BIM55138 - Farming: Basic Payment Scheme: Phasing Out of BPS: De-linked Payments

Direct Payments will be delinked from land in 2024. The last delinked Direct Payments will be made in 2027. There would be no requirement for recipients of delinked Direct Payments to continue to farm, hold land or hold entitlements. Instead, delinked Direct Payments will be based on a reference period (see further below).

Delinked Direct Payments will simplify Direct Payments as they are phased out. Also, as the payments will no longer be based on land area, they will further facilitate structural change.

Cross Compliance conditions ended on 31 December 2023, therefore, there is no link between these rules and the de-linked payments.

To receive delinked payments, an applicant:

       (i) must have claimed, and been eligible for, BPS payments in England in the 2023 scheme year
           (except for some inherited land) and
      (ii) have a reference amount

Your reference amount will normally be your average BPS payment in the refernce period, which is the BPS 2020 to 2022 scheme years.   If you did not claim BPS in the reference period, you will only have a reference amount if BPS reference data has been transferred to you.

Following the introduction of delinked Direct Payments, those who are eligible for them will normally receive payments during the remainder of the agricultural transition.

If someone qualifies for a delinked Direct Payment based on the reference period, they will continue to be eligible to receive the payments throughout the transition, with no annual eligibility conditions.