Deadline planning: Use the UK farming grants deadline calendar 2026 for Higher Tier Capital Grants timing, SFI26 windows and other grant dates.
Last updated: 16 May 2026. Written from Suffolk against primary sources — Defra, the Rural Payments Agency, Natural England, gov.uk, and NFU. General information for farmers and growers, not bespoke land-management advice.
Scheme comparison: If you are deciding between CSHT, SFI and capital funding, start with the UK farming grants 2026 hub before choosing a route.
Tim Harfield · 12 min read
The thing nobody quite says out loud
If you came looking for “how do I apply for CS Mid Tier in 2026,” the honest answer is: you don’t, because you can’t. Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier closed to new applications after the 2024 round. The roughly 4,000 agreement holders whose CSMT was set to expire on 31 December 2025 got a one-year rollover — same terms, same options, no additions — running to 31 December 2026, after Defra and the NFU announced the extension in October 2025 (Defra Farming Blog, NFU). The deadline to accept that extension was 27 November 2025. If you missed it, your agreement ended as originally scheduled.
So what does “Countryside Stewardship in 2026” actually mean for a working farm? Three live routes, and a fourth one that’s just for legacy MT extension holders running out the clock. This guide walks through what’s open, what’s invitation-only, what the windows actually look like, and where CS sits next to the new SFI 2026 offer.
What’s actually running in 2026
Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT). The long-term restoration scheme for designated and high-value sites. Open by invitation only, rolling. Started taking new applications in September 2025 after a delay (NFU).
Higher Tier Capital Grants 2026. Capital-only funding alongside CSHT. Open all year, started 5 January 2026 (gov.uk applicant’s guide). 54 items in total, 18 priced at actual cost, 36 at fixed cost.
The standalone 2026 Capital Grants offer (£225 million round). The replacement for the broader capital window that closed in late 2024. Opens July 2026 with category caps and one application per Single Business Identifier (Defra Farming Blog, March 2026).
CS Mid Tier extension agreements. The legacy route. Around 4,000 agreements worth £59m of payments, running 1 January to 31 December 2026 under their existing terms. Frozen options, no capital items added, no flex. After 31 December 2026 these agreements end and holders need to move to SFI 2026 or CSHT if they want continued payments.
CS Higher Tier — how it actually works now
CSHT is not a scheme you can self-apply for. The application process has four gates, in order: pre-application advice, preparatory work, invitation to apply, then the application itself.
The first step is contact from a Natural England adviser or a Forestry Commission woodland officer. The gov.uk applicant’s guide is direct about this: “A Natural England adviser or Forestry Commission woodland officer will contact you to discuss what you need to do before you can apply.” Priority for invitations goes to three groups: holders of CS Higher Tier agreements that expired at the end of 2025, applicants with an approved woodland management plan, and applicants who have already done their preparatory work.
Once invited, the online application has four sections — checking eligibility, selecting actions and capital items, choosing land parcels, and reviewing. Natural England or the Forestry Commission can flag amendments inside the Rural Payments service before you submit.
Agreement length is set by the action with the longest required duration in your mix: 5, 10, 15 or 20 years. Capital items in a CSHT agreement must be completed within 3 years of the agreement start. Payment is quarterly, with the first instalment landing in the fourth month after the agreement begins. The fourth quarterly instalment in each year requires an annual declaration before it’s paid.
The CSHT guide quotes specific annual rates: £13 per 100 metres per side for hedgerow management, £646 per hectare for managing priority habitat species-rich grassland, £127 per hectare for woodland improvement, and £92 per hectare for permissive open access. Capital items are quoted individually — for example, £5.40 per agroforestry tree planted in field. The full action and capital-item list is in the CSHT applicant’s guide.
The thing the guide is careful about: you can’t get CSHT for an activity already paid for by another scheme, and you can’t get it for things you’re legally required to do anyway. Most of the rejection conversations I’ve heard about in the local NFU group are this rather than the application mechanics.
The two Capital Grants routes — they’re different
The naming is a mess. There are two separate capital schemes running in 2026, and they’re easy to confuse.
Higher Tier Capital Grants 2026 is the year-round capital offer that opened 5 January 2026. Tenants need a minimum 3-year tenancy from the scheme start date. The agreement runs 3 years, with a 5-year durability period afterwards during which funded items have to be kept in working order. The 54 items cover woodland management, grassland creation, tree work, water management, fencing, species control, and historic feature protection. Quoted fixed-cost items in the guide include deer fencing at £10.27 per metre, grassland habitat creation at £186.02 per hectare, and a cattle grid at £2,878.80 per item. Actual-cost items pay up to 100% of cost for some categories (heritage protection, access work) and 40–80% for others (woodland rides, scrub control).
The 2026 Capital Grants offer — the £225m round — is the broader standalone scheme that opens in July 2026, with applicant guidance due in May. It’s organised into six groups: boundaries / trees / orchards; water quality; air quality; natural flood management; assessments; and improvements. Four of the six groups have a cap: £35,000 for boundaries / trees / orchards, and £25,000 each for water quality, air quality, and natural flood management. Assessments and improvements have no stated cap. You can submit one application per SBI you manage. Defra has said this round will put greater weight on supporting evidence submitted upfront — quotes, maps, photos — to speed up assessment.
