If an agreement offer has landed, that is now the only date that matters on your desk: 30 calendar days. DEFRA confirmed on 29 August that Window 1 of SFI26 has closed, and the wording on offers is blunt — "please make sure you accept it within 30 calendar days, or the offer will be withdrawn". If you applied, it is worth knowing the Rural Payments Agency has already sent out roughly 3,615 offers, so yours may be sitting in the Rural Payments service now rather than later.
Update, 16 September: the official figures are out
The numbers below came from DEFRA's blog on 29 August, while applications were still being processed. The official statistics published on 9 September, counted at 1 September, firm them up: 7,000 applications were submitted in Window 1 rather than the rounded 6,500, and 3,100 SFI 2026 agreements were live. The average agreement is worth £9,700 a year, or £29,200 over the three years nearly all of them run. The shape of who applied held: 87% with no existing ELM agreement, 69% farming between 3 and 50 hectares, 55% both.
The release also puts Window 1 in proportion. Counting every offer, there are now 48,000 live SFI agreements held by 38,300 farm businesses — 25,000 under SFI23 and 19,900 under the Expanded Offer. Window 1 added about one in fifteen.
Nothing else here has changed. Window 2 is still expected on 22 September, the money is still £290 million for the year, and the 30-day clock below still runs from the day your offer arrives.
What the first window actually looked like
DEFRA has published the headline numbers, and the window did what it was designed to do. Around 6,500 applications went in. Of those, 69% came from farms of up to 50 hectares, 87% from farms with no existing Environmental Land Management revenue agreement, and 56% ticked both boxes. The average agreement is worth just under £10,000 a year.
DEFRA is careful about those figures and so are we: they are rounded, they come from what applicants entered at the point of applying, and applications are still being processed, so they are not final agreement numbers. Take them as the shape of the thing, not the audit.
One number is more useful than the rest if you are still waiting: applicants are currently getting an offer within 24 days of submitting, on average. Some take longer where extra checks are needed.
The five actions everyone went for
Applicants picked from all 14 action groups, but five came out on top — and there is no great surprise in them if you farm grass:
- CLIG3 — manage grassland with very low nutrient inputs
- CHRW2 — manage hedgerows
- GRH7 — haymaking supplement
- CSAM3 — herbal leys
- WBD1 — manage ponds
Started an application and never finished it? Read this bit twice
This is the part that will catch people out. Most Window 1 applications that were started but never submitted stay on the system, and you will be able to finish and submit them when Window 2 opens. The RPA says it will contact those applicants shortly.
But not all of them. The RPA has withdrawn some of those part-finished applications, and where that has happened a new application is needed in Window 2. There are two reasons it happens:
- a mapping update was requested after the Window 1 application was started, so a new one is needed to reflect the corrected land details; or
- the applicant holds an ELM revenue agreement that expires on or before 28 February 2027, and a new application is required for the "apply early" route to work.
Two things worth being precise about. This concerns only applications that were started and not submitted in Window 1 — it is not a general rule about expiring agreements. And DEFRA has said plainly that holding these part-finished applications over is a one-off for Window 1: it "does not set a precedent" for Window 2 or for later rounds.
Window 2: 22 September, and there is more money in it than we said
DEFRA expects Window 2 to open from 22 September, for all eligible farmers and land managers. When we wrote about the Window 1 deadline a few days ago we put Window 2 at £180 million, which was the figure standing at the time. It has moved: as part of the drought support package on 15 August, DEFRA added "an extra £50 million for Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026 Window 2, taking the total budget for SFI26 to £290 million" for this financial year.
The arithmetic behind that, since it is easy to lose: Window 1 was capped at £60 million and Window 2 was set at £180 million, which is £240 million; the drought uplift of £50 million takes the year to £290 million. On top of that, whatever Window 1 did not spend is not lost — DEFRA says "the remaining Window 1 budget will be made available through Window 2".
The early start, if your agreement runs out soon
Worth pulling out of the small print above, because it is the one genuinely new thing Window 2 brings. If you hold an ELM revenue agreement — SFI23, Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier — that expires on or before 28 February 2027, Window 2 lets you start an application for that land before the old agreement has finished, instead of waiting for it to lapse and leaving a gap. If your agreement ends in that window, this is the round to use.
The groundwork that decides whether you can apply at all
DEFRA's own advice before Window 2 is unglamorous and worth doing early: check that the land parcels you want in the application show correctly on your digital maps in the Rural Payments service, and that your land use information is up to date. If the land details are wrong, it can stop you applying altogether. One caution DEFRA raises in the same breath — a mapping update can affect ELM revenue agreements you already hold, so it is not a change to make casually. The SFI26 scheme rules and guidance set out the "get ready to apply" steps, and our walkthrough of how an SFI26 application works still holds.
If the actions you are weighing touch nutrients or grassland — and going by the top five, most do — the numbers are free to work out beforehand. Our Fertiliser & Nutrient Calculator runs AHDB's own RB209 logic, the NVZ Compliance Calculator covers closed periods, stocking and storage, and the grazing calculator helps with the grass side. No account, no charge.
And beyond this year
For anyone planning further out: ministers have committed to keeping the main design of SFI stable for the rest of this Parliament, and DEFRA says it plans to offer an SFI27 scheme in 2027, with any refinements considered after Window 2.
Sources
- DEFRA Farming Blog — SFI26 update: Window 1 now closed (29 August 2026)
- DEFRA Farming Blog — New drought support for farmers (15 August 2026)
- DEFRA Farming Blog — SFI26: an update (5 August 2026)
- GOV.UK — SFI26 scheme rules and guidance
- GOV.UK — SFI uptake September 2026, official statistics (9 September 2026)
This is a summary, not advice. Scheme rules, eligibility, payment rates and deadlines are set out in full in the official SFI26 guidance — read it before you apply or accept an offer.