Lump Sum Exit Scheme and delinked payments: Published 8 February 2022

The Rural Payments Agency will manage the Lump Sum Exit scheme and delinked payments. This guidance tells you more about the payments and important dates when you need to take action.

In 2021, we started the 7-year transition in England away from Direct Payments (currently paid through the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS)) and towards a new farming policy. As part of this transition, last year Defra consulted farmers and stakeholders about:

• plans to introduce a Lump Sum Exit Scheme in 2022
• the proposed approach to replacing BPS with delinked payments in 2024

You can read more about Defra’s consultation about the Lump Sum Exit Scheme and delinked payments.

This guidance gives more information about the scheme rules, which were confirmed after this consultation.

About the Lump Sum Exit scheme​

We expect you will be able to apply for a lump sum from April 2022 to the end of September 2022. More guidance about the scheme, including how to apply, will be published before applications open. This will also explain what evidence you need to provide to receive the lump sum. The scheme rules will be set out in new regulations which are expected to come into force by the end of April 2022, following Parliamentary approval.

The scheme is for BPS applicants in England who wish to leave farming, either to retire or take up a different occupation. It could help those farmers who wish to retire or leave farming to do so in a planned way. We also expect the scheme will free up land for new entrants and existing farmers who wish to expand.

Agricultural land, BPS entitlements and business activity in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not affected.

If you’re eligible, you can apply for a lump sum payment. Once the lump sum payment is made, you will no longer be eligible for BPS payments or delinked payments (which will begin in 2024) in England.

You can withdraw your application at any time before we pay your lump sum if you change your mind.

To find out how much you could receive as a lump sum payment, read the guidance on how to request a forecast statement.

Who is eligible​

Applicants must have either:

• claimed, and been eligible for BPS payments in the 2018 scheme year or in an earlier scheme year
• inherited agricultural land in England, or succeeded to an Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 tenancy, after 15 May 2018

Before you receive the lump sum payment, you must do all the following:

• transfer your agricultural land in England (apart from up to 5 hectares which you can keep) or plant it with trees under a woodland creation scheme
• transfer grazing and pannage rights you have on common land in England, if you have any
• surrender (give up) your English BPS entitlements

Once you receive the lump sum, you will still be able to work as a contractor or work for other farmers if you wish.

Transferring agricultural land​

To receive the lump sum, you must transfer out the land in England which was agricultural land ‘at your disposal’ on 17 May 2021 (the BPS 2021 application deadline). This land will have been eligible for BPS and, if you claimed BPS 2021, it should be shown on your BPS 2021 application.

Land was at your disposal if you were the:

• owner-occupier, farming the land yourself or employing a contractor
• tenant with a Farm Business Tenancy under the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995 or an Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 tenancy (or equivalent)

For this scheme, ‘agricultural land’ means arable land (including temporary grassland and fallow land), permanent grassland or permanent crops. It does not include land used mainly for a non-agricultural activity on 17 May 2021, which made it ineligible for BPS.

Land you do not need to transfer​

You do not need to transfer out:

• up to 5 hectares of that agricultural land
• agricultural land you plant with trees under a woodland creation scheme

As you only need to transfer out agricultural land, this means you do not need to transfer out:

• land that was non-agricultural land on 17 May 2021 (such as woodland)
• any buildings - for example if you own your farmhouse you can choose to keep it

If you do not own the farmhouse and want to stay in it, you will need to negotiate this with your landlord.

The scheme does not have any rules about what you do with any land you keep, except rules about claiming under other schemes.

How to transfer out the land​

You do not need to transfer out all of the land at the same time or to the same person. Read the sole trader and partnership or limited company sections to find out who you cannot transfer land to.

Owner-occupier​

If you are an owner-occupier of the land, you can transfer it out by:

• sale
• gift
• renting it out under a Farm Business Tenancy with a minimum term of 5 years

The Farm Business Tenancy must not include break clauses which are based on a date, such as halfway through the tenancy. Other break clauses, such as in the event of the death or bankruptcy of the tenant, are allowed.

Tenant​

If you are a tenant of the land, you can transfer it out by:

• surrendering the tenancy to your landlord or ending the tenancy having served a Notice to Quit on your landlord
• assigning the tenancy (transferring it to someone else) if your tenancy allows this
• a succession - if you have an Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 tenancy with succession rights

Sole trader​

If you are a sole trader, you cannot transfer the land to:

• your spouse or civil partner
• someone you are cohabiting with as a couple

You can transfer the land to anyone else, such as your son or daughter.

