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DEFRA digital waste tracking

Photograph the ticket.
We file it with DEFRA.

From 1 October 2026, every load your site receives must be reported to DEFRA within 2 working days. Snap the weighbridge ticket on your phone — we read it, check it, file the receipt, and hand back the tracking ID with a full audit trail.

Start freeTalk to us

Free until the October 2026 mandate. No card, no sales call. DEFRA production connection in progress — you file today against their integration environment.

How it works

Ten minutes to your first tracking ID

Register with DEFRA, paste your apiCode once, and the rest is a photo at a time.

  1. 01

    Photograph the ticket

    Snap the weighbridge or transfer ticket on your phone at the gate, or forward the emailed PDF. No app to install, no weighbridge integration, no retyping.

    Phone photo · PDF · scan

  2. 02

    We read it, check it, file it

    We extract the load details, check them against DEFRA's reference data — EWC code, container and recovery codes, the weights, the 2-working-day window — then you confirm and we submit.

    Extract → pre-check → confirm

  3. 03

    Tracking ID + audit trail

    DEFRA returns a waste tracking ID. We record it in your ledger with the exact data we sent and DEFRA's exact response — your evidence pack for an EA inspection.

    WTN-•••• · evidence · ledger

The mandate, plainly

What the rules actually say

No spin. Here's the obligation, the deadline, the charge and the penalty — each one traceable to DEFRA's own guidance.

1 Oct 2026

Mandatory in England, Wales & NI

Permitted waste-receiving sites must report each receipt digitally. Scotland (SEPA) follows in January 2027.

2 working days

From the day after receipt

Each load has to be reported within two working days. Mistakes are corrected, not deleted — there's no taking a record back.

£26 / year

DEFRA service charge

A per-organisation charge to use the service, payable from October 2026.

£1,000

Fixed penalty per breach

Fixed monetary penalties apply per breach under the draft England regulations, on top of the EA's wider enforcement powers.

“A bridge, not a destination.”
DEFRA's own words for the temporary spreadsheet route — a fixed template you upload to the web service, with no format changes allowed and no validation before you submit. It's available until at least October 2027, then it's gone. We build for where this is going, not where it briefly is.

Sources: GOV.UK — report receipt of waste · DEFRA Digital blog. Last checked June 2026.

Why not the spreadsheet

The free route works — until you count the hours

DEFRA's spreadsheet template is a real option. It's also a rigid form someone fills in correctly twice a week, with no safety net and a removal date. Here's the honest comparison.

Getting the data in

Spreadsheet

Retype every load into DEFRA's fixed template by hand, twice a week

Nexus Receipt

Photograph the ticket; we read the fields off it

Catching mistakes

Spreadsheet

None — no validation until after you've uploaded

Nexus Receipt

Pre-checked against DEFRA reference data before you submit

Proof you complied

Spreadsheet

Whatever you remembered to keep a copy of

Nexus Receipt

A ledger of every receipt with the exact payload and DEFRA's reply

Duplicates

Spreadsheet

The API won't stop you filing the same load twice

Nexus Receipt

We flag a load you've already filed before it goes again

How long it lasts

Spreadsheet

Temporary — DEFRA removes it by around October 2027

Nexus Receipt

The API route DEFRA is steering everyone towards

Cost

Spreadsheet

£26/yr DEFRA charge + your time, every week, under penalty risk

Nexus Receipt

£79/site/month from the Oct 2026 mandate · free until then, no card

Pricing

One price per site. Free until the mandate.

£79 per site, per month — but free until the DWT mandate takes effect for permitted sites on 1 October 2026. Get your workflow running now, with no card to start; billing begins when the rules do.

Per siteFree until the mandate
£79/ site / month

Free until 1 October 2026, no card to start. Billing begins with the mandate — no contract, cancel any time.

  • Unlimited receipts per site
  • Ticket extraction + pre-check
  • Tracking-ID ledger & evidence pack
  • Duplicate protection across your loads
  • Audit-trail export for EA inspections
Start free

Set up your site in minutes. Bigger operator? Talk to us.

Questions

The honest answers

Who actually has to do this?
Permitted waste-receiving sites in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, from 1 October 2026 — transfer stations, scrap and ELV yards, inert recyclers and similar. In Phase 1 the obligation sits with the receiver. Sites operating under a registered exemption rather than a full permit are not in this first phase, and household-waste amenity sites are outside DWT scope. Scotland follows in January 2027.
What about hazardous waste?
Hazardous loads carry extra consignment-note requirements, so we flag them for review rather than firing them off automatically — you'll see a warning on the receipt before anything is submitted. Full hazardous consignment workflows come after the core receiver flow; if your site is mostly hazardous transfer, get in touch and we'll be straight about timing.
We have a weighbridge that exports a CSV. Can we skip the photos?
That's on the roadmap. The photo-the-ticket flow is what's live today because it needs nothing you don't already have. A plain weighbridge-CSV import is a planned addition for sites that already produce one — tell us your format and we'll prioritise it.
Isn't DEFRA already keeping the records? Why do I need a ledger?
The DEFRA API is write-only. There's no read-back, no delete and no de-duplication — file the same load twice and it creates two records. So your own ledger is the system of record DEFRA doesn't give you: we keep your audit trail — the exact data we sent, DEFRA's exact response, and a flag if a load looks like one you've already filed.
Is my data handed to the regulator?
Only the receipt records you confirm go to DEFRA's Digital Waste Tracking service — that's the legal obligation you're meeting. Your ticket photos and your ledger are yours; we hold them so you can prove what you filed if the Environment Agency asks. Nothing is submitted without a person at your site confirming it first.
Are you actually connected to DEFRA's live system yet?
Straight answer: we have a proven end-to-end integration against DEFRA's integration environment, and our DEFRA production connection is in progress — production credentials are issued by DEFRA once their approval tests pass. The product, the pre-checks and your ledger all work now, so you can set your site up and get your workflow running well before the October 2026 deadline; receipts file to DEFRA production the moment that connection is live. You confirm every submission, you keep the full audit trail, and Nexus ReGen is a named, contactable company.