Check your information
First check that your personal and business details are up to date, then create and check your ‘application summary’.
Before you start to check your application, you must check that the personal and business details you’ve already registered are still correct. We’ll use them to contact you about your application so please make sure they are up to date.
As soon as you sign in to the Rural Payments service you’ll see a screen called ‘Your Businesses and messages’. To check and change your personal details, click ‘View and amend personal details’ on the right side of the screen. Click ‘Amend your details’, then after you make any changes, click ‘Submit changes’.
Make sure your details, and any agent details, are up-to-date as we’ll use these as contacts.
Check that your address, email address and phone number are up to date.
If you apply online, we will contact you by email, whenever possible, so it’s important that your email address is up-to-date.
To check your business details, choose the business from the ‘Your businesses and messages’ screen. On the ‘Business overview’ screen, click ‘View full business details’ on the right side of the screen. To make any changes, click the appropriate ‘Amend’ link.
The main business address that we have in the Rural Payments service is the address that we’ll use to send certain types of information to you, such as the remittance advice after a payment is made.
It’s important that your bank account details are up-to-date and valid or we will not be able to pay you for BPS and any other schemes you are claiming payments for.
We’ll make payments in sterling only.
We will use the bank account details we already have to pay you. If you want to be paid into a different account, you must call us before 12 November 2021.
To amend your bank account details, call us on 03000 200 301. You cannot change them online or by email. You must have ‘Business details: Full or Make legal changes’ permission levels in the Rural Payments service before you ask us to update your bank account details.
To help prevent fraud, after payments start from 1 December 2021 until the end of December, there are restrictions on updating bank account details. We can only update details if we have asked you for them or if your bank has rejected payment.
To check your permission levels, click the relevant name under ‘Give people permission to act for this business’ on the ‘Business overview’ screen. If you do not have the right permission on the service, you’ll need to get someone with ‘Business Details: Full Permission’ level for the business to change your permission level.
To access your online application summary, you need to have the BPS ‘submit’ permission.
If your ‘relationship’ for the business is ‘employee’ in the service you won’t be able to access the application, even if you have the permission shown above. You’ll need to ask someone with ‘Business Details: Full Permission’ level for the business to change your relationship to ‘helper’. If there is nobody else for the business who can do this on the service, call us and we will help you over the phone.
If you want someone else to have access to your business so they can help you apply online, you need to check that you’ve given them the right permission. Click the relevant name under ‘Give people permission to act for this business’ on the ‘Business overview’ screen. They’ll need BPS ‘submit’ permission if you want them to apply on your behalf. They must be registered in the Rural Payments service before you can give them access, and you will need their customer reference number (CRN).
If you prefer, you can arrange for someone else to receive payments on your behalf.
After you’ve updated the permission level, remember to scroll to the bottom of the page and click ‘Save and return’.
Once you’ve checked that your details are up to date, you can start checking your online application. To do this, generate an ‘application summary’. You may find it useful to print the summary as it looks like a paper BP5 application form, so if you’ve applied for BPS before, it should look familiar.
From the ‘Business overview’ screen, click the ‘Apply for BPS or view status of your application’ link. Remember there’s ‘Help’ on these screens to guide you step-by-step.
Each year, before you view an application summary for the first time, you need to create a new BPS application.
To do this:
- click the green ‘Create a new DIRECT PAYMENTS application’ button.
- a message will appear showing a green tick, this confirms the application has been created ‘Successfully’. Click the green ‘Back’ button at the bottom of this screen.
- on the next screen click ‘Open’.
You can also see how to generate a new application summary by clicking the ‘Help’ link on the relevant screen.
If the green ‘Create a new DIRECT PAYMENTS application’ button isn’t available or isn’t clearly visible, this means that the option to apply for BPS isn’t available to customers at that particular time. We tell you each year on GOV.UK when you can start to apply for BPS – this ends at midnight on the ‘late application’ deadline (11 June).