Partnership or limited company​

If you claim the lump sum payment as a partnership or limited company (or other corporate body), you cannot transfer the land to a partner or shareholder in the business.

When you must transfer the land​

You must transfer out the agricultural land and provide evidence of this by 31 May 2024.
You can apply for an extension to this date if you have an Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 tenancy with succession rights and the succession goes to a tribunal, arbitrator or court.

Extensions can also be requested in probate cases.

If you choose to, you can transfer agricultural land before you apply for the scheme. If you have already transferred out some of your agricultural land since 17 May 2021, you can still apply for a lump sum if you meet the transfer rules.

If you have rights on common land​

You may have a right to graze land in common with other farmers. This land may be registered as common land, or it may be other shared grazing, such as stinted or regulated pastures. We refer to this as common land in this guidance.

You must transfer out any rights to graze or rights to pannage you hold for common land where these rights are:

• attached to the agricultural land you need to transfer out
• held in gross (are not attached to land)

For rights which are attached to land, if the rights are attached to more land than you transfer, you must transfer a proportionate number of rights.

Example
If you have 50 rights attached to 10 hectares of land and you transfer 5 hectares, you will have transferred 50% of the land which the rights are attached to (5 ÷ 10 x 100 = 50%). In this example, you must transfer 50% of your rights, which is 25 rights.
Some rights which are attached to land may be unquantified, such as in the New Forest, which means they do not give grazing or pannage rights for a certain number of livestock. If you have these rights, you do not need to transfer them. If you have rights which are only attached to a house and not to agricultural land, you do not need to transfer these.

If you own grazing or pannage rights which are attached to land, the rights and the land need to be transferred together. You can transfer them by:

• sale
• gift
• lease for a minimum of 5 years

If you own grazing rights held in gross, you can transfer them by:

• sale
• gift
• lease for a minimum of 5 years

If you have leased-in grazing or pannage rights, you can transfer them by:

• surrendering the lease
• assigning the lease (transferring it to someone else), if your lease allows this
• a succession of an Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 tenancy if the grazing rights are attached to this

You must transfer the rights by 31 May 2024.
You can ask for an extension in the same instances as for transferring your land.

Entering your land into woodland creation schemes​

You can enter some or all of your agricultural land into woodland creation schemes instead of transferring it. These schemes are:

• any Nature for Climate Fund woodland creation scheme, such as the England Woodland Creation Offer or Woodland Creation Partnerships
• the Woodland Carbon Guarantee

You must be accepted under the woodland creation scheme and have planted this land with trees by 31 May 2024.

Surrender your BPS entitlements​

To get a lump sum payment, you have until 31 May 2024 to:

• surrender to RPA, all English BPS entitlements you own which are not leased-out
• confirm that you will surrender to RPA, any English BPS entitlements you own which are leased out, with the surrender coming into effect at the end of the entitlements’ lease

You can ask for an extension in the same instances as for transferring your land.

You do not have to surrender any entitlements that you have leased-in, but your lump sum may be reduced if they are not surrendered.

Guidance on how to surrender your BPS entitlements will be published before the scheme opens in April 2022.

Partnerships and limited companies​

If your business is a partnership or limited company, you need to apply to the Lump Sum Exit Scheme as a partnership or limited company, as you do for BPS.

If some members want to leave or retire from farming, such as parents leaving the business to their children, the partnership or limited company can still apply for a lump sum payment if:

• a partner with 50% or more interest in the profits of the partnership, or more than one partner with combined interest of 50% or more, leaves the partnership
• a shareholder with 50% or more equity share capital in the company, or more than one shareholder with combined shares of 50% or more, sells or gifts their shares
• the partners or shareholders who leave the business transfer the agricultural land used by that business if it was held, or partly held, in their name

The partners or shareholders who are leaving can transfer the land to the remaining members of the business. For example, if a tenancy was previously in the name of more than one partner, the tenancy needs to be changed to remove the partner(s) leaving the business. A land transfer is not needed if the agricultural land is not held in the name, or partly in the name of the partners or shareholders leaving the business.

