Sustainable Farming Incentive: Completing Your Annual Declaration

Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) agreements in England last either 3 or 5 years, depending on which actions you selected.

To confirm you have complied, or expect to have complied, with your agreement’s obligations for that year, you must submit an ‘annual declaration’ each year of your SFI agreement.

SFI annual declarations become available for completion approximately two months before the SFI anniversary date. It is important to submit your annual declaration online, via the Rural Payments service, within the designated period to receive the final quarterly instalment of your annual payment.

If you do not submit your annual declaration, the RPA may:

• delay the fourth instalment of your payment for that agreement year
• regard it as a breach of your agreement

Deadlines for submitting annual declarations

The table shows the usual time period for submitting your annual declaration, based on your agreement start date.

*29th February in a leap year

How to complete your annual declaration

When the RPA tells you that your annual declaration is available to complete, sign in to the Rural Payments service.

From your ‘Business overview’ screen, select either:

• ‘Sustainable Farming Incentive 2023’ to complete an annual declaration for an SFI 2023 agreement
• ‘Apply for the Expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) Offer’ to complete an annual declaration for an SFI 2024 agreement

Click on ‘View Annual Declaration’. You need to either:

• Confirm you’ve complied, or expect to have complied, with the obligations under your SFI agreement.
• Tell RPA why you’ve been unable to comply with the obligations under your SFI agreement.

If your agreement includes rotational SFI actions, you’ll need to also complete and submit your rotational actions declaration.

Rotational actions declaration

If you have SFI rotational actions in your agreement, you must also complete a separate rotational actions declaration to confirm the location of rotational actions for year two and three of your agreement.

Your rotational actions declaration will be available in the Rural Payments service once you have submitted your annual declaration. The RPA will notify you when it’s available. It’s important that you complete and submit your rotational actions declaration as soon as it’s available so you can be paid for the relevant agreement year.

Help & advice

For further help and advice, please contact our Stewardship & Grants team on 01981 590514 or follow this link below to find out more on rotational actions declarations read the ‘Understanding the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) rotational actions declaration‘ blog post from Defra.