Landfill Disposals Tax statistics: January to March 2026
The quarterly statistical release for Landfill Disposals Tax (LDT) published by the Welsh Revenue Authority (WRA). Data includes the weight of and tax due on waste disposed to landfill.
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In this page
Introduction
Landfill Disposals Tax (LDT) is a tax on waste disposed to landfill, charged by weight, and landfill site operators pay the tax. There are 17 authorised landfill site operators covering 21 sites. The intention of the tax is to reduce the amount of waste going into landfill and encourage less harmful methods of waste management such as recycling and incineration.
LDT can be broken down into:
- authorised disposals (at the lower or standard rate)
- unauthorised disposals (taxable disposals made outside of authorised landfill sites)
The Welsh Government sets the tax rates. For lower and standard rates, the previous Welsh Government matched the rates in the rest of the UK for all financial years up to 2024-25. In 2025-26, the standard rate continued to match those in the rest of the UK while the lower rate was set at 5% of standard rate. This resulted in a small increase to the lower rate relative to the rest of the UK.
LDT statistics are a valuable source of data on the amount of waste going into landfill.
Forecasting LDT revenues for Wales in future is an important use of LDT statistics. The Office for Budget Responsibility produce LDT forecasts to coincide with Welsh Government and UK Government budgets.
The glossary defines relevant terms used in this release and has been updated in this edition of the release. Our key quality information describes how LDT statistics satisfy the Code of Practice for Statistics.
LDT statistics are accredited official statistics. In February 2022, the Office for Statistics Regulation independently reviewed and accredited these statistics as complying with the standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.
Our statistical output policy explains the policies and procedures we have in place for publishing official statistics. We also publish the list of posts which have pre-release access to our statistics, including for LDT.
Main points
For concluded unauthorised disposals cases, the WRA has collected £0.3 million as at May 2026. While the number of cases concluded is currently small, in the past several years there has been considerable work to develop policies, investigate and test WRA powers on a variety of case types. The WRA continues to receive new and progress existing unauthorised disposals cases. Annually in our LDT statistics (next in May 2027), we’ll publish further data updates on unauthorised disposals. We’ll also publish an update on debt from unauthorised disposals in a release later this year.
For authorised waste disposals to landfill in January to March 2026:
- There were 168 thousand tonnes of authorised disposals. This is a 16% decrease compared with the same period in 2025.
- Within this total, there were 35 thousand tonnes of disposals at the standard rate. This was the lowest figure seen to date, coming immediately after the previous lowest figure of 45 thousand tonnes disposed in October to December 2025. The latest fall was influenced by several operators and it remains to be seen if this trend will continue. Although the latest 2 quarters were particularly low, this may rise in the coming quarters. We have continued to see seasonal patterns in the levels of waste disposed, with generally higher volumes in summer months and lower volumes in winter months.
- Lower rate disposals decreased by 4% to 111 thousand tonnes. Decreases for fines material and ‘other lower rate’ were partly offset by an increase for ‘concrete, bricks, tiles and ceramics’.
- These disposals resulted in £5.1 million of tax due. This is 19% lower than the same period in 2025 and the lowest quarterly figure seen to date. There were multiple factors influencing this trend. For 2025-26, there were increases in LDT rates above forecast inflation. The Welsh Government also increased the lower rate to 5% of the standard rate. Though the weight of standard rate disposals fell by 38% from the same quarter a year earlier, as described under Figure 1, the corresponding tax due only decreased by £1.4 million or 25%. The tax due from lower rate increased from £0.4 million to £0.7 million.
- ‘Other lower rate’ accounted for 35% of the weight of waste disposed at the lower rate. ‘Concrete, bricks, tiles and ceramics’ accounted for 29%, the largest quarterly figure seen to date for this category. Fines material accounted for 22%, the lowest quarterly figure seen to date for the category. ‘Soils and stones’ each accounted for 14%, the second lowest figure seen to date for the category.
- 5 landfill site operators accounted for 99% of the total tax due, the highest quarterly percentage seen to date. The corresponding percentages for the 9 previous quarters were also above 90%.
For authorised waste disposals to landfill in April 2025 to March 2026:
- There were 896 thousand tonnes of authorised disposals. This is an increase of 11% when compared with April 2024 to March 2025. Increases in relieved and discounted disposals and lower rate disposals were partially offset by a fall in standard rate disposals.
- These disposals resulted in £31.7 million tax due. This is 3% higher than the tax due for April 2024 to March 2025.