Examples

1. Farmer A and Farmer B, each have a 50% interest in the profits of the partnership and Farmer A wants to exit. Farmer A could leave the partnership and transfer the land to Farmer B, who could continue to farm the land.
2. Farmer A has a 30% interest in the profits of the partnership, Farmer B has a 30% interest and Farmer C has a 40% interest. Farmer A and Farmer B both want to exit. As their total interest is more than 50%, they can leave the partnership and transfer the land to Farmer C, who can continue to farm the land.
3. Farmer A has a 30% interest in the profits of the partnership and Farmer B has a 70% interest. Farmer A wants to exit. As Farmer A’s interest is less than 50%, a lump sum cannot be claimed.

Where only some partners in the partnership or shareholders in the limited company are leaving, the partnership or limited company must still surrender the business’s BPS entitlements before the lump sum is paid.

Once the lump sum payment is made, the remaining business cannot claim further BPS payments or delinked payments in England. They can apply for any other schemes they are eligible for (so the rules in ‘Applying for other schemes’ do not apply in this case).

Claiming future BPS or delinked payments​

Applicants who receive a lump sum payment, are not eligible for more BPS payments or delinked payments in England. Receiving a lump sum will not prevent you claiming BPS payments or delinked payments for any other businesses you are involved with.

Examples

1. If you receive a lump sum as a sole trader, you cannot claim future BPS or delinked payments as a sole trader. However, if you are also a partner in another business, and that partnership does not receive a lump sum, you could still claim BPS or delinked payments for that partnership.
2. If a partnership receives a lump sum, the partnership cannot claim future BPS or delinked payments. However, if a partner in that business also has a business as a sole trader, they could still claim BPS or delinked payments as a sole trader.

Existing scheme agreements and grants​

Meeting the Lump Sum Exit Scheme rules and leaving farming, may mean that you no longer meet the rules of other scheme agreements and grants such as Countryside Stewardship (CS) or the Farming Investment Fund. In some cases, you may need to repay money you have received under those schemes.

Read the relevant sections if you have a CS agreement, Environmental Stewardship (ES) agreement or have received money under a woodland scheme.

If you have an agreement under another scheme or have received a grant that may be affected by you leaving farming, please contact the relevant administering body to find out what options are available to you.

If you are a member of a Fruit and Vegetable Producer Organisation (PO), please tell your PO that you plan to apply for the lump sum and ask them to contact RPA to discuss any impact on the PO.

Countryside Stewardship and Environmental Stewardship​

If you have a CS or ES agreement, we encourage you to transfer your agreement to those taking on the land. This will mean that environmental benefits will continue on that land.

You should tell the person taking on the land about your agreement before you transfer the land. They may want to take the agreement on. You will not have to repay any money if you successfully transfer your agreement.

You should also tell RPA as soon as possible before you transfer your agreement land.

For CS agreements, other than Capital Grants, you will not have to repay any money you received if you request to transfer your agreement. This applies to both EU funded and domestically funded CS agreements even if the new owner or occupier does not take on the agreement.

For CS Capital Grants, you cannot transfer your agreement during the 2-year agreement period. If you sell or let all or part of the land under your Capital Grants agreement to another party, we will end the agreement on those land parcels. You may need to repay all or part of the grant payments you have already received.

For ES agreements, you may have to repay all or part of the money you received if the new owner or occupier does not continue with the agreement. Where a Higher Level Stewardship agreement naturally ends, you would not have to repay any money received.

You should write to RPA if you want to end your CS or ES agreement, rather than transfer it to the new owner or occupier. You may need to repay all or part of the payments you have received. Your obligations under the agreement do not end until we have received this repayment.

For details about transferring and ending CS and ES agreements, you should read:

• information for CS agreement holders
• information for ES agreement holders

Woodland schemes​

You do not have to transfer land which was woodland on 17 May 2021. This is because woodland is not agricultural land.

If you choose to transfer land which is in a woodland scheme, you should contact the relevant administering body. For woodland schemes managed by the Forestry Commission contact:

Bucks Horn Oak Administrative Hub (for counties in the east):​

• South East and London
• East and East Midlands
• Yorkshire and North East

Telephone: 0300 067 4420

Email: [email protected]

Bullers Hill Administrative Hub (for counties in the west)​

• South West
• North West and West Midlands

Telephone: 0300 067 4960

Email: [email protected]

You may need to repay all or part of the payment you have received under that scheme if:

• you end your agreement early
• those taking on the land do not agree to take on the obligations of the existing grant agreement

Applying for other schemes​

If you are paid a lump sum, you will not be eligible to enter into new agreements (or add land to existing agreements) under the following schemes, unless you first repay the lump sum:

• Sustainable Farming Incentive
• some options under CS and Local Nature Recovery

This is because these schemes (or options in schemes) are mainly on agricultural land and the Lump Sum Exit Scheme is for those people who are leaving farming. This rule applies during the rest of the agricultural transition.

