Register as a cattle keeper with the British Cattle Movement Service
How to register or re-register your holding with the British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS), what happens next and what to do if your details change.
Applies to England and Wales
Documents
Details
Save time registering as a cattle keeper
To register as a cattle keeper in England, you must contact the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA) and the British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS).
You can take part in a trial where keepers only need to contact the RPA. Fill in this form if you’re applying for a CPH number for the first time and would like to take part.
Before you move cattle, bison or buffalo onto your holding, you must register your new or reopened county parish holding (CPH) number with BCMS. This is so that you can:
- register births and get cattle passports
- report cattle movements to BCMS
- report cattle deaths to BCMS
You must do this by law so that cattle can be traced to prevent and contain the outbreak of disease.
Read more about what you must do when keeping cattle, bison and buffalo.
How to register
- Open the form in a PDF reader, such as Acrobat Reader
- Download and save the form to your computer.
- Fill in the form and save it again.
- Attach the completed form to an email and send it to bcmsenquiries@rpa.gov.uk. Use ‘Register as a cattle keeper’ as the subject header of your email.
You can register by phone if you prefer.
BCMS
Telephone (England): 0345 050 1234
Telephone (Wales): 0345 050 3456
Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5pm
Find out about call charges
What BCMS will do
BCMS will register you as a cattle keeper and send you:
- a letter confirming your details are on their Cattle Tracing System (CTS) database
- barcode labels to use in passports
You’ll also get a:
- reference number to use when setting up a CTS Online account
- a password for CTS Web Services so you can use approved farm software
You can use these to register cattle births and report movements and deaths online.
What you need to do next
Make sure you have also contacted the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) to tell them you intend to keep cattle.
This is so that APHA can send you a herd mark to identify cattle born on your holding. Even if you do not plan to rear calves, you still need to have a herd mark to comply with the law.
Find out how to register with APHA and get a herd mark.
If anything changes
You must let BCMS and APHA know if there are any changes to your registered details.
You must also let the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) know of any changes to the details you gave when you applied for your CPH) number.
Find out how to update your holding details.
Updates to this page
Last updated 7 December 2022 + show all updates
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New version of the form attached
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Added translation