If the application period is open but the green ‘Create a new DIRECT PAYMENTS application’ button isn’t available, this may be because your permission level is not correct. You need to have the ‘BPS: Submit’ permission level. To check your permission levels, click your name from the list under ‘Give people permission to act for this business’ on the ‘Business overview’ screen. If you do not have the right permission in the service, you’ll need to ask someone with ‘Business Details: Full permission’ level for the business to change your permission level.
When you create your application for the first time, we recommend you make a note of the ‘App. number’ which is the unique application number given in the Rural Payments service, and share this with anyone in your business who has permission to change your application.
You can only have one BPS application with the ‘Status’ of ‘Created’ at any one time – this is your current application. If you have more than one, call us to find out how this has happened and what to do. When you ‘Create a new DIRECT PAYMENTS application’, the information is pre-populated from information we hold from previous years’ applications and updated mapping information.
After you’ve created and opened your new BPS application:
- click ‘View and print your application summary’
- then click ‘Generate’ – when your application summary is available a date and time will appear beside the ‘Download’ button.
- click ‘Download’ to read or print your application summary or to save it to your computer.
This will be the most recent summary you generated about this business. For the ‘Download’ button to work there must already have been a summary generated.
After you’ve created your application and application summary, if a land parcel is then added to your business (SBI) or there’s a mapping change, there are additional steps that you must follow to make sure that the latest information appears in your application and your application summary. Please read the section on Change, including the ‘Important’ box within ‘Making changes to land use’ for more information.
The ‘Business summary’ you find on your ‘Business overview’ screen is different to your application summary. You do not have to check your business summary to apply. If you do want to look at it, make sure you are looking at the latest information.
We’ve filled in your application with information we already have about your business so you can check it. Where necessary, we have reviewed and updated our mapping information based on the latest available data sources, such as aerial photography and Ordnance Survey updates. It is your responsibility to make sure that the information in your application is correct.
The first time you read your application summary, you’ll see information in the following sections that you will need to check:
- Part A: Your business
- Part C: Field data sheet
- Part E: Common land grazing rights (if you have any)
- Part H: Entitlements
Important: if you are referring back to your 2020 application when completing your 2021 application, parts of the application summary are not shown due to the removal of sections covering currency, EFA greening, land in more than one part of the UK, and organic land status.
The other sections of the application summary are blank at the moment. You will fill them in when you complete your declarations (see section ‘Complete your declarations’.).
As you check these sections, make a note of anything that needs to change. Once you have checked them all, if you need to make any changes, read the ‘Change’ section to find out how.
Check that the single business identifier (SBI) and the ‘Name of beneficiary (or business name)’ are correct. You can’t change your SBI online, call us if it’s incorrect.
In Part C, your application summary should show:
- all the agricultural areas on your holding which are 0.0100 hectares or more, even if you are not applying for BPS on that land.
- non-agricultural land, including woodland, that you have in an agri-environment scheme(such as Countryside Stewardship and Farm Woodland Schemes) and the National Forest Changing Landscape Scheme.
- land in the Woodland Carbon Fund or HS2 Woodland Fund should also be included where it is already registered with RPA.
- all of the land uses for each land parcel. If you have a land parcel with more than one land use, you must tell us about all the land uses in that parcel.
- non-agricultural features on your agricultural land.
You can apply for BPS on as much of your eligible land as you want to - however, you should not declare more eligible land than you have.
You do not need to match the area you apply for with the number of entitlements you have. If the eligible area you apply for is greater than the number of entitlements you actually have, we will work out your payment based on the number of entitlements you have that are matched by the eligible area. No penalty will be applied for this as this is not considered an over-declaration.
The information in Part C is based on:
- what land parcels we have linked to your SBI shown on your digital maps
- the total field size and maximum area eligible for BPS that we have recorded on our maps (columns C3 and C4). If your land share is less than 100% of a parcel this will affect what proportion of the parcel is shown in the summary.