Where only some partners in a partnership or shareholders in a limited company leave, the remaining partners and shareholders can apply to the schemes listed above without the lump sum having to be repaid.

You can apply for any other schemes you are eligible for, such as the Future Farming Resilience Fund (until you stop claiming BPS and have left farming) or the Farming Investment Fund.

How the lump sum is calculated​

The lump sum payment is based on a ‘reference amount’.

Calculation of the reference amount​

The reference amount is based on the average BPS payments (including any young farmer payment or greening payment) made to your business for the BPS 2019, BPS 2020 and BPS 2021 scheme years. We will add up your BPS 2019, BPS 2020 and BPS 2021 payments and divide by 3. We will include reductions applied for over-claiming land, but will ignore the following:

• over-claim penalties (which can be applied to BPS payments on top of over-claim reductions)
• reductions and penalties for not meeting the greening rules
• late application penalties
• penalties for not declaring all agricultural land parcels
• cross compliance penalties
• financial discipline reductions
• reductions to amounts above €150,000
• progressive reductions for BPS 2021

If you also claimed BPS on entitlements in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, your reference amount will be based only on the part of your payment which relates to your English entitlements.

If we paid your BPS 2019 payment in euros, this will be converted to sterling using the exchange rate applied in the 2019 scheme year (€1 = £0.89092).

The reference amount will be capped at £42,500. This means that if your reference amount is £42,500 or less, you will not be affected by the cap.

Calculation of the lump sum payment amount​

Lump sum payment (£) = reference amount (capped at £42,500) x 2.35
This calculation means that (except for farmers affected by the cap), the lump sum will be equivalent to the amount you could have received in Direct Payments for 2022 to 2027. This takes account of the announced progressive reductions for 2022 to 2024 and continued gradual reductions until the end of 2027. Read about how farming is changing.

Examples

1. If a farmer’s reference amount is £40,000, their lump sum would be £40,000 x 2.35 = £94,000
2. If a farmer’s reference amount is £50,000, their lump sum would be £42,500 (as the cap is applied) x 2.35 = £99,875

Reductions to the lump sum for not surrendering enough entitlements​

Your lump sum payment will be reduced if you do not surrender to RPA enough English BPS entitlements, by value. For example, this could be the case if you have sold or leased out entitlements since you used them to claim BPS 2021.

Your lump sum will be reduced if Figure A is less than Figure B.

Figure A​

This is the total value of English BPS entitlements you surrender to RPA after 17 May 2021. It will not include any entitlements you lease out to other farmers after 17 May 2021, even if you surrender them at the end of the lease. If you have leased-in entitlements and these are surrendered before your lump sum is paid, these will be included.

Figure B​

This is the total value of English BPS entitlements you used to claim BPS 2021. If you did not claim BPS 2021, Figure B is the total value of entitlements you used in your most recent BPS claim in the 2019 to 2021 reference period.

We will use the BPS 2021 entitlement rates when working out Figure A and Figure B.

Example
If you claimed payment on 20 entitlements in the non-Severely Disadvantaged Area (non-SDA) for BPS 2021 scheme year, then the value of entitlements you used to claim BPS 2021 is:
Figure B: 20 x £233.30 = £4,666.00
For no lump sum reduction, the total value of entitlements you surrender (Figure A) must not be less than Figure B, in this case £4,660.00.
This means you must surrender entitlements with a total value of at least £4,666.00. So, for example, if you surrender 20 non-SDA entitlements (20 x £233.30 = £4,666.00), your lump sum will not be reduced.
If Figure A is less than Figure B, you will only receive a percentage of your full lump sum. This is worked out as follows:

Lump sum percentage (%) = Figure A ÷ Figure B x 100
Example
If you claimed payment on 20 non-SDA entitlements for the BPS 2021 scheme year, their total value was 20 x £233.30 = £4,666.00 (Figure B).
If you only surrender 15 non-SDA entitlements, their total value is 15 x £233.30 = £3,499.50 (Figure A).
Lump sum percentage % = 3,499.50 ÷ 4,660.00 x 100 = 75%

Claiming BPS in 2022​

You may wish to apply for BPS in 2022 as well as applying for the Lump Sum Exit Scheme. This will protect you if you then find that you are not eligible for the lump sum or cannot complete the transfer of your land in time.

