Two rates

Landfill tax is charged per tonne on anything that goes into a landfill in England and Northern Ireland (Scotland and Wales have their own versions at similar rates). There are two rates. The standard rate — £130.75 a tonne from 1 April 2026 — applies to everything unless it qualifies for the lower rate, which is £8.65 a tonne and covers a fixed list of inert materials: soil, rocks, concrete, bricks, tiles, ceramics, glass and a few industrial by-products.

The lower rate was £4.05 until April 2026. It more than doubled. If your gate fees for inert loads jumped this spring, that’s why.

Who pays it

The landfill operator pays HMRC. They pass it on to whoever brought the load. If you tip at a transfer station or a recycling yard instead of a landfill, you don’t see the tax as a line — but the yard pays it on whatever it can’t recycle, and that’s in your gate fee. Cleaner loads cost them less, so they should cost you less.

The trap: mixed loads

A tonne of clean rubble is a lower-rate load. A tonne of rubble with a bit of plasterboard, a broken pallet and a bag of general waste on top is a standard-rate load — the whole thing, not just the contaminated bit. That’s the difference between about £9 and about £131 in tax before the site’s own fee. On a clearance job, keeping soil and rubble separate from the rest is the single biggest thing you can do to the tip bill.

What it means for a quote

The tip cost is the part of a clearance price that most operators under-estimate, because they price by van load and then get charged by weight. A rough method:

  1. Look at the pile and split it: inert (soil, rubble, hardcore), general mixed, green waste, and anything with its own charge (mattresses, sofas, fridges, tyres).
  2. Put a weight on each. A builder’s bag of rubble is roughly 0.8 to 1 tonne. A Transit load of mixed clearance waste is usually 1 to 1.5 tonnes.
  3. Multiply by your tip’s per-tonne price for each type, and add the per-item charges.
  4. That’s your disposal cost. Labour, fuel and margin go on top.
Worked example
Garage clearance: 0.6 t of rubble (lower rate, kept separate) and 1.2 t of mixed waste, plus one sofa. At a site charging £30/t inert and £175/t mixed with a £25 sofa charge, disposal is £18 + £210 + £25 = £253 before you've paid yourself. Tip the lot as one mixed load and it's £315 + £25 = £340.

WasteBoss prices the job from what’s in the pile — items, weights and your own tip prices — so the number you say is the number you keep. Join the early access list to be told when it’s ready, or write a transfer note free today.