- Fines material accounted for 25% of the weight of waste disposed at the lower rate of tax, the lowest annual percentage seen to date for this type of material. ‘Concrete, bricks, tiles and ceramics’ accounted for 27%, the highest annual percentage seen for this category. Soils and stones accounted for 19% and ‘other lower rate’ accounted for 29% of lower rate disposals.
- The 5 landfill site operators paying the most tax accounted for 96% of the total tax due.
Statistician’s comment
Dave Jones, a statistician in the WRA, commented on these statistics:
In January to March, the Landfill Disposals Tax due was £5.1 million. The tax due is 19% lower than the same period a year earlier and the lowest quarterly figure seen to date. The weight of standard rate disposals this quarter was also the lowest seen to date and was largely responsible for the fall in tax due. While the weight of standard rate disposals was particularly low in the latest two quarters, this is likely to rise over the summer in line with seasonal trends in these disposals seen in previous years.
For unauthorised disposals, the small number of concluded cases in the past four years resulted in the WRA collecting £0.3 million in tax. Despite this total remaining the same as reported a year ago, nearly £0.5 million in tax was charged in the past year which is being actively pursued through legal and enforcement routes.
Analysis
Unauthorised disposals
The WRA has been collecting and managing tax relating to the unauthorised disposals rate of LDT. For the four year period (2022-23 to 2025-26), we’ve collected £0.3 million from concluded cases. This is the same as the figure we published a year ago relating to the three year period (2022-23 to 2024-25). A small amount of tax has been collected in the past year but the overall rounded total remains at £0.3 million.
The unauthorised disposals team was created to issue tax charges on unauthorised disposals, which are taxable disposals made outside of authorised landfill sites. Since formation, the team have been developing policies and investigating and testing our powers on a variety of case types.
As at May 2026, the unauthorised disposals team finalised investigations on 23 cases. This is an increase from the 16 cases finalised as at May 2025. Of these 23:
- 12 cases were closed with tax due (4 of these closed in the past year). In some of these cases, the tax has been fully paid (what we define below as ‘concluded cases’). In other cases, the tax is currently unpaid or partially paid.
- 5 cases received warning letters (2 cases in the past year)
- 6 cases were investigated and closed with no further action (1 case in the past year)
‘Concluded tax cases’ are a subset of closed cases with tax due, and a concept we haven’t published statistics about for our other taxes. For unauthorised disposals, we are restricting our statistics to tax collected from concluded cases because this is a new area of tax addressing less compliant behaviour. For what we define as concluded cases:
- the tax is fully paid to the WRA, and
- the tax amount is not being appealed by the taxpayer
The WRA continues to receive new and progress existing unauthorised disposals cases. Annually in our LDT statistics (the January to March edition published each May), we’ll publish further updates on unauthorised disposals.
Debt from unauthorised disposals
More generally we are planning to publish detailed statistics around tax debt in our releases later this year.
However, this release points to an increase in debt across unauthorised cases. The WRA has charged an additional £469 thousand in additional tax in 2025-26, which is now being actively pursued through legal and enforcement routes.
This debt is influenced by a combination of operational, economic and behavioural factors, rather than a single cause. The WRA continues to review how debt is collected to strengthen and improve the processes and opportunities available to secure payment of tax due.
Authorised disposals
The analysis in this release includes some statistical corrections that have been applied. The reasons why we make statistical corrections include:
- where we know that information on a tax return is incorrect and we are awaiting a taxpayer amendment to be submitted to us
- where a taxpayer amendment is being reviewed by the LDT operations team for its validity, we may make statistical corrections to undo the effect of the amendment within our statistics
Table 1 below shows percentage changes for the latest quarter against the same period a year earlier. Some percentage changes are large as they are based on small numbers, therefore we advise caution on interpreting any large percentage changes shown.