To apply for BPS in 2022, you will need to meet the BPS scheme rules. If, before the end of 2022 you transfer land you have used to claim BPS, it is still your responsibility to make sure the land:

• stays eligible for BPS for the rest of the year (or is withdrawn from your BPS application)
• meets the cross compliance rules for the whole year (unless the person you have transferred it to – called the transferee - applied for any rural payments, in which case they take over this responsibility)

If you are transferring land you have used to claim BPS in that year, you should make sure that any contract you have is clear about what happens if any of the BPS, or cross compliance rules are broken, or if inspectors/field officers are refused access to the land.

If you receive a BPS 2022 payment (or BPS 2023) and later meet the rules of the Lump Sum Exit Scheme, the value of any BPS payments made will be deducted from the lump sum due. Claiming both BPS and the lump sum payment will not lead to an overpayment if you meet the rules for BPS and the Lump Sum Exit Scheme.

Business changes since BPS 2018​

There may have been changes to your business since BPS 2018 which affect the lump sum payment you could receive. This could affect:

• whether you meet the requirement to have claimed BPS in 2018 or earlier (unless an exception applies)
• whether the BPS 2019 to 2021 payments of a previous business can be included in the calculation of your reference amount

New business​

If your business has been given a new Single Business Identifier (SBI), we will normally treat it as a new business which cannot benefit from the BPS claim history of a previous business. This means we will not take account of the previous business when checking whether you meet the requirement to have claimed BPS in 2018 or earlier and when calculating your reference amount.

However, there are exceptions for inheritance cases, business mergers and business splits.

Inherited businesses or land​

If you have inherited all or part of a business from a farmer who claimed BPS in one of the years 2019 to 2021, you can ask us to take that claim history into account. Where part of a business has been inherited, the BPS 2019 to 2021 payments (before some reductions and penalties) are made to the original business before the inheritance will be divided between the new businesses. This will be based on the split of the value of BPS entitlements transferred to each of the new businesses when the inheritance happened. You will need to tell us about the inheritance on your Lump Sum Exit Scheme application form.

If you inherited agricultural land after 15 May 2018 you do not need to have claimed BPS in 2018 or earlier.

If a sole trader dies and the Executor applies for the lump sum payment, this will be treated as the same business. Any lump sum payment which is due will be paid once the estate has been settled.

Merged businesses​

If two or more businesses have merged since BPS 2018, the merged business can ask us to take the BPS claim history of the original businesses into account for the lump sum payment.

The reference amount for the new business will take account of the BPS 2019 to 2021 payments (before some reductions and penalties) made to all of the previous businesses. At least one of the people with shares in the new merged business must have had shares in one of the original businesses.

Example
Business A and Business B claimed BPS in 2018 and 2019 and merged to form a new Business C. Business C claimed BPS in 2020 and 2021. If Business C tells us about the business merger on their Lump Sum Exit Scheme application form:

• Business C will be treated as having met the requirement to have claimed BPS in 2018 or earlier
• the BPS payments (before some reductions and penalties) made to Business A and Business B for BPS 2019 will be included in the reference amount for Business C

Split businesses​

If a business has split into two or more businesses since BPS 2018, one or all of the new businesses can apply for a lump sum payment and ask us to take the BPS claim history of the original businesses into account.

When calculating the reference amount for the new business(es), the BPS 2019 to 2021 payments (before some reductions and penalties) made to the original business before it split will be divided between the new businesses. This will be based on the split of the value of BPS entitlements transferred to each of the new businesses when the business split happened.

Each new business would only qualify for a share of the BPS claim history if at least one of the people with shares in the new business had shares in the original business.

