SFI Window 2 has closed: a checklist for the next round

What happened on 22/09/2026, and where that leaves you

Window 2 opened on the morning of 22/09/2026 and Defra closed it at 15:48 the same day, in their words "when we had enough applications to allocate the full Window 2 budget". They posted updates through the day as 25 per cent, 50 per cent and then 75 per cent of it went. It was open for under six hours.

Three things follow from that, depending on where you got to.

If you started an application and had not sent it, you cannot send it now. Defra name two exceptions, assisted digital cases and technical issue cases, and the RPA say they will contact those farmers. If you think you are one of them, wait to be contacted rather than start again from the beginning.

If your application went in, the offer when it comes has to be accepted within 30 calendar days. That is a real deadline with your own money behind it, so put the date in the diary the day the offer lands, and read the offer against what you actually entered, the actions, the areas and the start date, before you accept it.

If you missed it altogether, Defra say eligible farmers and land managers will have another opportunity to apply for the SFI in 2027. No date has been given and no rules have been published for it. Everything below is about the offer as it stands today, which is the only thing anybody can plan against, and it is worth doing now rather than in the week a date is announced.

Source: Defra Farming blog, SFI26 Window 2 now closed, 22/09/2026, checked 22/09/2026.

Start with what you already hold

Everything else on this page depends on this, so do it first, and it is worth doing whether or not you got an application in. Find your current agreement documents, whatever scheme they are under, and write down three things for each: which offer it belongs to (SFI 2023, SFI 2024, Mid Tier, Higher Tier, HLS), its end date, and the actions in it with their areas.

That gives you the two facts that decide your options whenever the next chance comes: your end date settles whether an early route, if one is offered again, could reach you, and the areas in your limited area actions settle how much of your 25 per cent allowance is already spent.

Source: GOV.UK, SFI26 scheme rules and guidance, section 4.5.1, checked 05/09/2026.

Work out the 25 per cent allowance

The limited area actions share one allowance between them: 25 per cent of your farm's agricultural area, which means the land registered as arable, permanent grassland or permanent crops on the parcels linked to your SBI. Not 25 per cent each, and not 25 per cent per application.

What counts against it: limited area actions in any SFI agreement you hold, plus the equivalent Higher Tier options from 2025 onwards, including applications you have submitted but not heard back on. Anything you still hold on the day you apply counts, even if it has months left to run. An agreement that has already ended does not.

This is the sum most worth having in a drawer before the next round, because it does not change with the weather and it decides what a plan can even contain. The full account is on our 25 per cent limit page, our limited area calculator does the sum in a page you can use on a phone, and GOV.UK publishes its own calculator for it.

Source: GOV.UK, SFI26 scheme rules and guidance, sections 4.5.1 and 4.5.2, and the SFI26 limited area actions calculator, checked 05/09/2026.

The early route, as Window 2 ran it

Window 2 let some farms apply before their existing agreement ended. The qualifying list was narrow: SFI 2023 agreements ending between 30/09/2026 and 28/02/2027; Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier ending 31/12/2026; pre-2025 Higher Tier ending 31/12/2026; HLS ending by 28/02/2027. Agreements ending on 01/03/2027 or later did not qualify, and SFI 2024 agreements were not on the list.

The cutoff was not arbitrary. An SFI26 agreement had to start by 01/04/2027 to use that financial year's budget, and 28/02/2027 was the latest end date that left time for it.

Source: GOV.UK, SFI26 scheme rules and guidance, sections 3.8.1 to 3.8.3, checked 05/09/2026.

Know the limits and the gates

These are the rules of the offer as it stands, and they are what a plan has to live inside.

You need at least 3 hectares of eligible agricultural land linked to your SBI, and you need to be registered with the Rural Payments Agency with that SBI at the point you apply.

Then two limits on the agreement itself. One SFI26 agreement per business, identified by SBI. And a maximum agreement value of 100,000 pounds per agreement year. Both are worth knowing before you build a plan that breaches either.

One more gate that catches people late. If any of the land you are applying for is in a Site of Special Scientific Interest, Natural England has to consent before the RPA can make you an agreement offer. That is not a thing to start on the day a window opens, and a window that lasted six hours is the argument for starting it early.

Source: GOV.UK, SFI26 scheme rules and guidance, sections 2.1 and 2.2, checked 05/09/2026; Defra Farming blog, 05/08/2026, for the SSSI consent point.

The last limit bites after you have applied, so it has to be settled before you do. For a rotational action, the area you put in for the first year is the most that action can hold for the whole agreement. You can come down for the second and third years, and back up to that first-year figure, but never above it, so a cautious first year cannot be grown into later. There is also a rotational actions declaration to send towards the end of the first and second years, and the next year is not paid until it is in. Our rotational area limit page sets both out in full.

Source: GOV.UK, SFI26 scheme rules and guidance, sections 4.3.1 and 4.3.2, checked 21/09/2026.

Do the money before you choose the actions

The first is what each action pays against the gross margin of what it displaces, field by field. Payment rates are the same everywhere; your margins are not, so the same action can be obvious on one farm and a poor trade on the next. Every guide on this site works that through against Farm Business Survey margins, which is a starting point until you put your own numbers in.

The second is the succession sum, for anyone holding an agreement that ends within the next couple of years. Some of what you hold has no equivalent in the current offer, so it cannot be renewed, and the management payment has gone for SFI26 agreements. Adding up what disappears at your end date tells you how much you need to replace, and that number is usually bigger than people expect. Our removed actions page lists what left the offer and where each one's job went.

Before the next window opens

Get your parcels and boundaries current, because an application works from what is registered against your SBI, and putting that right takes weeks rather than an afternoon. Have your agreement documents to hand rather than half-remembered. Do the 25 per cent sum. Do the margin sums on the actions you are considering. Start the SSSI consent if you need one.

Window 2 was open for under six hours, and Window 1 before it ran on until the money was gone. Nobody knows yet how the 2027 round will be run. What both of those say plainly enough is that the work belongs before the announcement, so that when a date does come the application is data entry rather than decision-making.

This page summarises Crown copyright material published on GOV.UK under the Open Government Licence v3.0. It is not scheme guidance, and Tilth is not connected to Defra or the RPA. Check the scheme rules and your own agreement before acting.