UK and EU Registry

All transfers and the surrender of allowances take place on an electronic registry, developed by Defra and administered by the Environment Agency in the UK. Member States are required to establish and maintain a registry to manage the issue, holding, transfer and cancellation of allowances. All national registries across the EU are linked, to allow trading of allowances between EU states.

The registry is a secure web-based application that records:

allowances allocated to and held in installation accounts
annual verified emissions for installations
the transfer of allowances between accounts
annual compliance status of installations

An Operator Holding Account will have been automatically created for installations which have greenhouse gas emissions permits and which were included in the list of installation allocations published alongside the approved National Action Plan (NAP). However, new and late entrants will need to open their operator holding accounts online at the UK Emissions Registry website. Non-operators who would like to hold or transfer carbon allowances may open Person Holding Accounts by going to the same site.

Emissions Registry

EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) participants must inform the Registry Administrator of whom they want to act as their Primary Account Representative (PAR) and Secondary Account Representative (SAR). An additional Account Representative can be nominated too if desired. The Account Representative has full rights and responsibilities to operate the account. They can trade allowances and appoint a verifier. The representatives do not have individual liability for the account, as this rests with the account holder. The Additional Account Representative is nominated to carry out transaction checks within the Registry account, but they are not able to carry out transactions. To nominate representatives apply online at the Emissions Registry . You must provide proof of identity for all your account representatives. Please read the Registry Identity Policy for more information.

Important registry links

UK Registry website
Registries Regulation sets out how the registry is to operate, including use of accounts, and the allocation, transfer, and surrender of allowances.
Information on the UK Registry is available on DECC's Emissions Trading Registry page
Information regarding accounts is available on the Environment Agency's EU ETS website
The Environment Agency also provides a Glossary of terms for the registry.

Important registry contacts