- the information we took from your BPS application last year.
- the total field size of every land parcel needs to be accounted for, including:
- areas and features within the land parcel which are non-agricultural
- how different areas of the parcel are being used for different things - such as arable land, permanent grassland and permanent crops (they need to have the appropriate land use code).
First, check if there are any land parcels missing from your application, or if there are any that you want to remove. Make a note of this so you can change them later (read the section on ‘Change’).
It’s particularly important to check that columns C6, C7 and C8 are correct. These are the columns that tell us what you use each area of a land parcel for, what size it is, and how much of it you want to claim for payment (if it’s eligible). As the Rural Payments service accepts zero values, for example in C7 and C8, it’s important that you check that the values shown are correct. If they are not correct, this can reduce the value of the payment or cause your application to be rejected.
We have updated your land using the latest information we have, including aerial photography and Ordnance Survey map updates. This keeps our land information up to date and we use it to check any applications you make. So it’s important that you check your maps online because we may have updated them since your application for 2020.
If we’ve updated your land parcels, you will have received notifications in the ‘All messages’ tab on the ‘Your businesses and messages’ screen in the Rural Payments service identifying which land parcels have been updated.
If you do not read your messages, we will send you an email reminding you to sign in to the service and check your notifications.
Read Annex 1 for more information about your digital maps.
C2 – Ordnance Survey Map sheet reference and National Grid field number
This will contain a 10-character reference, made up of 2 letters, 4 numbers and the final 4 numbers indicating the centre of the land parcel (for example, AA1234 1234).
Land parcel numbers may have changed since last year, which means they may be listed in a different order from last year’s application. You can check them by looking at your digital maps – read Annex 1.
C3 (Total field size) and C4 (Maximum area eligible for BPS)
Column C3 should show the total area of the land parcel that is linked to your holding. C4 should show the maximum area eligible for BPS (the total area of the land parcel (that is linked to your holding), minus the area of any permanent non-agricultural areas and features).
The information in columns C3 and C4 comes from our mapping database. It may not be up to date if you have:
- sent us an RLE1 form to tell us about land changes and we haven’t made them yet (they will show as a ‘pending’ change on your digital maps),
- made changes to your land parcel that you haven’t told us about yet on an RLE1 form, or
- had a land inspection in 2020 and we have changes to make to our mapping database as a result.
Check if there are any land parcels missing or if there are any that you want to remove.
It’s important that you check your digital maps as we’ve been reviewing and updating our mapping information, where necessary, since BPS 2020 applications were submitted. Read Annex 1.
Checking your land areas
All the land information on your application summary needs to be to 4 decimal places (that is, x.xxxx ha). If you have any problems doing this we recommend you round down rather than using normal rounding rules. For example if the parcel is 2.47725 ha, record as 2.4772 ha, rather than 2.4773 ha.
C6 – Part field size
Column C6 shows the size of the eligible areas (or crops) and non-agricultural areas and features in the land parcel (C7 shows what the area is being used for). We’ve listed the ones that you supplied in 2020. Only permanent non-agricultural areas and features are prepopulated on your BPS application, not temporary ones.
Make a note of any areas that have changed, so that you can update them in the ‘Land use’ screen later. (Read ‘Change land use’ section for more information). The total of all the land use areas (C6) should add up to the correct total field size (C3). The total area of all the eligible land uses (C7) should add up to the correct maximum area eligible for
BPS (C4) for the land parcel. You might need to take into account any RLE1 forms you have sent to us, changes made following our review of mapping data or changes made following an inspection.
If you only have part of a land parcel ‘at your disposal’ for BPS, and someone else has the other part, you should only declare the land use(s) (C7) and area (C6) for your part of the parcel.
If you need to tell us about more than one land use in your ‘share’ of the eligible land, then you can do this in the ‘Land use’ screen. Read the ‘Basic Payment Scheme: rules for 2021’ for more information about what ‘land at your disposal’ means.