Example
Business A claimed BPS in 2018, 2019 and 2020 and then split into 2 new businesses (B and C). 60% of the value of business A’s entitlements were transferred to business B and 40% to business C. Business B and Business C each claimed BPS in 2021. Business C applies for a lump sum payment. If Business C tells us about the business split on their Lump Sum Exit Scheme application form:

• Business C will be treated as having met the requirement to have claimed BPS in 2018 or earlier
• 40% of the BPS payments (before some reductions and penalties made to Business A for BPS 2019 and 2020 will be included in the reference amount for Business C

Tax treatment for lump sum payments​

We are aware that tax treatment of receipts under the Lump Sum Exit Scheme is an important issue for many farmers. The government intends to introduce legislation to provide clarity that the Lump Sum Exit Scheme payments will be treated as capital in nature and will be subject to capital gains tax, or corporation tax in the case of incorporated entities. The existing capital gains reliefs will be available where the qualifying criteria are met.

The capital treatment will also apply to interim Direct Payments, which will be deducted from the lump sum payment amount once the scheme rules have been met. Income treatment will apply to Direct Payments if the qualifying conditions for the Lump Sum Exit Scheme are not met. Further guidance on timing and abortive transactions will be provided by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

HMRC will consider whether any steps may be necessary to prevent capital treatment being applied where transactions are undertaken which do not support the policy objective and there is a possibility of tax avoidance, and will provide further detail in due course.

Expected timetable for the Lump Sum Exit Scheme​

About delinked payments​

We plan to replace BPS in England with delinked payments in 2024. This means BPS will end after the 2023 scheme year. We plan to make delinked payments in each of the years 2024 to 2027.

When payments are delinked, you won’t need any land or entitlements to receive the payments. This will simplify the payments as we phase them out by the end of 2027. You cannot apply for delinked payments if you have received a payment under the Lump Sum Exit Scheme.

Delinked payments will be based on your BPS payments in a reference period, which is the BPS 2020 to 2022 scheme years. Your delinked payments for 2024 to 2027 will not be affected if your farm size changes, or if you change what the land is used for, after BPS 2022. You can receive delinked payments even if you choose to stop farming. However, you must claim, and be eligible for, BPS payments in the 2023 scheme year to receive delinked payments for 2024 to 2027.

You can also apply for any other scheme you are eligible for, including our environmental land management schemes.

How delinked payments are calculated​

Your delinked payments will be based on a ‘reference amount’. This is different to the reference amount used for the Lump Sum Exit Scheme as it uses a different reference period.

The delinked payments reference amount will be the average BPS payments (including any young farmer payment or greening payment) made to your business for the BPS 2020, BPS 2021 and BPS 2022 scheme years. We will include reductions applied for over-claiming land but will ignore the following:

• over-claim penalties (which can be applied to BPS payments on top of over-claim reductions)
• reductions and penalties for not meeting the greening rules
• late application penalties
• penalties for not declaring all agricultural land parcels
• cross compliance penalties
• reductions to amounts above €150,000
• progressive reductions for BPS 2021 and BPS 2022

If you also claimed BPS on entitlements in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, your reference amount will be based only on the part of your payment which relates to your English entitlements.

We will apply progressive reductions when we calculate your delinked payments each year. We have announced the reductions we intend to apply in 2024. We intend to apply different progressive reductions for years 2025 to 2027 as we continue to gradually phase the payments out.

This means the value of the delinked payment each year will become a smaller and smaller proportion of the reference amount.

We will calculate your delinked payment each year as follows:

Delinked payment = delinked reference amount (£) x progressive reductions for that year
If BPS reference data was used to make a payment under the Lump Sum Exit Scheme, it will not also be used to make a delinked payment.

Business change​

There may have been changes to your business since BPS 2020 (the start of the reference period) which affect the delinked payment you could receive.

If your business has been given a new SBI, we will normally treat it as a new business which cannot benefit from the BPS claim history of a previous business. This means we will not take account of the previous business when calculating your reference amount.

However, there are exceptions for business mergers, business splits and inheritance cases.

Tax treatment for delinked payments​

Where a business is in receipt of a delinked payment, these will continue to be taxed in line with ongoing BPS payments and be income in nature.

Cross compliance​

Cross compliance will not apply to your delinked payments. There is a regulatory baseline for farming within domestic legislation, which safeguards our environment and protects the health of animals, plants and people. Most of the standards in cross compliance will continue to apply to your farm activities as they are already legal requirements. We will make sure farmers are aware of these legislative requirements as we approach 2024 and will be working to reform the way we regulate them.