I took vehicles in on Thursday 1 October and have not reported them. Am I already late?

No. Regulation 4(8) gives "the end of the second working day after the day on which the load ... is received". Thursday does not count, Friday is the first working day, the weekend is not working days, Monday is the second. A vehicle received on Thursday 1 October is due on Defra's system by the end of Monday 5 October. One received on Friday 2 October is due by the end of Tuesday 6 October.

I have not registered with Defra yet. What should I do today?

Register your organisation at waste-tracking.defra.gov.uk with your company's Government Gateway account. GOV.UK says "Once you have registered your organisation, you will be given a unique API code. Give this code to your software provider." The code is shown in your Defra account once the registration is approved, and the approval is not instant. While you wait, write down every load as it arrives: the registration, the weight, who brought it and when. That is what you will enter the moment the code appears.

What happens to a yard that simply does not report?

Part 5 of the Digital Waste Tracking (England) Regulations 2026 is headed "Offences and civil sanctions". It creates offences (regulation 16), civil sanctions including monetary penalties and compliance notices (regulation 19), and a register of enforcement action (regulation 23). We do not quote amounts. The register is the part worth knowing about: enforcement is recorded, not whispered.

Is the first day after the deadline the same in Wales?

Yes. The Digital Waste Tracking (Wales) Regulations 2026 came into force on 1 October 2026 and regulation 4(9) carries the same deadline sentence as England's. Natural Resources Wales (Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru) monitors compliance in Wales. A Welsh yard registers with Defra at the same link and enters the 8-character EPR number from its NRW permit.

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2 October 2026

The day after the deadline. Yesterday’s cars are due Monday. It is not too late.

Q: I entered something wrong yesterday. How long do I have to fix it?

One month from the day you become aware of the error. Regulation 7(2): the operator must enter the correct information "as soon as reasonably practicable and, in any event, within one month of the date on which the operator of a permitted facility becomes aware of the error". The correction window is for errors in a record that exists. It does not extend the two working days for a record that does not.

Q: Does not having registered count as an outage?

No. Regulation 6 defines an outage as "circumstances caused by factors beyond the operator of the permitted facility's control that prevent the entry of the specified information". A system fault or no signal is inside that. A registration nobody started is not.

It is Friday 2 October 2026, the first morning after the deadline, and the gate looks exactly as it did on Wednesday. Same Transit, same lad, same tablet. The only thing that changed overnight is that the cars he booked in yesterday now have a clock on them, and the clock says Monday.

Yesterday’s cars are not late

Regulation 4(8) of the Digital Waste Tracking (England) Regulations 2026 gives you "the end of the second working day after the day on which the load of controlled waste or hazardous controlled waste is received". The day the load arrives does not count. Yesterday was Thursday. Today is the first working day. Saturday and Sunday are not working days, in the regulation’s own words. Monday is the second. A vehicle that came in yesterday is due on Defra’s system by the end of Monday 5 October. A vehicle that comes in today has until the end of Tuesday 6 October.

So nothing that happened yesterday is late yet, and nothing that happens today will be late until Tuesday night. The deadline was the day the duty started. It was not the day the first report was due.

The first days, worked from regulation 4(8) of the England regulations and regulation 4(9) of the Wales regulations. No bank holiday falls in this run of days in either nation.
Load received	On Defra’s system by
Thursday 1 October (yesterday)	End of Monday 5 October
Friday 2 October (today)	End of Tuesday 6 October
Saturday 3 October	End of Tuesday 6 October
Monday 5 October	End of Wednesday 7 October

If you have not registered, do it this morning

The one thing the clock does not wait for is the API code. GOV.UK: "The first time you use the service, you will be asked to create a Defra account", then "Once you have registered your organisation, you will be given a unique API code. Give this code to your software provider." The place is waste-tracking.defra.gov.uk, with your company’s Government Gateway account. The code is shown in your Defra account once the registration is approved. It is not emailed, and the approval is not instant.

Register today and Monday is still there to be met. Leave it until Monday and you are betting a legal deadline on an approval queue. In between, write every load down as it arrives: the registration, the weight, who brought it and when. The regulation describes the waste as received, so the record you keep today is the record you will enter, not a rough version of it.

If you got something wrong yesterday

A wrong weight, a carrier number with a digit out, the arrival time an hour off. Regulation 7(2): the operator must enter the correct information "as soon as reasonably practicable and, in any event, within one month of the date on which the operator of a permitted facility becomes aware of the error". A month, from the day you notice. The first week was always going to have a few of these in it, and the regulation knew that before you did.

One thing the month does not do: it does not stretch the two working days. It is a window for correcting a record that exists, not for creating one that does not.

What is not forgiven

Regulation 6 allows for an outage, defined as "circumstances caused by factors beyond the operator of the permitted facility’s control that prevent the entry of the specified information". No signal at the gate is inside that. A system fault is inside that. A registration nobody started is not, and yesterday we said so, and it is still true today.

Part 5 of the regulations is headed "Offences and civil sanctions". It creates offences, civil sanctions including monetary penalties and compliance notices, and a register of enforcement action. We do not quote amounts and we never have. The register is the part to know about: a yard that does not report is not quietly late, it is on a list.

Wales, the same morning

The Digital Waste Tracking (Wales) Regulations 2026 came into force yesterday as well, and regulation 4(9) carries the same sentence: "by the end of the second working day after the day on which the load of controlled waste or hazardous controlled waste is received by the operator". Yesterday’s loads into a Welsh yard are due by the end of Monday too. Natural Resources Wales monitors compliance, the registration is with Defra at the same link, and the authorisation number is the 8-character EPR number on the NRW permit.

What BreakerHQ does this morning

Book the cars in now, before the code arrives. The gate works without it: each receipt is built from the reg, the weight and the carrier, with the time the car actually arrived, and it waits. Paste the code once in Settings when it appears and the waiting receipts go to Defra, each one inside its own two working days if the code lands in time. No signal is fine, the record is kept on the device and sent when signal returns. A Welsh site sees the same screens and the same deadline, and its NRW permit number is accepted as it is.

The honest limit is unchanged. We cannot register you or fetch your code. That is your company’s account and your Government Gateway, and it is the only thing on this page that only you can do.

Book in today’s cars

Same gate, same lad, same tablet, and the cars from yesterday have until Monday night. It is not too late.