.
- Waste transfer notes and quarterly consignee returns continue. Digital waste tracking sits alongside them; it does not replace them.
Every figure above is taken from the regulations as made, not from announcements. Our post on the 1 October duty walks through who it applies to and cites each one.
What you get
Logging a load
- Log it at the gate or at the weighbridge, by weight or by container volume. Your site name, permit number and address are filled in from your settings, not retyped per load.
- The waste code is picked from all 842 codes in DEFRA’s catalogue, reconciled against DEFRA’s live service with no differences, so a retired or mistyped code cannot get through.
- Photograph the paperwork the driver hands over. It is attached to the receipt as evidence and kept with what was filed.
- Carrier registration numbers are checked for the right format as you type, and the form says what is missing before you send.
After it is sent
- The two-working-day clock runs per load, in UK time, and the list shows what is due, what is sent and what DEFRA accepted.
- If DEFRA’s service is busy or unavailable the submission waits and retries; the load stays queued until it lands, and an outage is never reported back to you as your mistake.
- Corrections are never refused. A receipt DEFRA already hold can be corrected and resubmitted from the same record.
- Export your receipts to CSV whenever you need them.
The duties that continue
- Quarterly consignee returns, generated from the same records.
- Duty Watch: the rule changes that affect a permitted site, as regulators publish them.
Is your data safe?
Ask any provider on the GOV.UK list for its Cyber Essentials registry link. Here is ours.
The list now carries 121 providers. Being on it says a product is connected to DEFRA’s service. It says nothing about how your records are protected — that is a separate question, with a public register that answers it.
DutyOS Ltd holds a Cyber Essentials certificate under the IASME scheme run for the National Cyber Security Centre, assessed 18 September 2026 and valid for twelve months. Verify on the IASME registry.
Cyber liability cover underwritten by AIG UK through the IASME scheme, with an incident response line. It runs with the certificate.
Records in the UK. The API in Amsterdam. Nothing leaves the UK/EEA, so no international transfer safeguards are needed.
On 18 September 2026 we read the public websites of 20 of them. None displayed a Cyber Essentials certificate or a registry link. Compare the providers.
Getting started
- Register your site with DEFRA. The Digital Waste Tracking Service charges £26 a year per permit-holding company and issues the API code every receipt is filed under. The first payment is not due until 31 January 2027, so there is nothing to pay to get started. Only the permit holder can register; we cannot do it for you.
- Create your DutyOS account as a receiving site. It takes a minute, and nothing is charged before 1 October 2026.
- Enter your permit number, site address and DEFRA API code once, on the Permitted site page.
- Log your first load. From then on, every load received is recorded, checked and sent, and the clock is visible on every one.
Pricing
From £19.99 a month per permitted site, free until 1 October 2026. Four rungs — Solo £19.99 · Site £29.99 · Team £59.99 · Site Pro £99.99 — that differ only in how many people can sign in to the site (1, 5, 15, unlimited). Every rung has every feature. The Site rung at £29.99 is the one most sites take. No commission on any work, no contract, cancel any time. DEFRA’s £26 registration fee is separate and paid to them, first due by 31 January 2027. Full pricing.
Where DutyOS stands with DEFRA. We ran all 14 of DEFRA’s production approval test scenarios and claimed no exemptions from any of them. DutyOS is listed on GOV.UK’s Report receipt of waste software provider list (8 September 2026). Your records are stored in the UK, in London.
And on security. DutyOS Ltd holds a Cyber Essentials certificate for the whole organisation, issued 18 September 2026 and valid for twelve months. Verify it on the IASME registry.
Common questions
Is the free GOV.UK service enough for us?
It might be. DEFRA’s portal is free, and a site receiving a handful of loads a week can key them in by hand. DutyOS is for the site that would rather the checks, the clock and the evidence were done for it. The pricing page sets out exactly what that buys.
We are a carrier, not a site. Does this apply to us?
Not from 1 October 2026. That phase binds the site receiving the waste. Carriers keep their transfer notes and duty-of-care records as today, and DutyOS covers those on the carrier plans.
What if DEFRA’s service goes down?
Your load is recorded here the moment you log it, and the submission waits until DEFRA’s service accepts it. The two-working-day clock keeps running either way, so the list shows you what is still to land.
We run more than one permitted site.
Each permitted site is its own membership, matching how DEFRA register and charge per permit holder. If you run a group, email us.