Types of environmental licence

Please Note: Starting in 2024, Licences, Permits and Authorisations from SEPA and the NIEA will start to be transferred to a new system. Businesses will eventually need a Single Authorisation from their environmental regulator.

This Single Authorisation will include conditions covering all relevant activities that at present require some form of permit. 

This new system will be introduced in stages, and information will be made available in good time to all businesses affected by these changes. 

In the meantime:

You may require authorisation, in the form of permits, licences, consents, registrations, notifications or exemptions, in order to carry out certain types of business activity. You must comply with the conditions that are part of the authorisation. These aim to control the impact of your activities on the environment.

In most cases, you'll need to apply to either:

  • In Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA). District councils and water companies are in charge of some types of authorisation.
  • In Scotland, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). Water companies are in charge of some types of authorisation.

You will need authorisation if you:

  • carry out certain listed activities at an installation or mobile plant, such as industrial activities, or carry out waste disposal or recovery activities, such as metals recycling or waste transfer stations

- see the page in this guideline: Pollution prevention and control permits and waste management licences

  • discharge anything other than clean rainwater into surface waters or groundwater

- see the page in this guideline: Authorisations and consents for discharges

  • discharge trade effluent into the public foul sewer

- see the page in this guideline: Trade effluent consents and agreements

  • take water from surface waters or groundwater, or obstruct them in any way

- see the page in this guideline:  Water abstraction and impoundment authorisations

  • transport waste, or arrange for someone else to do so

- see the page in this guideline: Waste carrier, broker and dealer registration

  • produce or move hazardous/special waste

- see the page in this guideline: Hazardous/special waste notification

  • keep, use or dispose of radioactive substances

- see the page in this guideline: Radioactive substances certificates

  • produce greenhouse gas emissions that are covered by the European Union or UK emissions trading system.

- see our guidelines: EU and UK emissions trading scheme and ESOS

Further information

Contact your environmental regulator

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