Delinked payments: replacing the Basic Payment Scheme
Payments for farmers that are no longer linked to land or entitlements, how they’re calculated and who’s eligible.
Applies to England
The Rural Payment Agency (RPA) plans to replace the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) in England with delinked payments in 2024.
BPS will end after the 2023 scheme year. RPA plans to make delinked payments each year from 2024 to 2027.
When payments are delinked, you will not need any land or entitlements to receive the payments. This will simplify the payments as they are phased out by the end of 2027.
When you can claim delinked payments
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.
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.
When you cannot claim for delinked payments
You cannot apply for delinked payments if you have received a payment under the Lump Sum Exit Scheme.
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.
RPA 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.
RPA will apply progressive reductions when it calculates your delinked payments each year. Use the progressive reduction calculator to see how this affects you.
Different progressive reductions will be applied for years 2025 to 2027 as delinked payments are gradually phased out.
This means the value of the delinked payment each year will become a smaller and smaller proportion of the reference amount.
RPA 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 changes
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 Single Business Identifier (SBI), RPA will normally treat it as a new business which cannot benefit from the BPS claim history of a previous business. This means RPA will not take account of the previous business when calculating your reference amount.
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.
RPA will make sure farmers are aware of these legislative requirements as we approach 2024 and will be working to reform the way it regulates them.
Contact us
Rural Payments Agency (RPA)
PO Box 352
Worksop
S80 9FG
Email: ruralpayments@defra.gov.uk
Telephone: 03000 200 301
Follow us on Twitter @Ruralpay