Key Dates
Woodland Creation Grant (expression of interest)
- Opened 3 March 2025
- Closes 21 November 2025
Small Grants - Woodland Creation (expression of interest)
- Opens 19 May 2025
- Closes 27 June 2025
Small Grants - Environment (water)
- Opens 21 May 2025
- Closes 1 July 2025
Growing for the Environment (cover crops)
- Opens 2 June 2025
- Closes 11 July 2025
Small Grants - Woodland Creation (expression of interest window 9)
- Opens 21 July 2025
- Closes 29 August 2025
Single Application Form (SAF) 2025
The SAF covers the following schemes:
- Basic Payment Scheme
- Rural Investment Schemes
- Organic Support (OS)
- Organic Conversion Scheme (OCS)
- Habitat Wales Scheme (HWS)
- Woodland Creation Maintenance (WCM)
- Woodland Creation Premium (WCP)
- Rural Development (RD) Woodland Creation Schemes
- Glastic Woodland Creation Premium (GWCP)
- Glastir Woodland Creation Maintenance (GCM)
- Glastir Woodland Creation Premium (GCP)
SAF 2025 Key dates
15 May:
- Closure of Transfer & Lease of BPS Entitlements 2025
- Closing Date for receipt of SAF 2025 without penalty
- Closing date for the submission of the Habitat Wales Commons claim
2 June:
- Final day to make amendments to the land declared on the SAF 2025 (without penalty), submitted by 15 May 2025
9 June:
-
Final day for receipt of SAF 2025 (subject to late penalties). All SAFs received after 9 June will be rejected.
19 June:
-
Final day for response to the ‘Preliminary Checks: Permanent Features and Duplicate Fields’ letter to avoid penalties.
31 December 2025:
-
Deadline for submission of:
- BPS Supporting documents
- Habitat Wales Scheme documents
- Organic Support supporting documents.
Completing SAF 2025
If you haven’t already completed your form you are advised to make arrangements to complete your online SAF as soon as possible using the available guidance.
Once you have completed your form, check your application, summary and any sketch maps that you have submitted on RPW online to ensure that you have claimed for all the schemes / land that you wish to claim for.
Transfer of BPS Entitlements 2025
You may transfer BPS Entitlements by sale, gift or lease until midnight 15 May 2025.
Transfer of Entitlements online forms are available for you to complete using your RPW Online account.
Transfer of Entitlements forms available on the RPW Online account.
Renting Land/ Summer grazing
If you are considering renting land on either long-term or short-term agreements, make sure that your Manage My CPH details on your RPW Online account are up to date.
RPW Online - GOV.UK One Login
To modernise the RPW Online service and enable new features in the future, Welsh Government are moving away from the Government Gateway. Rural Payments Wales (RPW) has developed a new system for customers to access RPW Online using GOV.UK One Login.
New Customers registering for a CRN will register using GOV.UK One Login. Guidance available on the Welsh Government website.
After the Single Application Form (SAF) 2025 submission period ends, we will begin asking existing RPW Online users to migrate to the GOV.UK One Login system. To ensure the migration to GOV.UK One Login is as smooth as possible, we will be contacting all existing RPW Online users to ask them to migrate in phases.
Further updates regarding GOV.UK One Login will be provided in the Gwlad e-newsletters.
RPW wrote to customers in February 2025 regarding the implementation of One Login.
When the Inspector Calls
A helpful guide to farmers (2024 Edition)
Farm inspections take place on a sample number of farms each year to ensure that farmers are complying with the rules and regulations they are required to abide by, as a condition of receiving financial support or as a result of keeping livestock. This guidance has been updated.
In addition to guidance on how to prepare and what will happen during an inspection on your farm, for ease of reference copies of the farm records templates associated with Cross Compliance, and other schemes are included in this guide. Each record includes a worked-up example for your information. All the records are available online for farmers to maintain their own farm records.
Cross Compliance 2025
Most Cross Compliance rules continue to apply as in 2024. Welsh Government have updated the following Factsheets and associated sections of the Verifiable Standards. This reflects changes in requirements, good practice and to clarify wording for 2025:
- SMR 1: water protection
(You can find further information on all requirements at gov.wales/control-agricultural-pollution-regulations-guidance)
- SMR 2: wild birds
- SMR 3: conservation of fauna and flora
- SMR 4: food and feed law
- SMR 7: cattle identification and registration
- SMR 8: sheep and goat identification and registration
- SMR 11: welfare standards for calves
- SMR 12: welfare standards for pigs
- SMR 13: welfare standards for farmed animals