Table 1: Weight of waste disposed to landfill and percentage change from previous value a year earlier
| Disposed weight [thousand tonnes] - Jan to Mar 2025 | Disposed weight [thousand tonnes] - Jan to Mar 2026 [provisional] | % change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard rate | 55 | 35 | -38% |
| Lower rate, of which: | 115 | 111 | -4% |
| Fines material [note 1] | 29 | 24 | -17% |
| Soil and stones [note 2] | 14 | 15 | 9% |
| Concrete, bricks, tiles and ceramics [note 2] | 28 | 32 | 13% |
| Other lower rate [note 2] | 44 | 39 | -11% |
| Relieved or discounted [note 3] | 29 | 22 | -22% |
| Total | 200 | 168 | -16% |
Table 2: Tax due on waste disposed to landfill and percentage change from previous value a year earlier
| Tax due [£ millions] - Jan to Mar 2025 | Tax due [£ millions] - Jan to Mar 2026 [provisional] | % change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard rate | 5.8 | 4.4 | -25% |
| Lower rate | 0.4 | 0.7 | 71% |
| Total | 6.2 | 5.1 | -19% |
| Relieved tax amount [note 4] | 0.1 | [c] | [c] |
Table 3: Tax due on waste disposed to landfill, by financial year waste was disposed
| Tax due [£ millions] | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial year | Lower rate | Standard rate | Total | Relieved tax amount [note 4] |
| 2018-19 | 1.2 | 47.1 | 48.4 | 0.9 |
| 2019-20 | 1.2 | 35.7 | 36.9 | 0.2 |
| 2020-21 | 1.4 | 30.5 | 31.9 | 0.3 |
| 2021-22 | 1.5 | 43.4 | 45.0 | 0.3 |
| 2022-23 | 1.6 | 40.5 | 42.1 | 0.7 |
| 2023-24 | 1.6 | 27.8 | 29.4 | 0.5 |
| 2024-25 | 1.4 | 29.5 | 30.8 | 0.3 |
| 2025-26 [p] | 2.8 | 28.9 | 31.7 | 1.3 |
Source: Landfill Disposals Tax statistics, by tax rate, measure and reporting period on StatsWales
[Note 1] Fines are particles of material produced by a mechanical waste treatment process. Landfill site operators must ensure certain criteria are met for the material to be treated as qualifying fines at the lower rate of tax. Please see the glossary page for further information.
[Note 2] Data for these categories represents non-qualifying fines material, grouped by List of Waste (LoW) code. The groupings used for these three categories is presented in our glossary page.
[Note 3] This includes weight of water removed from disposed waste, which is zero rated, and the weight of all waste which is subject to any LDT relief.
[Note 4] This is the reduction in tax due to the applications of reliefs. The amount does not include any element for water discount, which is not taxed.
Figure 1: Weight of waste disposed to landfill, by tax rate and quarter
Description of Figure 1: The line chart shows that in the past 5 years, seasonal variations have generally been seen in the quarterly weight of standard rate disposals, with generally higher levels of disposals in April to June and July to September than the other 2 quarters in a year and the lowest quarterly figure seen to date in January to March 2026. Lower rate disposals fluctuated, appearing to follow no set pattern. Relieved or discounted disposals have mainly been at a low level, except for higher numbers in April to June 2022, throughout 2023 and the second half of 2025.
Source: Landfill Disposals Tax statistics, by tax rate, measure and reporting period on StatsWales
[Note 1] This includes weight of water removed from disposed waste, which is zero rated, and the weight of all waste which is subject to any LDT relief.
[p] The values for January to March 2026 are provisional and will be revised in a future publication.
Table 1 shows that in January to March 2026, there were 168 thousand tonnes of authorised disposals. This is 16% lower than the same period in 2025.
Within this total, there were 35 thousand tonnes of disposals at the standard rate. This was the lowest figure seen to date, coming immediately after the previous lowest figure of 45 thousand tonnes disposed in October to December 2025. The latest fall was influenced by a several operators and it remains to be seen if this trend will continue. Although the latest 2 quarters were particularly low, this may rise in the coming quarters. We have continued to see seasonal patterns in the levels of waste disposed, with generally higher volumes in summer months and lower volumes in winter months.
The 111 thousand tonnes disposed at the lower rate was 4% lower than January to March 2025. Commentary below Figures 3 and 4 analyses the categories within lower rate data contributing to this trend.
Relieved or discounted disposals continued to fall markedly from the high of 115 thousand tonnes seen in July to September 2025 to 22 thousand tonnes in January to March 2026, and is now back at a similar level to the 6 quarters prior to July 2025. The level of relieved or discounted waste has varied greatly over time. This is usually dependent on circumstances at specific landfill sites. For example, when a landfill cell becomes full, there could be a temporary higher level of site restoration relief claimed by the operator for materials to cap the cell. Therefore, it’s not straightforward to determine whether the amounts of relieved or discounted waste will rise or fall in future from historic trends.
Figure 2: Tax due on waste disposed to landfill, by tax rate and quarter
Description of Figure 2: The line chart shows that quarterly tax due from standard rate disposals followed a similar seasonal trend to the weight of disposals shown in the previous chart. The tax due from lower rate disposals was £0.7 million in each of the past 4 quarters, as the lower rate of tax nearly doubled for 2025-26 from the previous year. Tax due from lower rate disposals previously ranged between £0.3 million and £0.4 million each quarter.
