Your permit puts you in Phase 1. Digital waste tracking starts 1 October 2026.
Checks every load against DEFRA's rules before it saves — so a mistake is caught at the gate, not when a submission bounces two working days later
Free until 1 November — through the deadline before you pay
Transfer stations, recycling and treatment sites, metal recyclers, vehicle dismantlers, composting and AD. If your site receives waste under an environmental permit, every load has to be recorded digitally and sent to DEFRA within two working days.
I set that up for small sites: a phone form at the gate, records formatted for DEFRA, £89 a month.
ENGLAND AND WALES. NORTHERN IRELAND AND SCOTLAND: JANUARY 2027.
Listed on GOV.UK as a compatible software provider
DEFRA publishes the list of providers whose software has been confirmed to meet the digital waste tracking requirements. Byrne Waste Tracking was added on 7 August 2026. Live production API credentials, all 14 production approval tests passed, no exemptions.
I'm one of the providers on that list. Check it before you buy from anybody, including me.
Does this apply to your site?
Phase 1 is defined by your permit, not by what you call yourself. If your site is on the Environment Agency's waste operations register under one of these classes, October 2026 is your deadline:
Household waste recycling centres are out of scope — Wales entirely, and in England where the waste comes from residents. If your HWRC also takes commercial waste, that part is in scope.
Carriers, brokers and dealers — you're Phase 2, October 2027. You've got another year. Come back nearer the time.
Skip hire — it depends. If you tip into your own permitted transfer station, you're Phase 1. If you only carry and tip at someone else's site, you're Phase 2.
Does the 1 October rule apply to you?
Four questions, 20 seconds.
Question 1 of 4
Does your site hold an environmental permit?
This is the whole system
What this doesn't do
Every provider on the GOV.UK list will tell you what their software does. Here's what mine doesn't.
- It doesn't submit to DEFRA for you. It builds the spreadsheet in DEFRA's format. You upload it to your own DEFRA account, which has to be registered in your organisation's name — it can't be in mine.
- Records live on the phone you enter them on. If you clear that phone's browsing data, they're gone. Export at the end of every day.
- It exports everything, every time. The routine is export, upload, clear down, then start the next batch. Get that order wrong and you'll submit the same loads twice.
What still lands on you after October
Paper doesn't stop on 1 October. Most operators think digital tracking replaces the paperwork. It doesn't — not yet. DEFRA's guidance is explicit that the paper system runs alongside the digital service until further notice.
- WASTE TRANSFER NOTES
You must keep completing them.
- ANNEX VII FORMS
Unchanged.
- HAZARDOUS CONSIGNMENT NOTES
Unchanged, where required.
- WASTE RETURNS
Continue in line with your permit conditions.
- CONSIGNEE RETURNS
Continue, and the charges still apply.
Digital waste tracking removes no existing duty. On 2 October you'll have more admin than you had on 30 September, not less.
- QUARTERLY WASTE RETURNS
To the Environment Agency or NRW, four times a year on their Excel template.
- HAZARDOUS CONSIGNEE RETURNS
Quarterly, on a Windows-only macro spreadsheet, at £10 a consignment.
- WASTE TRANSFER NOTES, ANNEX VII AND CONSIGNMENT NOTES
On paper.
- SITE ACCEPTANCE RECORDS AND STOCK ON SITE
Under your permit.
Most of that is the same data you'll already be keying for DWT. Nobody on DEFRA's approved provider list currently does anything with it. That's the direction this is going.
The free option
DEFRA publish a spreadsheet template. It's free, it's one of only two legitimate ways to submit, and it'll be there until at least October 2027. If you take a handful of loads a day, use it. I'd rather say that than sell you something you don't need.
What moves people off it is volume. Every load is 23 mandatory fields, 49 in total, with a two working day clock on each one. At twenty loads a day that's several hundred entries, typed, every day, by someone standing at a gate in the rain.
That's what the £89 buys. The typing, and the deadline tracking that stops a load slipping past its 48 hours.