We will use the information about your land use in columns C6 and C7 to work out if you have enough eligible land to apply for BPS. The rules for applications with land in more than one part of the UK have changed. Any customer who claimed on land in England and another part of the UK in 2020 and had less than 5ha of eligible land in England, will be exempt from the minimum claim size in England from 2021. Read the ‘Basic Payment Scheme: rule for 2021’ for more information.
C7 – Land use in 2021
This column should contain a land use code showing what each area of land is being used for on 17 May 2021. You should use the code of the main crop you intend to grow in the year even if it will be late sown, or declare it as fallow (FA01) if you do not intend to sow a main crop.
There’s a list of all the land use codes on GOV.UK. You can also refer to the Agroforestry and the Basic Payment Scheme guidance on GOV.UK
If you have any land that will not be eligible for the entire calendar year, use the correct non-agricultural land use code at C7. Or, if the reason is temporary, for example, you know that utility works will take place on the land later in the year, use land-use code NA02 at C7. You do not need to fill in an RLE1 form to tell us about non-agricultural areas or features that will only be on agricultural land temporarily.
If you have features on your land which are eligible for BPS (such as hedges, dry stone walls, ditches), these do not need to be declared as separate land uses in columns C6 and C7. You should include the area of these features in the main land use of the field.
Grass strips (such as tracks, strips, margins and headlands do not need to be identified separately from the main land use of the parcel (the cropped area).
Temporary to permanent grassland
Check that grassland, which has been declared as temporary grass for 5 consecutive years (2016-2020 inclusive), is shown as permanent grassland for BPS 2021 (the sixth consecutive year in which the parcel is declared as grass) – as long as it is still grassland, has not been used for a catch crop, and has not been in certain agri-environment scheme options during this time. For more information, read the ‘Temporary grassland’ section in the ‘Basic Payment Scheme: rules for 2021’.
C8 – Eligible area you want to claim for payment
Column C8 should be the sum of the eligible areas (column C6) and land uses (column C7). Check that the area you want to claim payment for is correct. You can only use land parcels which have a total eligible area of 0.1000 hectares or more to apply for BPS.
The area entered in C8 for each eligible land use must not be more than the area entered in C6 for that land use. The total of the areas entered in C8 for the land parcel must not be more than the total of all the eligible land use areas entered in C6.
Why it’s important that you check the ‘Activate less BPS area’ screen
Whether or not any changes have been made to your land information, it’s very important that you check the ‘Activate less BPS area’ screen to make sure that the eligible area you want to claim for payment (C8) is showing correctly. In some cases, particularly where a land parcel has been added to your business (SBI) or there’s been a mapping change, the eligible area you want to claim for payment (C8) may have defaulted to 0.0000 in this screen.
If this has happened, you can update it in the ‘Activate less BPS area’ screen in your BPS application. From the Business overview screen click ‘Apply for BPS or view status of your application’, then ‘Open’ your application, and click ‘Make changes to our application’. After you’ve updated it, generate and download a copy of your application summary showing the correct eligible area you want to claim for payment (C8).
If a land parcel has been added to your business (SBI) or there’s been a mapping change, after you’ve created your application online, there are additional steps that you must follow to make sure that the latest information appears in your application and your application summary. Please read the section on ‘Making changes to Part C: Field data sheet’ for more information.
This part will show any common land grazing rights that you have. Check that the information is correct and make a note of anything that is either missing or that you need to change. If you need to add or change your information, read section ‘Make changes to Part E: Common land grazing rights’.
E3 – Type of commons rights
This shows the type of grazing rights you have by animal type (for example, cattle, sheep or ponies) using the information we have.
Read the ‘Basic Payment Scheme: rules for 2021’ for more information and for guidance about how to apply if you have New Forest grazing rights.
E4 – Number of rights of this type
This shows the number of animals you have grazing rights for, for the animal type listed at E3, using the information we have. Read the BPS 2021 scheme rules for more information.
