Your carrier licence becomes a permit in 2027

For more than 30 years a waste carrier licence in England has been a registration: fill in a form, pay the fee, get a number starting CBDU. That is ending. New regulations move carriers, brokers and dealers into the same permit system that tip sites already live under, with checks on the people running the business and a permit number that has to travel with every driver. Here is what changes for you and when, in plain terms.

The short version

• Your registration becomes a permit. If you carry other people's waste, or broker or deal in it, you will need an environmental permit from the Environment Agency instead of an upper tier registration.
• The Environment Agency looks at who runs the firm. The government has said permits will come with identity and criminal record checks, and a test of technical competence.
• Your number goes with every load. Each driver will carry the permit number and a driver number of their own, and the permit number goes on your advertising, including the livery on your vehicles.

The law is already made. It is the Environmental Permitting (Waste Controlling or Transporting) and Relevant Functions of Primary Authorities (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/873, made on 22 July 2026. It amends the permitting rules tip sites already work under rather than creating a separate scheme.

When it reaches your firm

The new system switches on on 22 July 2027, twelve months after the regulations were made. Nobody has to change over on that morning, though. When you switch depends on where you are today.

One date matters more than the rest. If you apply more than three months before your switch date, your old registration stays valid until the Environment Agency decides your application. Leave it later and you risk a gap where you cannot legally carry.

What the Environment Agency will ask for

The regulations set up the permit. The detail of what you have to show will come in Environment Agency guidance that has not been published yet. What the government has already said is that it will look at three things:

• Identity. Who the applicant is, and who controls the business behind it.
• Relevant convictions. Criminal record checks on the people in charge. Environmental and fraud offences are the obvious ones to expect.
• Technical competence. Proof that someone in the business knows how waste should be moved and handled. The Chartered Institution of Wastes Management is building a new Controllers and Transporters competence scheme with the Environment Agency for exactly this.

Take a two-wagon skip firm owned by one director. When their switch date comes up, expect the director to need photo ID and proof of address, a basic criminal record check, and a competence certificate in their own name or in the name of someone they employ. None of that is hard. All of it takes longer than you think when you start in the last fortnight.

Your permit number on every driver and every advert

Under the new rules, a driver moving waste has to carry two numbers: the firm's permit number and a unique driver number the firm gives that driver. The government has also said the permit number must appear in your advertising, including the branding on your vans. If a permit is suspended, the firm has to take the number off its vehicles and adverts.

In practice that touches more places than people expect:

• Signwriting on cab doors and skip bodies, and any vehicle you hire in for a busy week.
• Your website footer, your Google Business listing and anywhere else you advertise, including social media pages.
• Quotes, invoices and transfer notes, which should carry it anyway.
• A list of driver numbers, kept up to date as people join and leave, and on each driver's phone or in the cab.

What it costs

The fees have not been set. The government has said the system will pay for itself, with permit fees covering the cost of regulating carriers, so expect them to be higher than today's upper tier registration charge. We will update this post when the Environment Agency publishes its charges.

What does not change

• Your paperwork. Waste transfer notes, hazardous consignment notes and the duty of care work as they do today. Our transfer note guide covers what goes on them.
• Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. These rules are for activity carried on in England. Welsh carriers keep today's registration system, and Scotland and Northern Ireland run their own.
• Carrying without the right paperwork is still an offence, only now a more serious one. The government has said operating without a permit can carry up to five years in prison, where today's registration offence carries no prison term.

Two changes in one year

Permits start in July 2027. Three months later, in October 2027, carriers are due to start reporting their loads to DEFRA's digital waste tracking service. Both changes ask the same question: who moved this waste, in which vehicle, with which driver, under whose authority.

The firms that will find both easy are the ones that already keep their registration, vehicles and drivers in one place, and put that information on every note without thinking about it. That is worth doing now, whatever software you use. In LoadSnap the carrier number, vehicle and driver are on every job and every transfer note already, which is why we started our own carrier preparation a year early.

Questions people ask

Do I need to apply for a permit now?

No. Applications open ahead of 22 July 2027, and your switch date is the day after your registration was due to expire. Apply more than three months before that date, with a few weeks to spare.

Will my CBDU number change?

The regulations talk about a permit number for permit holders and a registration number for exemptions. Whether today's numbers carry over has not been announced, so do not reprint your livery yet.

I only carry my own waste. Does this affect me?

Yes, but more lightly. Most lower tier carriers will move to a registered exemption within twelve months of the start, and the exemption's registration number goes on your advertising.

LoadSnap team

UK waste compliance

Written by the team building LoadSnap, the UK waste compliance platform for carriers and receivers.