CS and SFI payments 2025
Published 30 July 2026
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2026
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1. Main messages
- The total amount paid out to agreement holders under Countryside Stewardship and SFI in 2025 was £1.82 billion.
- In 2025, £912 million was paid to Countryside Stewardship agreement holders and £908 million to SFI agreement holders.
- The total amount paid to agreement holders under Countryside Stewardship increased each year in the years 2022-2025.
- The item with the highest total payment amount in 2025 was the Sustainable Farming Incentive action “Herbal leys” (SAM3), with payments made for this action totalling £123 million.
2. Background
This statistical release gives details of payments made under the Environmental Land Management schemes Countryside Stewardship (CS) and the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) in the year 2025.
Countryside Stewardship opened in 2015. In 2024, CS Mid Tier (including Wildlife Offers) merged with SFI for new entrants to schemes from 2024, known as the expanded SFI offer. Most options were transferred into the SFI expanded offer.
SFI23 opened in 2023 and was replaced by the SFI expanded offer in 2024. The first payments made for SFI23 were made in 2024. The SFI Expanded Offer opened on 31st May 2024 using a “phased rollout”, where applicants had to register their interest with RPA and were then invited to apply.
3. Payments 2025
The total amount paid out to agreement holders under Countryside Stewardship and SFI in 2025 was £1.82 billion. Of this, £912 million was paid to Countryside Stewardship agreement holders and £908 million to SFI agreement holders.
4. Payments 2022-2025
The total amount paid to agreement holders under Countryside Stewardship increased each year in the years 2022-2025. Between 2024 and 2025, the amount paid out under CS increased by 35%, from £678 million to £912 million. 2025 was the second year of payments under SFI23 and the SFI expanded offer. These totalled £908 million.
4.1 Payments made under Countryside Stewardship and SFI in the years 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025
Figure 1: A bar chart showing payments made under Countryside Stewardship and SFI in the years 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 in millions of pounds (GBP).
Source: CS and SFI Payments 2022-2024 dataset, CS and SFI Payments 2025 dataset
4.2 Table: Payments made under Countryside Stewardship and SFI, 2022-2025
| Scheme | Contract Type | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Countryside Stewardship | Capital Grants | £20,309,100 | £27,292,800 | £91,171,100 | £134,070,000 |
| Countryside Stewardship | Higher Tier | £86,749,700 | £107,916,000 | £166,017,000 | £271,994,000 |
| Countryside Stewardship | Mid Tier | £258,639,000 | £295,913,000 | £386,575,000 | £464,447,000 |
| Countryside Stewardship | Wildlife Offer | £23,208,400 | £30,888,700 | £34,376,700 | £41,911,400 |
| Sustainable Farming Incentive | SFI Expanded Offer | - | - | £13,893,500 | £388,589,000 |
| Sustainable Farming Incentive | SFI23 | - | - | £563,145,000 | £518,915,000 |
| Total | - | £388,907,000 | £462,011,000 | £1,255,180,000 | £1,819,930,000 |
A table showing payments made under Countryside Stewardship and SFI in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, broken down by contract type and showing totals. Figures are rounded to 6 significant figures. The first payments for SFI were made in 2024, so there is no data on SFI payments for 2022 and 2023.
Source: CS and SFI Payments 2022-2024 dataset, CS and SFI Payments 2025 dataset
CS payments made under Mid Tier contracts increased by 20% from £387 million in 2024 to £464 million in 2025. Payments made for Capital Grants contracts increased by 47% between 2024 and 2025, from £91 million to £134 million. Payments made under Higher Tier contracts increased by 64%, from £166 million in 2024 to £272 million in 2025. Payments made for Wildlife Offer agreement increased by 22%, from £34 million to £42 million, between 2025 and 2025.
4.3 CS payments made per contract type
Figure 2: A chart showing payments made under each contract type (Mid Tier, Wildlife Offers, Higher Tier and Capital Grants) for Countryside Stewardship, in millions of pounds (GBP)
Source: CS and SFI Payments 2022-2024 dataset, CS and SFI Payments 2025 dataset
The majority (57%) of SFI payments made in 2025 were made for SFI23 agreements. This is because the SFI expanded offer did not open until mid-2024. This percentage has reduced since last year, when 98% of SFI payments were made for SFI23 agreements. There was a 28-fold increase in the amount paid out under the SFI expanded offer between 2024 and 2025.
The action with the highest number of agreements with payments across both CS and SFI in 2025 was the SFI23 Management Payment (MPA1), which was included in 23,600 agreements. This action was previously available to all SFI23 agreement holders to help with the administrative costs of the scheme. The total amount paid out for this action was just over £19 million. In 2024, the amount paid out for this action was £40 million.
The action with the next-highest number of agreements with payments was the Countryside Stewardship action “Permanent grassland with very low inputs (outside SDAs)” (GS2), with 19,400 payments made for this item, totalling just over £54 million.
The item with the highest total payment amount in 2025 was “Herbal leys” (SAM3), with payments made for this action totalling £123 million over 9,620 agreements. The average payment per agreement for this action was £12,800. Payments made for SAM3 in 2025 equalled nearly 7% of total payments made across both schemes (compared with 11% in 2024), and 14% of payments made under SFI, compared with 23% in 2024.
4.4 Actions with the highest amounts paid out, across both schemes in 2025
Figure 3: A chart showing the amount paid per action for the top 10 actions with the highest total payments across Countryside Stewardship and SFI in 2025
Source: CS and SFI Payments 2025 dataset
Top 10 actions with the highest total payments:
- SAM3: Herbal leys
- FG2: Sheep netting
- AHL2: Winter bird food on arable and horticultural land
- GS2: Permanent grassland with very low inputs (outside SDAs)
- NUM3: Legume fallow
- CSAM3: Herbal leys
- AB9: Winter bird food
- AB8: Flower-rich margins and plots
- AB15: Two year sown legume fallow
- GS6: Management of species-rich grassland
The top 10 actions with the highest total payments accounted for around 33% of payments made across both schemes in 2025.
The top 50% of actions (the 194 actions with the highest payment amounts, out of 388 actions) accounted for 98% of payments. This means that half of the actions across Countryside Stewardship and SFI account for 98% of the payments made under these schemes in 2025.
5. About these statistics
These statistics were created using data supplied by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA). The payment amount used for each option/action was the most recent payment amount on the RPA system, so the totals may not exactly equal the amount of money paid by RPA to successful claimants in each year. This is because payment amounts can be adjusted after they have been made. For example, more money can be paid to a claimant if the payment rate for an option is increased and this is applied retrospectively. Money can also be reclaimed if the original payment amount was found to be too much- for example, if an action had been done on a smaller area than claimed.
Payment amounts have not been adjusted for inflation. Numbers are presented to 3 significant figures, except in tables where they are rounded to 6 significant figures. Payment totals may also include payments that have been made for closed agreements and payments that are due to be reclaimed, but have not yet been reclaimed.
The year used here is the year that payments were first made. This will usually be the same year as the applicant claimed in, but can be the following year.
In Countryside Stewardship, agreement holders must make a claim for payment. These claim amounts are usually lower than the amount that is on agreements. Claims are made for work that has been done under agreement in the preceding year. Agreement holders can claim once per year. Claims for Capital Grants can be made up to 3.3 years after the agreement has been made. CS and SFI agreements can be updated to add more actions or land at certain points in the agreement.
The numbers presented here will not precisely match numbers from other sources relating to number of agreements and amounts under agreement by option/action, due to these differences.