Deadlines and key dates
Two clocks matter for digital waste tracking. The first is the country-level mandate that turns the service on. The second is the per-receipt deadline you'll meet (or miss) every day.
Phase-in by jurisdiction
| Jurisdiction | Mandatory from | Who is in scope |
|---|---|---|
| England, Wales, Northern Ireland | October 2026 | Phase One — operators of licensed/permitted waste-receiving sites |
| Scotland | January 2027 | Phase One — same population, three-month lag |
| UK-wide | October 2027 | Phase Two — extends to carriers, brokers, dealers and exporters |
The two-working-day rule
Once you receive a load of waste, you have two working days from the day after receipt to submit the report. Weekends and UK bank holidays do not count.
Cost
The annual service charge is £26 per organisation per year, due from October 2026. It applies per legal entity, not per site, so a multi-site operator pays once.
When the clock starts now
Even though enforcement begins in October 2026, the service is open for early adoption. Many software providers and operators are already in validation, partly to surface edge cases (incorrect EWC codes, missing D/R mappings, postcodes that don't resolve) before the mandate bites. If you wait until October 2026 to find these issues, you risk falling out of compliance on day one.