1. RPA payments
Payments started to be issued on 1 December 2025 for Countryside Stewardship/HLS agreement claims.
- Respond to queries: If you have not received your Countryside Stewardship/HLS agreement claim payments, check your inbox or phone to see if the RPA has attempted to get in touch with you and respond to any queries.
- HLS payment rate changes: If you have any concerns about payments received for HLS agreements, visit: GOV.UK | Higher Level Stewardship: increased payment rates now available. Agreement holders will be able to use the tables published on the government's website to calculate how much each option in their agreement will increase by.
- Be aware of fraud: Christmas is a popular time of year for fraud and with agricultural payments landing this month it's important to make sure you are only opening trusted links and emails. Visit our fraud advice page for more information.
2. Applied for capital grants in 2025?
- Have you sent the RPA all the supporting documents that it needs? The RPA is waiting for information from a number of applicants and needs this to complete its outstanding work.
- The RPA needs maps showing all options, their location, and measurements and evidence for BN3, BN5, BN6, BN11, BN12, FG12, TE1, TE11A and TE11B which you can find on the capital grant finder tool. If the value of the applications are over £50,000, then an accountant’s letter is needed and for CSF (Catchment Sensitive Farming) support, endorsed before 1 August 2025.
- The RPA has only given 10 working days to send this information; after this time, the RPA may withdraw your application or remove unsupported items. Finally, remember that some agreements require SSSI (Sight of Special Scientific Interest) consent from Natural England before they can go live. If this applies to you, email [email protected] as soon as possible.
3. Business changes
You can read our article about how business changes, such as changes to the control and management of a business, as well as who holds occupation of the land and other assets, can impact on a range of scheme agreements.
For example, currently, SFI does not generally recognise or anticipate that significant business changes could happen during the three-year agreement period and does not allow the transfer of the agreement as a result.
4. Coming to the end of an SFI agreement year?
Whether you have an SFI23 or SFI24 expanded offer agreement, you need to complete the annual declarations in the final two months of your agreement year. If you have rotational SFI actions there is a further rotational annual declaration required which asks for information for the coming agreement year. It is important to follow the appropriate guidance for each declaration and refer back to the specific guidance from that scheme year, which can now all be found via the two links below:
- GOV.UK | Completing your SFI annual declaration.
- GOV.UK | Completing your SFI rotational actions declaration.
5. Farming Equipment and Technology Fund
- If you are having supply issues then you can tell the NFU by filling in our short survey. We cannot promise any changes to the midday 31 March 2026 claims deadline, but your responses will help keep us being informed of any issues you are having and allow us to raise them with the RPA.
- If you are yet to claim under this scheme, then read the following RPA support, focusing on what is needed to make a successful and timely claim: Read our 6 top tips for making a claim.
6. Countryside Stewardship Mid-Tier rollover agreements
- Extensions: If you took up the extension to your agreement that is ending at the end of 2025, and your extended agreement has parcels within an SSSI, don’t forget you need to request SSSI consent from Natural England and send the consent onto the RPA. You could accept the extension before reaching out to Natural England, but you must not carry out any work on the SSSI until you have secured consent. Look out for any RPA communications.
- Annual claim: Agreement holders will need to submit an annual claim in the normal way in 2026 to be paid for the extension year, so put a reminder on your 2026 calendar.
- Arable options flexibility: While the extended agreement offer included all the revenue options in the current agreement that could be extended by the RPA, and no agreement holder amendments were allowed at the time, there is some flexibility when it comes to arable options which you may not continue in 2026. The flexibility is set out in the guidance, which can be found at: GOV.UK | Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier: extensions for 2021 agreements.
7. Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier applications
- Invites: If you have been invited to start the pre-application process, then please respond if you have not already done so.
- Applying: Remember to make sure your mapping is up to date before you are invited to apply, which follows the pre-application process. More reminders can be found at: GOV.UK | CSHT application checklist.
- Waiting for an invite: The RPA continues to contact those to consider this scheme offer.
8. RPA use of remote monitoring technology
It is always good to understand how the RPA monitors environmental land management agreements such SFI or CS. The RPA's blog explains how this works.
9. Need help from the RPA or NFU?
Their opening hours over the Christmas period to contact he RPA helpline 03000 200 301 area as follows:
- 24 December – 8.30am to 3pm
- 25 to 28 December – closed
- 29 to 30 December – 8.30am to 5pm
- 31 December – 8.30am to 3pm
- 1 January – closed
NFU CallFirst are also open the festive period:
- Thursday 25 December – closed
- Friday 26 December – closed
- Monday 29 December – 8am-5pm
- Tuesday 30 December – 8am-5pm
- Wednesday 31 December – 8am-5pm
- Thursday 1 January 2026 – closed
- Friday 2 January – closed
10. If you want to speak to Defra in 2026
Defra recently published a blog that sets out a list of events the department is attending in 2026, including NFU Conference.
