Landfill Tax Grants: Eligibility, Amounts and How to Apply

Landfill tax grants in the UK come through the Landfill Communities Fund (LCF), a scheme that lets landfill operators in England and Northern Ireland redirect up to 5.3% of their landfill tax bill to community and environmental projects near their sites. Operators receive a 90% tax credit on every pound they contribute,¹ and with the standard landfill tax rate rising to £130.75 per tonne from April 2026, that small percentage funds a meaningful pot for parks, conservation, heritage buildings, and land restoration.² The scheme is regulated by Entrust, and grants flow either directly from a landfill operator or through a distributing body like FCC Communities Foundation or Biffa Award.

Does Your Project Qualify

Two tests decide this before anything else: what your project does, and where it sits.

On what it does, your project must fit at least one of five categories Entrust calls Objects:³

Object A, land remediation: restoring land that can no longer be used because of an activity that previously took place there, such as former industrial sites or contaminated ground.
Object B, pollution reduction: preventing or reducing the effects of pollution from an activity that has now stopped, including treating polluted water courses or capping waste deposits.
Object D, public amenities: providing, maintaining, or improving parks, playgrounds, sports facilities, community centres, and footpaths, all of which must be genuinely open to the public.
Object DA, biodiversity and conservation: protecting a specific species or conserving a particular habitat where it naturally occurs.
Object E, heritage buildings: repairing, maintaining, or restoring places of worship or buildings of clear architectural or historical importance, accessible to the public and not run for profit.

Parish councils and community trusts most often apply under Object D; conservation groups gravitate to DA. Objects A and B are easily overlooked but worth considering if your site has been degraded by past industrial use.

On where it sits, the project must be within a ten-mile radius of a licensed landfill site.⁴ Closed sites count, provided they hold or held the right licence. Just outside ten miles means no grant, no matter how strong the project. Check the distance first; it’s the quickest way to rule a project in or out.

Who Can Receive the Money

Only organisations enrolled with Entrust as Environmental Bodies (EBs) can receive LCF funding directly from a landfill operator. To enrol, your organisation must be a non-profit body with at least one aim matching an LCF Object. Your governing document needs specific clauses confirming you will not distribute income or profits to members, that all LCF money will be spent on compliant activities, and that any remaining LCF funds will transfer to another EB if the organisation dissolves.⁵

The organisation cannot be controlled by a landfill operator, a local authority, or anyone connected with either. Entrust screens every person involved in managing an EB, and individuals convicted of an indictable offence or disqualified as charity trustees are excluded.⁵ Registered charities meet the non-profit test automatically but still need the LCF-specific clauses in their governing document.

Enrolment costs a non-refundable £100 fee via a Form 1 submitted online.⁵ Before paying, ask your intended funder whether they will register the project on your behalf; many of the larger distributing bodies do, which saves smaller groups from enrolling as a separate EB.

The Contributing Third Party Payment

This is the piece that catches most first-time applicants off guard. Because operators only get a 90% tax credit, they face a 10% shortfall on any contribution. The Contributing Third Party (CTP) payment covers that gap: you need to find an independent donor willing to pay roughly 10% of your grant amount directly to the landfill operator before funding can flow.⁶

Eligible CTP donors include private companies, local authorities, charities, and individual members of the public, such as someone who uses the village hall you’re renovating. The critical restriction is that the CTP donor cannot gain any unique benefit from the funded project. They also cannot be connected to the landfill operator, the distributing body, or any contractor working on the project. In England, another Environmental Body cannot serve as a CTP donor.⁷

You must have the CTP donor identified and their written commitment in hand before submitting an application. For a £20,000 grant, that means finding someone to put up around £2,000. Parish councils, local businesses, and community groups are the usual sources. Many applicants find this harder than preparing the rest of the paperwork, so start on it early.

How to Apply

Before touching any forms, take two preliminary steps. Confirm your project fits an Object and sits within ten miles of a licensed landfill site. Then identify a landfill operator or distributing body willing to fund it. Going through a large distributing body such as FCC Communities Foundation or Biffa Award is common; these organisations handle much of the administration and may register the project on your behalf.

If you do need to enrol as an EB, submit Form 1 online through Entrust’s portal along with your governing document, most recent accounts, and details of every person entitled to vote on how LCF funds are spent.⁵ Entrust checks your documents against the mandatory clause requirements before approving.

The rest of the application depends on your funder. Each distributing body has its own forms, deadlines, and assessment criteria layered on top of the regulatory rules. Expect to provide a detailed project description, a budget breakdown, evidence of planning permission where relevant, and written confirmation from your CTP donor. Strong applications tie the project clearly to an Object and show genuine public benefit.

Grant Sizes and When You Get Paid

There is no formal minimum or maximum grant, but in practice applications below £5,000 are rarely considered and community grants typically cap around £30,000. The actual amount depends on what funding your operator or distributing body has available at the time.

One detail that catches smaller organisations out: LCF grants are generally paid retrospectively. You need enough cash flow to cover upfront costs and then claim reimbursement. If your organisation cannot front the money, discuss payment scheduling with the funder before committing.

What You Commit to After the Grant

Receiving LCF money creates ongoing obligations that outlast the project itself. Environmental Bodies must submit a Statutory Annual Return (Form 4) to Entrust by 28 April each year, showing how much LCF money was spent on each project and whether any completed during the year. The deadline applies even with nothing to report; a nil return is still required.⁸

When you receive a contribution directly from a landfill operator, you must report it to Entrust within seven calendar days using a Form 3. Transfers of LCF funds between EBs must be reported in the same window using a Form 7.⁸

All records must be kept for six years from creation and should show a complete audit trail. Entrust can request that trail at any time, and you have 28 days to produce it. Running costs claimed against LCF funds cannot exceed 7.5% of your actual project expenditure for the year, and unspent LCF funds at year end should not exceed 1.5 times the LCF income received that year.⁸

Missing the 28 April deadline triggers an automatic freeze on your EB status, blocking all LCF activity until you file.⁸ Persistent non-compliance leads Entrust to revoke EB status altogether. Once revoked, Entrust notifies HMRC, which informs the contributing operators, who may then face a clawback of the tax credit they received. That damages any future relationship with funders. Treat the Form 4 deadline like a tax return: put it in the calendar and file it even when there’s nothing to report.

Projects in Scotland

Scotland runs its own version of the scheme, the Scottish Landfill Communities Fund (SLCF), administered by Revenue Scotland rather than HMRC and Entrust. The structure is similar but the specific rules, rates, and processes differ. If your project is in Scotland, apply through the SLCF and check Revenue Scotland’s current guidance for eligibility.

1
Entrust. FAQs
2
GOV.UK. Landfill Tax: Increase in Rates From 1 April 2026
3
Entrust. What Is the LCF?
4
FCC Communities Foundation. Landfill Tax, the Landfill Communities Fund and the Scottish Landfill Communities Fund
5
ENTRUST. The Environmental Body (EB) Guidance Manual
6
Veolia. What You Need to Know About – Contributing Third Party (CTP)
7
FCC Communities Foundation. Contributing Third Party Funding Explained
8
Entrust. Guidance Manual for Environmental Bodies (EBs)