How to plan an SFI26 application
Guide

How to plan an SFI26 application

Work out what you cannot do before you decide what you want to do. The order to tackle an SFI26 application in, and the checks that stop most people before they start.

Get your farm ready on the RPA portal

Most SFI26 applications that go wrong do not go wrong at the action-picking stage. They go wrong because something on the RPA's records does not match what is on the ground, and by the time that surfaces you have already done the thinking. Defra publishes a whole page of common problems, and almost all of them are mapping or permissions problems rather than scheme problems.

So do these four checks first. Each one can stop an application outright, and each one takes time to fix.

Check your digital maps match the ground

Your land parcels, their areas and their land covers all have to be right in the Rural Payments service. If they are not, Section 1 of the application asks you to say so, and the advice is to submit a mapping update request and withdraw the part-finished application while it is processed. You cannot start a new one until it is corrected.

Changes go through the Rural Land Changes service, which replaced the RLE1 form. A straightforward whole-parcel land cover change - permanent grassland becoming arable, say - can be done for up to 20 parcels in one request. Anything more complicated, where a parcel has several land covers, needs a sketch map. Neither is instant, which is the point of doing it now.

Check your land uses match your land covers

This is a different check from the last one and it catches people out. Land covers sit on the digital map; land uses are what you declare. If the two disagree, you get an error against that parcel when you try to add an action, and the fix is to update the land use codes and areas in the Rural Payments service so they match the map.

Get SSSI and HEFER consents moving

SFI26 no longer pays for the soil and nutrient plans that SAM1 and NUM1 used to fund - see SAM1 and NUM1 plans explained for where that leaves you. If any of the land is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, you must give notice to Natural England and get SSSI consent before the RPA can offer you an agreement. If there are historic or archaeological features, you need an SFI Historic Environment Farm Environment Record (HEFER) from Historic England. Both sit outside your control and outside the RPA's, so they are the first things to set running.

Check you are allowed to apply at all

You need at least 3 hectares of agricultural land linked to your SBI at the point you start. You also need the right permissions on the account - Business Details: Full, plus BPS: Submit or CS Applications: Submit. Agents need registering with the RPA.

Common land is a special case. The current scheme rules say you cannot apply for an SFI26 agreement on common land, including shared grazing, and the portal will give you an error against those parcels. Defra has been clear that this is a technical limitation rather than a decision on the merits: commons groups cannot apply "at this stage", the RPA is "working on a solution", and they have said they will announce when commons groups can apply. If you farm common land as well as your own, it does not affect applying for the land you own or rent.

Where we help: pull your farm in with your SBI number and the parcels, areas and parcel references arrive exactly as the RPA holds them. Seeing your holding drawn against what you know is on the ground is the quickest way to spot a mapping or land use mismatch while there is still time to get a change request in.

Work out which actions you cannot do on each field

Before you think about what you want, narrow the field to what is actually open to you. Three things rule land out, and all three are knowable in advance.

  • What you already have on the land. An existing SFI23, SFI24, Countryside Stewardship or Environmental Stewardship option on a parcel will block an incompatible SFI26 action on the same area. You can hold SFI26 alongside those agreements - what you cannot do is fund the same activity twice on the same ground at the same time.
  • Land use and land type. An action written for arable land will not go on permanent grassland. Land above the moorland line is out for most lowland actions. Every action page lists its eligible land types.
  • Designations. SSSI land and land with historic or archaeological features restrict which actions are available, on top of the consent requirement.

Doing this first is what stops you falling in love with an action you were never going to be able to put on that field.

Where we help: sensitive areas and land use are already in the system against each parcel, so eligibility is checked as you go rather than after you submit. You can also bring in the SFI and Countryside Stewardship agreements you already hold in SFI Shepherd, so the land that is already committed shows up as committed.

Talk through what you want to achieve (not just the highest payment rate!)

This is the part worth slowing down on. The temptation is to open the list of 71 actions and sort by payment rate. That is the wrong way round, for two reasons.

The highest rate is not the highest margin. Some of the best-paying actions are expensive to establish and maintain - seed mixes, establishment passes, the management they commit you to for three years. What matters is what is left after the cost of doing it, and that is a different ranking from the payment rate.

And some of them will get in the way. An action can sit awkwardly across a rotation, complicate a spray programme, or leave you an agronomic problem to deal with in year three. A payment that disrupts the main farming business can cost more than it brings in, and you are committed for the duration.

It is also worth knowing what moved: 31 actions went in the move to SFI26 and several rates were cut, which we have written up in what changed in SFI26.

Start instead with two questions about your own business.

Where do you want the farm to go? What system are you running, what are you trying to change, and what would you be doing over the next three years regardless of whether anyone paid you? Actions that sit with the direction of travel get done properly. Actions bolted on for the payment become a compliance job you resent at best, and an active hindrance to the farm business at worst.

Which parts of the farm are not making money? This is the more useful question and the one fewest people can answer field by field. Awkward corners, wet holes, shaded headlands, steep banks, the bit that never yields - land that is costing you to farm is exactly where taking it out of production stops being a sacrifice and starts being a decision. You need gross margin at field level to see it, not a whole-farm average.

Only once you know which land you would happily change should you go looking for the actions that pay for it. Same land, same decision, entirely different agreement.

This is the point to talk to an adviser. We would strongly recommend it. A good agronomist or land agent will have seen how these actions behave on farms like yours over several seasons, and will spot the one that looks fine on paper and is a nuisance in year two. It is a conversation worth having before you commit for three years, not after. Plenty of the agents and agronomists who use Soil Benchmark would be happy to help - get in touch and we can point you towards someone near you.

