For years, getting into Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier meant waiting. You could not simply apply. You needed Natural England to invite you, a feasibility study or implementation plan to be scoped, and a bespoke agreement built around your land before you could submit anything. For farmers keen to restore a species-rich meadow or plant an agroforestry system, that closed door was the main reason many gave up before they started.
What has actually changed
Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT) now has an online Expression of Interest (EOI) process. For the first time, farmers and land managers can proactively put themselves forward for single-focus agreements, woodland agreements and agroforestry agreements, rather than waiting to be contacted.
The change was announced by the Secretary of State at Groundswell in June 2026 and rolled out over the summer. Once you submit an EOI, Defra has said the outcome will be shared within 10 weeks.
This does not replace the full, bespoke CSHT process for complex sites. It sits alongside it, as a faster route in for a specific and growing list of actions.
Single-focus agreements: the quickest way in
Single-focus agreements are a stripped-back version of CSHT, built around one clear environmental outcome rather than a whole-farm plan. They currently cover six actions, with more due later in the year.
| Action | Focus |
|---|---|
| CGS22 | Manage priority habitat species-rich grassland |
| CHS2 | Take historic and archaeological features out of cultivation |
| CHS3 | Reduce cultivation depths on historic and archaeological features |
| CHS4 | Control scrub on historic and archaeological features |
| CHS5 | Manage historic and archaeological features on grassland |
| CHS9 | Restrict crop establishment depth on historic and archaeological features |
Defra has said it plans to add wet grassland management for wintering waders and wildfowl (CGS19) and traditional orchard actions (CBE4 and CBE5) later in the year, though no firm date has been confirmed.
How the full scheme works
CSHT is genuinely a team effort. Defra sets the policy priorities and decides how the scheme fits alongside the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and Landscape Recovery. The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) administers applications, agreements and payments. Natural England, working alongside the Forestry Commission where woodland is involved, provides the specialist site-by-site advice that shapes each agreement.
A full CSHT agreement can draw on 99 base actions, 33 supplements and 142 capital items, and agreements run for 5, 10, 15 or 20 years depending on the longest action included. The scheme now has a rolling application window with monthly start dates, quarterly payments, and what Defra describes as a more streamlined online process than legacy agreements.
Eligibility and the things worth checking before you apply
You need management control of the land for the full length of the agreement. Tenants can apply, but if your tenancy runs for less than five years beyond your agreement start date, you will need your landlord's countersignature, and joint landlord and tenant applications are not possible.
Land within a Site of Special Scientific Interest or covering a scheduled monument generally has to be included in your application, unless an adviser agrees to an exception. A new Historic Environment Farmed Environment Record (HEFER) is created once you are invited to apply, and it should inform what you put forward.
If you already have SFI limited-area actions on your farm, such as flower-rich margins or wild bird seed mixes, be aware that SFI and CSHT limited-area actions share a single cap of 25% of the farm between them. If you are already at that limit under SFI, you cannot add more under CSHT. Land in a current Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier agreement can move into CSHT if the actions are compatible, but land under Higher Level Stewardship cannot, and land in an active Landscape Recovery project is not eligible at all.
Common land is technically eligible, but it must be applied for by a single entity, and Defra and the RPA are still testing an IT solution for these applications this autumn.
Capacity is real, and it is worth being realistic about it
Natural England has been open about the pressure the scheme is under. Since applications opened in September 2025, its advisers have engaged with more than 850 potential agreement holders, over 600 have received personalised pre-application advice, and 430 agreements are now live.
Priority for pre-application advice in 2026 and 2027 is going to farmers whose existing CSHT or Higher Level Stewardship agreements are expiring in 2026 or before March 2027. Beyond that, Defra has said only a limited number of new applications will be taken forward where agreements do not expire in that window, alongside a cap of around 300 full CSHT agreements and a target of 1,200 single-focus agreements. Natural England itself has said demand is growing faster than its resources, and prioritisation across Defra, the RPA and Natural England will be needed.
What we still don't know
Defra has not confirmed a firm date for adding the wet grassland and orchard actions to the single-focus list, or when the common land application process will move beyond testing. It is also not yet clear how many EOI applications are being received relative to the capacity available, so the real odds of a quick agreement remain hard to judge from outside.
What to do now
If you are interested in a single-focus agreement, check now whether your land and intended action fit one of the six available options, and make sure your digital maps and land cover are accurate before you submit an EOI. If you are considering a fuller CSHT agreement, look at whether your existing CSHT or HLS agreement is expiring soon, since that is what determines your place in the queue for pre-application advice this year.
Working out where your land sits against CSHT, SFI and any existing agreements, especially with the shared 25% limited-area cap, is exactly the kind of cross-checking that gets missed when maps, agreement details and action plans live in different places. JustFarm brings your mapping, your agreement history and your evidence together, so you can see what is already committed before you add anything new. You can create a free account to start mapping your options, or explore the SFI page to see how SFI and CSHT actions interact on the same farm. Agents managing several holdings can view pricing for tools built around exactly this kind of cross-scheme planning.
SFI rewards prepared farms, and the same is increasingly true of CSHT. With capacity limited and priority going to those already in the system, the farms that get in are usually the ones that checked their eligibility and got their maps right before they applied.