You do not need to convert your rights to Livestock Units or do any other calculations.
E5 – Do you own the common?
If you own the common, check that this is shown correctly.
E6 – Activate entitlements
Check that each line in column E6 is correct if you want to be paid for your common land rights.
Where rights can be used on more than one common, we will allocate the rights between the commons in proportion to their relative eligible areas. For example, if a farmer has rights to graze 100 cattle (equivalent to 100 Livestock Units (LU)) on Common A (150ha eligible area) or Common B (50ha eligible area), we will allocate 75 LU (150 ha/200 ha x 100LU) to Common A and 25LU (50 ha/200ha x 100LU) to Common B.
The information pre-populated in the ‘Common Land Grazing Rights’ table shows the allocation of rights that was used for BPS 2020 payments. However, if you are declaring split rights for BPS 2021, you should declare the full number of rights held against all of the commons on which the rights can be used (in the above example declare 100 cattle on Common A and 100 cattle on Common B) and we will do the calculation to allocate the rights between the commons for you, using up to date information from the system.
This section is for information only. You can check your entitlements information from the ‘Business overview’ screen, then under the ‘Basic Payment Scheme’ section, choose ‘View entitlements’. You can view entitlements from different scheme years, make sure you choose the correct ‘Scheme year’ from the dropdown list towards the top left side of the screen.
Click the ‘Help’ link to read about what the information on the screen means. If you think your entitlements information is wrong call us on 03000 200 301.
Important: your entitlements for 2021 will not show a ‘use by year’ as the entitlement usage rule has been removed from 2021.
Entitlements that have been leased in will still show the date they were leased in and the end date of the lease.
Remember, you can apply for BPS on as much of your eligible land as you want to – you do not need to match the area you apply for with the number of entitlements you hold.
There is no penalty if the eligible area you apply for is greater than the number of entitlements you actually hold. We will work out your payment based on the number of entitlements matched by eligible land. However, you should not apply for more eligible land than you actually have.
Example: a farmer holds 100 entitlements on 17 May 2021 and declares 120ha of eligible land. 100 entitlements are activated for payment. The additional 20ha of eligible land is not an over- declaration.
More detail about checking your entitlements is in the table below.
If you should have had entitlements transferred to you, but they are not included on your application summary
You need to first check your entitlement balance in the Rural Payments service. If an online entitlements transfer is showing as ‘pending’, there may be an outstanding query about those entitlements or if your BPS 2020 payment is still outstanding. On your application, declare your land and BPS eligible area as you normally would. When we process your application, we’ll update your entitlement balance if there is a transfer we still need to complete and pay you for the actual number of entitlements you held on 17 May 2021.
If you think your Rural Payments service screen shows the wrong number of entitlements
You need to click ‘Help’ in the ‘View entitlements’ screen to read more information about your entitlements.
If you still think the Rural Payments service shows the wrong number of entitlements, fill in and send us a BPS payment query form giving as much detail as you can. You do not need to complete a query form if you have already completed one for 2020 or a previous scheme year.
On your application, declare your land and BPS eligible area as you normally would. When we process your application, we’ll check your entitlements balance and make any updates we need to.
NOTE: If there are any planned adjustments or you have an outstanding query about your BPS payment for previous years, any entitlement transfers will show as ‘pending’ on the ‘View entitlements’ screen until the adjustment or query has been completed. Once that is done, the transfer will be completed with the effective date given (unless there are insufficient entitlements).
If you applied for entitlements as a ‘young or new farmer’ in 2020, but they are not included in your balance in the Rural Payments service screens
You need to declare your land and BPS eligible area as you normally would on your application. Where applicable, refer to any information we have sent to you about your entitlements. When we process your application, we’ll check your entitlements balance and make any updates we need to so we can pay you for the correct number of entitlements you held on 17 May 2021 (based on the eligible land you apply on).