Source: Landfill Disposals Tax statistics, by tax rate, measure and reporting period on StatsWales
[p] The values for January to March 2026 are provisional and will be revised in a future publication.
Disposals in January to March 2026 resulted in £5.1 million of tax due. This is 19% lower than the same period in 2025 and the lowest quarterly figure seen to date. There were multiple factors influencing this trend. For 2025-26, there were increases in LDT rates above forecast inflation. The Welsh Government also increased the lower rate to 5% of the standard rate. Though the weight of standard rate disposals fell by 38% from the same quarter a year earlier, as described under Figure 1, the corresponding tax due only decreased by £1.4 million or 25%. The tax due from lower rate increased from £0.4 million to £0.7 million.
There is evidence of a seasonal pattern in the standard rate data, with shorter days in winter months potentially a factor in the level of disposals.
For January to March 2026, the 5 landfill site operators paying the most tax accounted for 99% of total tax due, the highest quarterly percentage seen to date. This figure remained above 90% for the previous 9 quarters.
The relieved tax amount is not shown on the chart. In January to March 2026, this figure was suppressed to protect the confidentiality of taxpayers. This figure was £0.7 million in July to September 2025 and previously ranged from very little up to £0.3 million each quarter.
Revisions to the weight of waste disposed and tax due for October to December 2025
As described in the Methods section of this , our estimation processes result in provisional estimates for the latest quarter being routinely revised in the next edition of the statistical release. These revisions are often relatively small.
Compared with estimates published in our previous statistical release, we have revised the October to December 2025 data as follows:
- the weight of waste disposed at the standard rate remained at 45 thousand tonnes
- the weight of waste disposed at the lower rate was revised downwards from 121 thousand tonnes to 117 thousand tonnes
- the total tax due was revised downwards from £6.5 million to £6.4 million
Figure 3: Weight of lower rate waste disposed to landfill, by type of waste and quarter
Description of Figure 3: The line chart shows that the disposed weight of fines material fell slightly in the latest 3 quarters after increasing for 3 successive quarters prior to that. ‘Other lower rate’ was the highest category with ‘concrete, bricks, tiles and ceramics’ being the second highest category. Soils and stones was the lowest category overall with the latest quarter being the second lowest figure seen to date for the category.
Figure 4: Percentage of lower rate disposals of each waste type, by quarter
Description of Figure 4: The bar chart shows that in January to March 2026, the percentage of lower rate weight accounted for by fines material decreased from the previous period to 22%, the lowest quarterly percentage seen to date. The figure for ‘concrete, bricks, tiles and ceramics’ was 29%, the highest quarterly figure seen to date for this category. ‘Other lower rate’ disposals accounted for just over a third of lower rate disposals while soils. Stones accounted for 14%, the second lowest percentage seen to date.
Source: Landfill Disposals Tax statistics, by tax rate, measure and reporting period on StatsWales
[Note 1] Fines are particles of material produced by a mechanical waste treatment process. Landfill site operators must ensure certain criteria are met for the material to be treated as qualifying fines at the lower rate of tax. Please see the glossary page for further information.
[Note 2] Data for these categories represents non-qualifying fines material, grouped by List of Waste (LoW) code. The groupings used for these three categories are presented in our glossary page.
[p] The values for January to March 2026 are provisional and will be revised in a future publication.
Table 1 earlier in the release showed that in January to March 2026, 24 thousand tonnes of fines material was disposed at the lower rate of tax. This is 17% lower than the same period a year earlier, the joint second lowest quarterly figure seen to date. We expect that at least some of the relatively low level of fines material in the past 8 quarters is a temporary effect at certain sites.
Figure 4 shows that since April 2021, the quarterly percentage of lower rate waste accounted for by fines material varied between 22% and 58%. The lowest value was seen this quarter and the highest values was in April to June 2021.
Since April 2021, the quarterly percentage of lower rate waste accounted for by soils and stones varied from 12% to 31%. The lowest and highest values were seen in January to March 2025 and January to March 2022, respectively. The value this quarter was 14%, the second lowest percentage seen to date.
The percentage of lower rate disposals classified as ‘other’ generally rose from 3% in April to June 2021 to 41% in July to September 2024, generally falling in subsequent quarters to 35% in January to March 2026. In future releases, it’s unlikely that we will be able to provide more detail on this category. This is due to challenges around potentially revealing information on individual operators.
To date, we haven’t observed any seasonal variations in the lower rate data but will continue to monitor this in future releases.
