2027 is the carrier's year: every change on one calendar

Four changes reach waste carriers in about seven months of 2027. Each one has been written about on its own, but nobody has put them side by side. Here they are on one calendar, with what each one means for a firm that runs skip loaders, hooklifts and tippers, and what to get done in each quarter so none of them arrives as a surprise. This covers England, with a note where Scotland is different.

The calendar

Two of these are fixed in law, two are firm plans, and one is a number nobody knows yet. Read it as a year that starts with your customers changing, moves on to your prices, and ends with your own paperwork and your own permit.

January to March: your small customers change

On 1 January the sites you tip at in Scotland start reporting each load to the digital waste tracking service, a year behind England and Wales. If you run loads over the border, expect the same questions at the gate that English sites have been asking since October 2026.

The bigger change for most carriers lands on 31 March 2027. Under Simpler Recycling, every workplace in England has to separate dry recyclables (plastic, metal, glass, paper and card), food waste and non-recyclable waste before it is collected. Larger workplaces have had to do this since 31 March 2025. Micro-firms, with fewer than ten full-time equivalent employees, have until 31 March 2027 (gov.uk workplace recycling guidance). The government has also said plastic film collections from workplaces will start by the same date.

Waste collectors carry a duty of their own: to collect those streams separately from the non-recyclable waste. So if you collect trade waste from cafés, salons, small offices or workshops, some of them will ring this winter asking for a food bin and a recycling bin they never had. Each new stream is its own collection with its own code, such as 20 01 08 for food and 20 01 01 for paper and card, so it needs its own line on the transfer note or the season ticket. Our guide to EWC codes for skips covers the codes you will use most, and the one on season tickets covers repeat collections.

April to June: your prices change

Landfill tax goes up every 1 April. Today's rates, from 1 April 2026, are £130.75 a tonne at the standard rate and £8.65 at the lower rate for inert material such as clean soil and rubble (HMRC). The rates for April 2027 have not been announced. They normally come in the autumn Budget, which the Chancellor has set for 28 October 2026.

Last year the standard rate rose with inflation and the lower rate rose by the same cash amount, which more than doubled it. The government has not said whether it will do the same again. Either way, the sites you tip at will pass the change on from April, so price it in before your customers' quotes run into the new tax year. Our post on what landfill tax does to a skip price shows where the tax lands, line by line.

Spring is also when DEFRA plans to open its digital waste tracking service to every carrier on a trial basis. Nothing is required yet. It is a free chance to try it with your own loads before it counts.

July to September: your licence changes

The new carrier permit system starts on 22 July 2027, under SI 2026/873. Upper tier carriers in England do not all switch that morning. Each firm moves across the day after its current registration would have expired, and an application made more than three months before that date keeps the old registration valid while the Environment Agency decides. Most lower tier carriers move to a registered exemption within the first twelve months. Our guide to the carrier licence becoming a permit has the detail, and upper or lower tier explains which you are.

Once you hold the permit, its number has to appear on your advertising, and every driver carries the permit number and a unique driver number you give them. Make a list now of everywhere your current number appears: vehicle livery, the website, quotes, invoices, transfer notes, skip stickers. That is the list you will be changing.

October to December: your paperwork changes

In October 2027 carriers, brokers and dealers are due to join digital waste tracking, recording each load in the government service rather than only on paper. That date is DEFRA's stated plan, but the regulations for this phase have not been laid yet, and DEFRA has not published the full detail of what a carrier will report. Expect the same details a receiving site already files about your loads: the waste code, the quantity, who produced it, and your carrier number.

Our post on why carriers should start now explains what the sites you tip at already need from you, and the digital waste tracking guide keeps the dates up to date, role by role.

Two of the year's changes ask the same question: who moved this load, in which vehicle, with which driver, and under whose permit. LoadSnap already puts the carrier number, vehicle, driver, producer and waste code on every job and transfer note, so the details both changes ask for are recorded on every load.

What to do this winter

1. 01Check your registration expiry date on the Environment Agency register. Take three months and a few weeks off it. That is your permit deadline.
2. 02Sort out codes and producer details on every note. Correct waste codes, full producer names and addresses, and a description that matches the load. Every change above leans on them.
3. 03Choose how you will record each load once tracking applies to you, and start doing it on ordinary jobs now, while mistakes cost nothing.

LoadSnap team

UK waste compliance

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