Italy has postponed the introduction of a geolocation requirement for the transport of hazardous waste. The Italian Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security (MASE) has pushed the deadline back to 13 September 2027 through Decreto Direttoriale n. 275 of 12 October 2026. At the same time, the way the tracking device is linked to a vehicle is changing: no longer via the chassis number, but solely via the license plate.
What is RENTRI
The requirement is part of RENTRI, the Registro Elettronico Nazionale per la Tracciabilità dei Rifiuti: Italy’s digital registration system for waste traceability. RENTRI is run by MASE, with technical support from the Albo Nazionale Gestori Ambientali (the national register of waste managers), and centralizes data from transport documents and loading and unloading registers so that waste codes and points of production can be tracked. Companies registered with RENTRI that transport hazardous special waste must, under Article 16 of ministerial decree DM 59/2023, fit their vehicles with geolocation systems that periodically transmit the routes driven to the register.
Postponement and new link to the license plate
The newly published decree amends the earlier Decreto Direttoriale n. 253 of 12 December 2024, which set out the technical criteria for those geolocation systems. That decree provided that companies had to make route data available from the “twelfth month” after it took effect, a deadline previously calculated as 13 February 2027. The new decree replaces that term with the “nineteenth month,” meaning the actual obligation now takes effect on 13 September 2027.
The decree also drops the link between the geolocation system and the vehicle’s chassis number. Under the earlier decree, the device had to be linked to both the license plate and the chassis number; that second reference is now removed from the relevant article. From now on the link runs solely via the license plate, for each individual trip. None of the sources consulted gives an explicit reason for the postponement, but RENTRI obligations have already been pushed back several times in recent years, including the one for the digital transport document.
Context
RENTRI digitizes the transport forms (FIR) and the loading and unloading registers and has been rolled out in phases since late 2024 under Article 188-bis of the Italian environmental code (Legislative Decree 152/2006). Waste processors, carriers, intermediaries, consortia and producers with more than fifty employees already had to register between December 2024 and February 2025; producers with ten to fifty employees followed in 2025, and the remaining producers of hazardous waste in early 2026, with a few statutory exceptions. Access to the register runs through a digital identity (SPID, CNS or CIE). Italy’s rollout shows that implementing such digital tracing systems often comes with repeated adjustments to technology and timing, which forces companies in waste logistics to keep their compliance processes and vehicle fleets flexible.
Source: Decreto direttoriale n. 275 del 12 ottobre 2026, 15 October 2026
Additionally consulted: ANCE, “RENTRI rinviato al 13 settembre 2027: l’obbligo di trasmettere i percorsi dei mezzi che trasportano rifiuti pericolosi”, Chamber of Commerce of Bologna (Italy), RENTRI overview page
