Register rural land on the Rural Payments service
Find out what land details you need to register on the Rural Payments service to apply for rural payments.
Applies to England
You need to register all the land parcels you want to include in an application for rural payments on the Rural Payments service. This includes funding schemes that the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) administers, such as the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), Countryside Stewardship (CS) Higher Tier and Capital Grants.
Before you register land
You cannot register land or request updates to land details until you’ve registered on the Rural Payments service.
Find out about registering on the Rural Payments service.
If a land parcel is already registered with the RPA, you should use the ‘add land’ service to link registered land to your single business identifier (SBI).
What land to register
You must register all agricultural and non-agricultural land parcels to apply for rural payments.
A land parcel is an area of land that is both:
- surrounded by a permanent boundary
- 0.01 hectares or more
For each land parcel, you need to register:
- the total area in hectares, which is set by its permanent boundary (see ‘Permanent boundaries’)
- permanent agricultural and non-agricultural areas or features, known as ‘land covers’, which are at least 0.01 hectares (see ‘Agricultural and non-agricultural land covers’)
‘Permanent’ means you expect the boundary or land cover to be present for at least 3 years.
Permanent boundaries
Permanent boundaries include:
- fixed fences (not temporary electric fences)
- walls
- earth banks or stone-faced hedgebanks
- hedgerows
- lines of trees
- watercourses, such as ditches, rivers and streams
- changes in land cover which are clearly visible on the ground, such as woodland next to permanent grassland
- roads or man-made surfaced tracks (also known as ‘metalled’ tracks)
- marker posts or boundary stones
- the extent of common land that’s registered under Part 1 of the Commons Act 2006 or the Commons Registration Act 1965
- a national boundary: RPA will split a land parcel that’s in more than one part of the UK and give it a separate parcel ID
Permanent boundaries are not:
- temporary boundaries, such as temporary electric fencing, plough lines or buffer strips
- unsurfaced tracks or paths (also known as ‘natural surface’ tracks)
- different cropping splits within a land parcel
- areas within a land parcel that are occupied by different people
- ownership boundaries, where areas within a land parcel are owned by different people but there’s no physical boundary
- underground drains which are not visible on the ground
- administrative boundaries, such as parish boundaries
- grid lines on an Ordnance Survey (OS) map
Agricultural and non-agricultural land covers
You need to register all agricultural and non-agricultural land covers in a land parcel.
Land cover describes the physical nature of the land. There are 3 agricultural land covers:
- arable land
- permanent grassland
- permanent crops
There are also a number of non-agricultural land covers, such as farmyards and farm buildings.
A land parcel may have a single land cover or multiple land covers.
The RPA only registers land covers on your digital maps, not the land use codes you declare separately when making an application for rural payments.
The rural payments scheme you want to apply for will have guidance about the different land covers and eligible land uses. You must read the relevant scheme guidance.
How to register a land parcel
The Rural Payments service is the quickest and most secure way to register land. Read the guidance Rural Payments service: how to register land and update digital maps.
If you are unable to use the Rural Payments service, use the RLE1 form instead. Read the guidance RLE1 form: how to register land and update digital maps.
Contact RPA
Email: ruralpayments@defra.gov.uk
Rural Payments Agency
PO Box 352
Worksop
S80 9FG
Telephone: 03000 200 301
Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5pm, except bank holidays