The simple framing: if you’re already in or heading toward a CSHT agreement, Higher Tier Capital Grants is the partner scheme. If you’re not in CSHT and you want capital funding for boundaries, water, air or natural flood-management work, the July £225m round is the route.
If you’re a CSMT extension holder
The terms of the rollover are strict. Defra’s wording: “continue under the same rules, terms and conditions as your existing CS MT agreement.” No new options, no additions to the option mix. Any capital items that hadn’t been completed and paid for before the extension started are removed. If you’ve been wondering whether you can add hedgerow planting or a buffer-strip option mid-extension, the answer is no.
What the extension does buy is twelve months of payment continuity while you decide what comes next. The natural successor for most extension holders will be SFI 2026, which opens its first window for small farms and first-time applicants in June 2026 (Defra Farming Blog) and a second window in September 2026 for everyone else (Farmers Weekly). SFI 2026 has 71 actions, a £100,000 per-year agreement cap, and a minimum 3-hectare threshold.
The transition matters for cash-flow planning. SFI 2026 agreement starts will run on signature rather than a fixed January date, so there’s a real possibility of a gap month or two between a CSMT extension ending in December 2026 and an SFI agreement starting in early 2027. Budget for it.
Stacking — what works with what
The one rule that matters: you cannot be paid twice for the same action on the same parcel. The Rural Payments service flags overlaps automatically before you submit either application, and clawback on a duplicate claim is automatic.
Beyond that:
- You can run an SFI agreement and a CSHT agreement at the same time, on different parcels or for different actions, with the compatibility checker doing the cross-reference.
- The £225m standalone Capital Grants offer is open to applicants who aren’t in any revenue agreement — it’s the lowest-commitment way to fund a piece of infrastructure work, with no annual revenue lock-in.
- Higher Tier Capital Grants is designed to sit alongside a CSHT revenue agreement, not as a standalone.
- If you’re inside a CSMT extension, the freeze on adding options means most of these stacking opportunities don’t apply until the extension ends.
Devolved nation picture in 2026
CS, CSHT and the new Capital Grants offer are England-only. Each devolved nation runs its own scheme.
Wales — Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS). The Universal Layer launched in 2026 with the Single Application Form window running 2 March to 15 May 2026 (gov.wales). That window has now closed. Optional and Collaborative layer actions open through the rest of 2026 with separate guidance.
Scotland — Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS). The 2026 round runs 23 February to 20 June 2026, administered through Rural Payments and Services (ruralpayments.org). Open as I write this — closes 20 June.
Northern Ireland — Farming with Nature Transition Scheme (FwNT). Administered by DAERA. The 2026 phase pays farmers up to £9,500 for additional environmental measures, with further strands of the broader Farming with Nature Package rolling out through 2026 (DAERA). A separate priority-habitats scheme for 2026 will prioritise farms that have ended their Environmental Farming Scheme (Higher) agreements.
Cross-border holdings apply in each nation for the land located in that nation only.
Where to get help
- RPA Rural Services Helpline: 03000 200 301 for application questions and parcel queries.
- Natural England local office: for CSHT pre-application advice and feature-specific guidance on SSSIs and priority habitats.
- Forestry Commission woodland officers: for woodland actions inside a CSHT application.
- Catchment Sensitive Farming advisers: free advice in priority catchments for water-quality applications.
- Your local NFU group secretary: usually the fastest way to pair up with another local farmer who has been through the process.
- Independent agronomist or farm consultant: the going rate for help on a CSHT application is £500–£1,500 depending on complexity, and worth it for a first-time invitation.
The honest assessment from a Suffolk holding
The 2026 picture is messier than the marketing suggests. The headline replacement story — “SFI takes over from CS Mid Tier, CS becomes Higher Tier only, plus a refreshed Capital Grants round” — is broadly accurate. But the timing is fragmented across windows, the eligibility differs between schemes, and the CSHT invitation gate means you can’t just decide to apply and crack on.
The route most working farms will end up on in 2026 is SFI 2026, with a Capital Grants application in July if there’s infrastructure work that fits. CSHT is the right scheme for a smaller number of farms — broadly, the ones with designated land, scheduled monuments, or a serious appetite for long-term restoration work. The Mid Tier extension was a holding pattern; for the 4,000 farms inside it, December 2026 is the date to be thinking about now, not later.
If you want help thinking through whether your holding fits CSHT, whether the July Capital Grants round is worth an application, or how to plan the gap between a CSMT extension ending and an SFI start, email me — Tim.
Primary sources used in this guide: Defra Farming Blog, the CSHT applicant’s guide on gov.uk, the Higher Tier Capital Grants 2026 applicant’s guide on gov.uk, NFU, gov.wales, ruralpayments.org (Scotland), DAERA, and Farmers Weekly. Quoted figures are as published at the time of writing (16 May 2026); always check the current handbook before budgeting an application.
See also: SFI 2026: a working farmer’s guide to the 71 actions · UK farming grants 2026 · UK farming acronyms glossary
