You are a Phase 2 duty holder on paper, but your real deadline is a year earlier. Here is your whole situation in one place.
Your deadline, and your real deadline
Carriers are formally mandatory from October 2027, which is planned and has moved before. But from October 2026 receiving sites must record your details on every inbound load, so they will demand clean digital handover data from you a year ahead. A load that turns up without it can be refused at the gate. That is the downstream squeeze, and it makes October 2026 your real deadline.
Your duty
You record the waste movements you transport, capturing the journey from the point of production.
What to do now
Get your EWC codes and waste descriptions clean, because that is the data receivers will check
Begin software readiness rather than waiting for 2027
Watch for the Phase 2 API documentation, expected autumn 2026
How LoadSnap helps
Capture a collection from a photo, let the AI classify the waste, and hand clean data to the sites you deliver to. With LoadSnap Connect, your load links straight into a receiver's receipt, so the handover is a scan rather than a re-type.
Related: What DEFRA Phase 2 covers. The carrier workflow and the downstream squeeze. Introducing LoadSnap Connect. Drivers. Vehicles.