Business guidance

Environment & Sustainability

Account for Landfill Disposals Tax in Wales

If you operate a landfill site in Wales, you must register with the Welsh Revenue Authority before you start taxable disposals, then file a return and pay Landfill Disposals Tax every quarter. Anyone who makes or knowingly permits an unauthorised disposal can be charged the tax too.

Environment & Sustainability

Account for Scottish Landfill Tax

If you hold the permit for a landfill site in Scotland, you must notify Revenue Scotland that you are making taxable disposals, then file a return and pay Scottish Landfill Tax every quarter. Businesses that only send waste to landfill pay through the operator and do not register.

Food, Drink & Hospitality

Get authorisation for a water activity in Scotland (EASR)

In Scotland, any activity affecting surface water or groundwater, such as abstraction, engineering or discharges, needs SEPA authorisation, and doing it without one is a criminal offence. SEPA decides which of four risk-based tiers your activity falls into, from general binding rules to a permit.

Environment & Sustainability

Meet your environmental permits, waste and construction duties for remediation

Treating contaminated soil or waste on site needs an environmental permit or registered exemption, and moving waste off site needs carrier registration. Every load needs duty of care paperwork, and because remediation is often construction work that disturbs asbestos, CDM and asbestos rules apply too.

Environment & Sustainability

Meet your sewerage regulatory duties

In England and Wales, you need an appointment from Ofwat to provide sewerage services as an undertaker. Discharging treated effluent to rivers or groundwater needs an environmental permit, and spreading sewage sludge on farmland is controlled.

Environment & Sustainability

Meet your waste management regulatory duties

Before you transport waste or arrange its disposal, you must register as a waste carrier, broker or dealer, and every waste facility needs an environmental permit. The duty of care covers all your waste, and each hazardous waste movement needs a consignment note.

Retail & Consumer Goods

Register as a waste carrier and move hazardous waste in Northern Ireland

To carry or broker waste in Northern Ireland you must register with the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, even if you already hold a Great Britain registration. Hazardous waste must travel on a consignment note with an NIEA code, and most movements must be pre-notified.

Retail & Consumer Goods

Register as a waste carrier and move special waste in Scotland

If your business carries waste in Scotland, even its own, you must register with SEPA before you move it. Hazardous waste is called special waste in Scotland, and every load must travel on a consignment note that carries a SEPA code, with the paperwork kept for inspection.

Retail & Consumer Goods

Separate your business recycling and food waste in Scotland

Every business in Scotland must take reasonable steps to have glass, metals, plastics, paper and card collected separately from general waste. Most food businesses must separate food waste too, and outside rural areas food waste must be kept out of drains and sewers.

Agriculture & Farming

Understanding the Water Framework Directive for businesses

If your business abstracts water, discharges to rivers or groundwater, or works in or near a watercourse, the Water Framework Directive shapes your permits. Regulators must refuse or condition any permit that would let a water body fall a status class, and each part of the UK applies it through its own regulations.

Energy & Utilities

Working in the civil nuclear industry

Regulatory compliance requirements for businesses operating in the civil nuclear industry including site licensing, security vetting, liability insurance, and decommissioning obligations under Office for Nuclear Regulation oversight.

Tax & Finance

Check if you need to register for VAT

You must register for VAT when your taxable turnover passes the registration threshold in any rolling 12 months, or when you expect it to pass the threshold within the next 30 days alone. Under the first test, register within 30 days of the end of the month. Late registration brings penalties and backdated VAT.

Compliance & Legal

File your confirmation statement

File a confirmation statement every 12 months, within 14 days after your review period ends. Filing late is a criminal offence for the company and its officers.

Premises & Operations

Meet your business waste duty of care

Every business that produces, stores or disposes of waste has a duty of care under section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, and stays responsible after it hands the waste on. Use only registered waste carriers, complete waste transfer notes correctly, and follow the stricter rules for hazardous waste.

Compliance & Legal

Verify your identity for Companies House as a director or PSC

Yes, if you are an individual director or PSC of a UK company, or an individual director of an overseas company registered in the UK. Corporate directors and officers of corporate PSCs are not yet required to verify. The transition for existing directors and PSCs ends on 17 November 2026.