What happens if you don't
Failing to comply is an offence — that covers deadlines, outages, written records, correcting errors, digital exclusion, and making accurate records.
- £1,000
Fixed monetary penalty
- UNLIMITED
Variable monetary penalty
- UNLIMITED
Fine on conviction
Source: The Digital Waste Tracking (England) Regulations 2026, regulations 16 to 19.
This isn't a scare tactic — it's the published position, and you can read it yourself.
Can't I just stay on paper?
There is an exemption, but it's narrower than most people expect. DEFRA call it being digitally excluded.
YOU MAY QUALIFY IF:
- Digital tools aren't practical because of your age, a disability, or your location.
- Your business is run entirely by practising members of a religious society whose beliefs aren't compatible with electronic records.
YOU DO NOT QUALIFY IF:
- You prefer paper records.
- You're unfamiliar with software.
- It would take extra time or cost to comply.
If you do qualify, you need a digitally excluded number from your regulator, you must make a written record of every load within the same two working days, include your number on every record, and keep them for three years. You can be fined for operating as digitally excluded without a number.
For almost every permitted site, this isn't a route out.
A two-man transfer station has to report every load within two working days, same as a national operator.
DEFRA's DWT Phase 1 covers 9,931 permitted sites in England and Wales. Around 11,765 across the UK once Scotland and Northern Ireland follow in 2027. Most of them still run the gate on paper notes, texts and a spreadsheet somebody types up on a Friday.
- 01
The notes are in a lever-arch file
Transfer notes sit in the cab, the gatehouse and a folder in the office. None of that goes to DEFRA in the format they'll accept.
- 02
The big systems are priced for fleets
Waste-tracking software is sold to national operators with a compliance manager. You've got a gate man and a phone.
- 03
The mandate isn't optional
From October 2026, every permitted waste receiver must submit digitally through DEFRA's official route.
From gate to DEFRA — in three steps
The driver's still stood at the weighbridge with a phone. Nothing to install, nothing new for your gate man to learn.
- 01
Capture at the gate
Driver or gatehouse logs each load on a simple mobile form — no app to download, works on any phone.
- 02
Automated formatting
Every record is structured — waste codes, tonnage, carrier, source and destination — to match DEFRA's official submission fields.
- 03
Prepared for the official route
Records are built in DEFRA's own format, ready to go to the Report Receipt of Waste service inside the mandatory two-working-day window. DEFRA accept two methods and only two — their API, or their own spreadsheet template. You cannot use your own.
I help you meet DEFRA's Digital Waste Tracking requirements — I'm an independent supplier, not a government body, and I don't guarantee legal compliance on your behalf.
What to ask any provider
DEFRA publish a list of approved providers and I'm one of them. Have a look at a few — I'm not the cheapest and I won't pretend to be. But ask all of us the same five questions.
- When does billing actually start? Most start charging on 1 October, the day the deadline lands. I don't bill until 1 November, so you'll have been through the deadline before you pay me anything.
- Did you pass all 14 production approval tests, or are you exempt from some? Two providers on that list are exempt from parts of the testing. I passed all fourteen with no exemptions.
- Is there a tie-in? Some lock you in for 24 months. There's no contract here. Stop paying whenever you like.
- Can I get my data out? Cancel any time and I'll export everything you've recorded to a spreadsheet you keep.
- Who answers when I ring? You get my mobile number.
Everything a small permitted site actually needs
One product, everything included. You only pay for the number of sites — no per-seat pricing, no setup fee.
- 01Gate capture on a phone
- 02Records built in DEFRA's format
- 03Export every load to a spreadsheet when an inspector asks
- 04Duty-of-care detail captured against every load
- 05You get my mobile number
Two to three sites: £169 / month or £1,690 / year.
Launch offer
Nothing to pay until 1 November 2026. Start now, be compliant for the month the deadline lands, and pay for the first time a month after it's already working. First ten sites.
See it running on your site
15-minute demo. No slides. I walk you through gate capture, automated DWT formatting and the compliance export using one of your own loads.
Book a 15-Minute Demo