Guidance

Cross compliance

Cross compliance ended on 31 December 2023. If you are a farmer or land manager, find out what this means for you.

Applies to England

If you are a farmer or land manager and claimed rural payments between 2005 and 2023, you had to follow a set of rules called cross compliance. These rules ended at midnight on 31 December 2023. 

What this means for you

From 1 January 2024 regulations continue to protect the environment, and animal health and welfare.

You can read the rules for farmers and land managers for more information about the regulations you need to follow. These are grouped by farming activities rather than individual regulations so you can find the ones that apply to you.  

Compliance is monitored by the existing statutory bodies and regulated in a fair, proportionate, and consistent way. This means, wherever possible, working with you to get it right and giving you opportunities to self-correct before taking any formal action.

BPS

We are replacing BPS with delinked payments from 2024. If you claimed BPS in 2023, you should read the Delinked payments: replacing the Basic Payment Scheme guidance.

CS and ES agreements

We have updated your Terms and Conditions to reflect the end of cross compliance. You can read about the changes if you are:

Past cross compliance guidance is held on the National Archives website.

Contact us

If you need to contact us, you can:

Email: ruralpayments@defra.gov.uk

Telephone 03000 200 301

Write to us:

Rural Payments Agency (ES)
PO Box 390
Worksop
S80 9HD

Rural Payments Agency (CS)
PO Box 324
Worksop
S95 1DF

Published 6 December 2023
Last updated 5 January 2024 + show all updates
  1. Removed references and links to cross compliance 2023.

  2. First published.