Transfer note, consignment note, Annex VII or the Defra receipt: which paper, when
The waste software adverts throw four different documents at you as if they were one thing: waste transfer notes, consignment notes, Annex VII forms, and the new digital receipt. They are four different pieces of law, and a breaker meets each one at a different point of the same car. Here is which paper goes where, and what actually changes on 1 October.
The four papers, in one look
| Paper | Waste | Where you meet it |
|---|---|---|
| Defra receipt (digital) | Any waste you receive | The car arriving, from 1 October |
| Consignment note | Hazardous | The car arriving today, and fluids leaving |
| Transfer note (WTN) | Non hazardous | The depolluted shell leaving |
| Annex VII | Green list, exported | Cats or metals shipped abroad |
The car arriving is not WTN territory
A waste transfer note covers non hazardous waste changing hands. An end of life vehicle arrives hazardous, so the paper that legally travels with it is a consignment note, and a member of the public dropping off their own car is exempt from even that. From 1 October the record for that arrival is the digital receipt reported to Defra, due by the end of the second working day. That receipt is what BreakerHQ files from the gate.
What October replaces, honestly
Defra intends the digital service to replace the information currently required on waste transfer notes and hazardous waste consignment notes. But the replacement is staged. Phase 1 puts the duty on receiving sites. Carriers, brokers and despatch side reporting follow from October 2027. Some provider marketing says paper notes are banned from October 2026. That is ahead of the law.
Where the WTN really lives for a breaker
Outbound. Once depolluted, the shell is non hazardous, and the run to the shredder is a transfer note movement. Under phase 1 it is the shredder, as the receiving site, that reports the digital receipt for that load. Your yard makes no Defra submission on despatch, though your own site records must show it, which the off site record does. The drained fluids, batteries, airbags and catalytic converters leaving for recovery stay under consignment notes, unchanged for now.
The annex form that travels everywhere
The Annex VII form accompanies green list waste exported for recovery and, in the regulation's own words, must travel with the waste at all times. The exporter fills block 1 and signs the declaration in block 12, the importer and the recovery facility sign on arrival, and both ends keep the form for three years. For a breaker it appears when cats or metals ship abroad. Sell your cats to a UK collector and the form is the collector's problem, because the collector is the exporter. Digital waste tracking does not replace Annex VII at present.
The line that saves the most paperwork
A tested, working part sold for reuse is a product, not waste. No transfer note, no consignment note, no Annex VII. The waste regimes cover material going for recovery or disposal, not parts going back on cars. That line is worth keeping crisp at the counter.
Why the adverts blur it
Most products on the GOV.UK list are built for carriers and skip firms, whose whole day is transfer notes. Their marketing says digital WTN because that is their customer's paperwork. It is not the paper on the car coming through your gate, and it is not the record the October mandate asks of your site. BreakerHQ files the record your site owes: the receipt, within two working days, from the gate.