Where we help: costing reports give you margin field by field, which is what turns "that corner is a nuisance" into a number you can act on. And because every action page here carries the 2025 uptake, you can see how many farms actually took an action on before assuming it is straightforward.

Check that the actions you have chosen are all compatible

With actions chosen, three limits decide whether the application will actually go through.

  • Compatibility. Actions have to be able to sit on the same area. Get it wrong and the portal tells you to reduce or remove the overlap. Every action page lists what it stacks with.
  • The 25% limited-area rule. Actions that take land out of production are capped: combined, they must not be more than 25% of the total agricultural area of your farm. That total counts the limited-area actions in your existing SFI23, SFI24 and CSHT agreements too, not just the new ones.
  • The £100,000 cap. Each farm business, identified by SBI, can hold a maximum of £100,000 per agreement year, and only one SFI26 agreement across both windows.

One detail on boundary actions is worth getting right first time. For actions paid on one side of a hedge, such as CHRW2, enter the length for one side against one parcel, and the other side against the adjacent parcel. For actions paid on both sides, such as BND1 and BND2, either split the length between the two parcels or enter the full length against one where there is no adjacent parcel. Defra's warning is blunt: if you enter a length that exceeds what is on the ground, it will be removed and you may have to repay.

Where we help: this is what SFI Shepherd is for. It puts actions on fields and runs the compatibility checks, the running 25% limited-area total and the £100,000 cap as you build, flagging clashes with your existing agreements before you apply rather than after. Draft several versions, compare them side by side, and export a summary ready to type into the RPA portal.

Apply on the RPA portal - don't leave it late, the money will run out

You can plan the whole thing somewhere else - and you should, because the portal is not a good place to think. But the application itself only counts when it is submitted in the Rural Payments service, and the timing matters more in SFI26 than it used to.

There is no closing date. It closes when the budget is spent. Window 2 is expected to open on 22 September with around £230 million and a £100,000 cap per business. That sounds like a lot until you look at who is now eligible.

Window 1 was open only to farms under 50 hectares and farms without an existing ELM revenue agreement, and it still drew about 6,500 applications averaging just under £10,000 a year. Window 2 is open to everyone. The eligible population goes up by far more than the budget does, and on our own arithmetic a large share of farms that apply are likely to miss out - we set the numbers out in will the extra £50m go far enough? and the Window 1 take-up stats.

Demand is also being pushed by a bad year rather than a normal one. After the worst harvest in decades, drought across England and a straw shortage, a guaranteed per-hectare payment that does not depend on the weather looks a lot more attractive than it did twelve months ago. Expect the money to go faster than Window 1, not slower.

Defra posts budget updates on the Farming Blog as the money is allocated, and that is the only warning you get. You can subscribe to the blog to have those posts emailed to you as they land - or join our mailing list and we will tell you when the window opens and when the budget starts running down. Treat it as first come, first served, and be ready on day one.

That is the argument for doing all the thinking first. A plan you have already drafted and checked can be typed in quickly on the day. A plan you start when the window opens is a plan you are making under time pressure, which is how the expensive mistakes get made.

If you hold an ELM revenue agreement ending on or before 28 February 2027, there is a "start an application early" route that lets you begin before your current agreement ends. Worth checking whether it applies to you.

Where we help: draft and check the plan in SFI Shepherd before the window opens, compare versions side by side, then export a summary to type straight into the portal on the day.

Sign within 30 days, then comply for three years

Submitting is not the end of it. Two things follow, and both have teeth.

First, you have 30 calendar days to accept the agreement offer. Miss it and the offer is withdrawn, and you are back to waiting for a window to open. Given how much SFI has chopped and changed - paused, reopened, capped, then rebuilt from 102 actions down to 71 - there is no telling how long that wait is, or whether what is on offer next time is as good. Several rates were cut between SFI24 and SFI26. Treat the 30 days as a deadline, not a formality.

Second, you then have to do what you said you would, for three years, and be able to show it. You submit an annual declaration confirming compliance, due within the last two months of each agreement year. You must keep the evidence for at least seven years from the agreement end date. The RPA can check by site visit, remote monitoring or desk-based review.

That is the part people underestimate. The application takes a week; the agreement takes three years. What each action actually requires you to do and record is set out on its own page - we have written up all 71 SFI26 actions, and the SFI 2024, SFI 2023 and CS Higher Tier ones alongside them, with what you must do and the evidence to keep pulled to the top rather than buried.

Where we help: the compliance side is what we are building next, and some is already there. Crop Rex checks spray plans against the restrictions an action puts on a parcel, which matters when an action bans insecticide or limits what you may apply. Soil Sage flags land at risk of erosion and runoff, which a number of actions require you to identify and keep written evidence of. Nutrient Nerd tracks nutrient application compliance, which is what the actions limiting fertiliser, manure and lime turn on. The aim is one place to see your compliance status across the whole agreement, add documents as you go, and export a compliance file when someone asks for it.

Sources

Last checked 14 September 2026. Window 2 dates and budget updates move - check the Defra Farming Blog before relying on them.

Planning an SFI26 application

Build the plan field by field, and see the clashes before you apply

SFI Shepherd adds actions to your fields from your RPA maps, flags conflicts with SFI and Countryside Stewardship agreements you already hold, tracks the 25% limited-area total across the whole holding, and exports a summary ready for the RPA portal. Draft as many versions as you like and compare them side by side.
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