Table 4: Percentage of lower rate fines material received under each relevant List of Waste (LoW) code, April 2021 to March 2026
| LoW code | Description | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 19 12 12 | Other wastes (including mixtures of materials) from mechanical treatment of wastes other than those mentioned in 19 12 11 | 80% |
| 19 12 09 | Minerals (for example sand, stones) | 20% |
| 17 05 04 | Soil and stones other than those mentioned in 17 05 03 | 0% |
We previously received a request to break down data for lower rate fines material by List of Waste code. We then began publishing this table in the October to December 2022 edition of this release. In the releases since, we have updated these approximate percentages to include data for the most recent quarter, which resulted in no change to the percentages. We will continue updating these percentages in a similar way in future.
Receipts of LDT
We also publish quarterly receipts data for LDT on StatsWales. This data is based on the date the payment was received, sometimes referred to as ‘on a cash basis’.
Landfill Disposals Tax statistics on tax paid, by time period on StatsWales
These data usually differ slightly from the data on tax due. This is because the figures are influenced by the exact accounting periods agreed with the LDT operators and the resulting payment dates. This can lead to payments falling into different quarters to the activity they cover. Generally, figures for cash receipts broadly align with the total due for the previous quarter. Cash receipt data will:
- include very small amounts of penalties and interest paid relating to LDT
- exclude any amounts of unpaid LDT, including penalties and interest. We manage any instances through our debt management processes.
Accounting adjustments made in a financial year different to that when the waste was disposed
In the spreadsheet published on the headline page, Table 3 contains details of adjustments made to reflect waste disposed in one year that was accounted for in a different year within the WRA financial accounts. We update Table 3 annually in the edition of the release which follows the publication of the WRA financial accounts.
Differences between disposal years and accounting years can happen when a taxpayer amendment to the disposals is notified by a landfill site operator. In some situations these amendments may be accepted, or lead to an enquiry, after which the amendment may be confirmed, rejected or reversed (if it had previously been accepted). All these scenarios might lead to accounting adjustments. The position may be further complicated by an appeal to the tribunal and a consequent further delay in accounting. Accounting adjustments may be made where there is uncertainty whether tax will eventually be due, ahead of the outcome of any appeal to the tribunal being determined.
Methods used in this release
Estimates for operators with non-standard accounting periods
Most landfill site operators report to the WRA using standard accounting periods. These align with the end of our reporting quarters.
A small number of landfill site operators use different start and end dates for reporting to the WRA. We explain here how we account for this issue when producing estimates for the current and previous reporting quarters.
In the example shown below:
- operator 1 has a standard accounting period
- operator 2 has agreed a different accounting period with the WRA. The start and end points are different to our standard reporting quarters.
The diagram shows a timeline of the previous return and latest return for Operators 1 and 2. Letters A, B and C denote parts of the previous and latest return for Operator 2 and how these are used in the calculation.
A + B: two thirds of the previous return and one third of the latest return are used to give estimates for the previous quarter.
C: The portion of the return covering the latest period is uplifted to give estimates for the current quarter. The uplift is pro-rata based on the number of days in the current quarter covered by the return.
Reliefs and discounts
In our quality information, we describe how we introduced a new tax return from April 2021. In the new return, landfill site operators record any relieved waste and any water discounts in separate parts of the return. In this release, we combine these two categories to present a ‘relieved or discounted’ category.
In the previous tax return, landfill site operators would initially record relieved waste as lower rate waste then subtract it off in a later part of their return. However, our previous releases would report relieved waste within the ‘relieved or discounted’ category but not as part of the lower rate category, so this has not led to a change in the presentation of data over time.
In our quality information, we have added new information on the reasons for differences between data from LDT returns and Natural Resources Wales data collection on input and output waste at permitted waste sites. This is relevant for relieved waste.
Customer insolvency
The LDT system allows for a credit to be made against the tax due for customer insolvency. This is when a customer of the landfill site operator has gone out of business and is unable to pay the operator for the waste disposed to landfill.
Previously, a very small amount of credit was claimed by one operator in the reporting quarter July to September 2018. However, the WRA rejected this claim and tax was due on this amount.
A small amount of credit was claimed by one operator for the reporting quarter July to September 2019. The WRA approved this claim. In this statistical release, we have subtracted the amount claimed from the total tax due.
Exempt disposals
Certain disposals of material can be treated as exempt from LDT and therefore are not reported to the WRA. We do not collect data on these exempt disposals.
Contact details
Dave Jones
Email: data@wra.gov.wales
Rydym yn croesawu galwadau a gohebiaeth yn Gymraeg / We welcome calls and correspondence in Welsh.
Media
Email: news@wra.gov.wales
Rydym yn croesawu galwadau a gohebiaeth yn Gymraeg / We welcome calls and correspondence in Welsh.
