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Your permit number on digital waste tracking in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The shapes Defra accepts, and the carrier number on every load.

Wednesday 28 October 2026. From 1 January 2027 every receipt a yard in Scotland or Northern Ireland sends to Defra carries two numbers: the permit for the site, and the registration of whoever brought the load. Defra checks both against a list of shapes, and a number that matches none of them bounces the receipt. The list is published, and here it is.

The permit number is the one that matters most, because it goes on every load you will ever report. Typed wrong once, it is wrong on all of them.

Which number does Defra want from my yard?

Defra’s specification calls it the authorisation number: “the site’s authorisation (permit) number that allows it to accept waste”. “Only one authorisation number is required per site.” If your company runs two sites, each site gives its own.

Defra does not check which nation you are in. Its rule is “All UK nation formats are accepted (no nation-specific validation)”. It checks only that the number has a shape on the list, and if it does not, the answer is “Site authorisation number must be in a valid UK format”. That message does not tell you which character is wrong. The table above is the closest thing to a hint.

What does a Scottish permit number look like?

Defra lists fifteen Scottish shapes. Most begin PPC or WML, then a letter, then seven digits, such as PPC/A/1234567 or WML/L/1234567, some with two more digits on the end. Two carry SEPA in the middle, such as PPC/A/SEPA1234-5678. And one begins EAS/P/, with six digits.

Which one is yours depends on your paperwork, and the paperwork changed last year. SEPA: “In most cases, existing authorisations automatically move under EASR on 1 November 2025”. Give Defra the number on the paperwork SEPA sent you most recently. If you have a letter from SEPA about EASR in the office, read it before you set anything up.

What does a Northern Ireland permit or licence number look like?

Northern Ireland has its own shapes, and Defra explains them more than any other nation’s. Its examples: a permit with a division, P1234/56A. A version on the end, P1234/56A/V1. What Defra calls a Waste Prevention and Control number, WPPC 12/34. A waste management licence, with a file reference beginning WML and a licence number beginning LN, which can carry letters on the end for a modification, variation, transfer or closure, such as LN/13/02/M/V2. And one granted on appeal to the Planning Appeals Commission, PAC/2014/WCL001.

Northern Ireland’s digital waste tracking regulations are still not on legislation.gov.uk. Defra’s service already knows Northern Ireland’s numbers. The law that will require them is not published yet. The deadline for each load there is not published, and we covered what is settled in yesterday’s Northern Ireland piece.

What about the carrier’s number?

The second number belongs to whoever brought the load. For a Scottish carrier, Defra gives the “Current format – WCR/R/1234567” and still accepts the older SEPA ones, SCO/, SEA/, SNO/, SWE/ and WCR/ with six digits, and the PCT- references. For a Northern Irish carrier it is ROC, then UT for upper tier or LT for lower tier, then the number. Defra: “the spaces are not mandatory”, so ROCUT1234 is accepted as well as ROC UT 1234.

Copy it off the carrier’s paperwork, not out of your head. A recovery driver who has delivered to you for ten years still has a number you have never had a reason to read.

What if the person delivering has no carrier number?

Then the number stays empty and Defra asks why. There are four reasons, and only four.

At a vehicle dismantler, the first one is the family who drove their own car in. The second is the neighbour who brought it on a trailer once. A recovery firm that brings you three cars a week is neither, and needs a number.

How do I know Defra will take my number before January?

Send it a real load. SEPA says the service is “now open for voluntary use”, and DAERA says the public beta has been open to receivers since April 2026. A receipt accepted in December proves the permit number is right for every receipt after it. A receipt rejected in December costs you nothing but ten minutes. The same rejection on Wednesday 6 January, the first night a Scottish load can be late, costs you more than that.

The GOV.UK list of approved software is the same list for all four nations, and the page names Scotland and Northern Ireland itself. There is no second list, and we wrote up how we checked in There is no Scottish list.

What BreakerHQ does

You type the permit number once, in Settings, and it goes on every receipt from then on. The box takes any UK shape, Scottish and Northern Irish included, and so do the carrier boxes at the gate. If Defra does not take your permit number, the car’s record says the authorisation number is not valid, with a link straight to the setting that fixes it. The car stays booked in while you fix it.

Three honest gaps for a yard outside England. The carrier box shows an English number as its example. Our check of the carrier against the public register reads England’s register only, so a genuine Scottish or Northern Irish number comes back as not found there, and the screen says the number is not at fault. And some screens quote England’s regulation numbers. None of the three changes what Defra receives.

There is nothing to install and no training to book. Sign in on the phone or tablet you already have, put in the permit number and your Defra code, and book in a real car in December.

Sign in and start

The permit in the frame by the office door has been on the wall for years and nobody has had to read the number out loud. From January, the yard reads it to Defra with every load. Read it once, carefully, in December.