How to Verify a UK Waste Carrier Registration Programmatically

Send a POST request to the WasteCheck API with the carrier's registration number, business name, or postcode. The /v1/verify-carrier endpoint checks the Environment Agency public register and returns the registration status, tier (upper or lower), expiry date, days until expiry, and any compliance flags — all in a single JSON response.

Why you can't just use the EA register directly

The Environment Agency maintains a searchable public register at environment.data.gov.uk. It's freely accessible, but it's a web interface built for manual lookups — there's no documented public API designed for programmatic access at scale, with structured responses, rate limiting, or error handling. For one-off checks it works fine. For any volume of transfers, it doesn't.

How WasteCheck handles it

WasteCheck's /v1/verify-carrier endpoint wraps the EA register into a developer-friendly API. A single request returns everything you need for compliance.

curl -X POST https://api.wastecheck.co.uk/v1/verify-carrier \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer wc_live_your_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"registration_number": "CBDU217016"}'

{
  "status": "valid",
  "registrations": [{
    "registration_number": "CBDU217016",
    "business_name": "ACME WASTE SERVICES LTD",
    "tier": "upper",
    "status": "valid",
    "expiry_date": "2027-01-15",
    "days_until_expiry": 298,
    "expiry_warning": false
  }],
  "compliance": {
    "is_compliant": true,
    "flags": [],
    "recommendation": "Registration is valid and current."
  }
}

Three search modes

You can search by registration number (fastest, cached for 24 hours), by business name, or by postcode (both cached for 1 hour). Registration number lookups are definitive. Name and postcode searches may return multiple results, flagged with MULTIPLE_REGISTRATIONS_FOUND.

Compliance flags

The API returns flags that save you writing your own expiry logic:

• EXPIRING_WITHIN_90_DAYS — upper tier registration approaching renewal
• LOWER_TIER_ONLY — carrier may not meet requirements for commercial waste
• MULTIPLE_REGISTRATIONS_FOUND — name or postcode search returned more than one match

Upper tier vs lower tier

Upper tier registrations (CBDU prefix) cover most commercial carriers and expire every three years. Lower tier registrations (CBDL) are for businesses carrying only their own waste and don't expire. If you're handing waste to a third-party carrier, you need to confirm they hold an upper tier registration.

Why this matters from October 2026

DEFRA's Digital Waste Tracking mandate requires carrier registration numbers as a mandatory field for every waste movement record. Waste receiving sites must submit this data from October 2026. If you're building software that handles waste movements, automated carrier verification is no longer optional.

Get started

Sign up at app.wastecheck.co.uk — the free tier gives you 50 API calls per month to test your integration. Full endpoint documentation is at docs.wastecheck.co.uk.