Business guidance

Agriculture & Farming

Access farming grants and capital funding

How to find and apply for government capital grants covering farm equipment, technology, infrastructure, and emergency recovery. Covers the Farming Investment Fund, Farming Equipment and Technology Fund, Farming Recovery Fund, and the closed Countryside Productivity scheme. Grant programmes change frequently so always check GOV.UK for current application rounds.

Agriculture & Farming

Agricultural tenancy rights in Scotland

Comprehensive guide to agricultural tenancy law in Scotland, covering both the 1991 Act (pre-2003 secure tenancies) and 2003 Act (SLDT, LDT, MLDT) tenancy types. Includes rent review procedures, notice periods, succession rights, waygoing compensation, and Scottish Land Court jurisdiction.

Construction & Property

Apply for a species licence from NatureScot

How to apply for a NatureScot species licence when your business activities could affect protected species in Scotland. Covers European Protected Species licences, the three derogation tests, application process, and what happens if you proceed without a licence.

Agriculture & Farming

Apply for Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier

How to apply for Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT) agreements in England. Covers invitation priorities, the 99 base and 33 supplemental actions, pre-application advice from Natural England, rolling applications from September 2025, and payment rates by category.

Retail & Consumer Goods

Biocides and Pesticides Authorisation

Get HSE CRD authorisation for biocidal and pesticidal products.

Agriculture & Farming

Commercial fishing licence and compliance

How to get a commercial fishing licence and comply with UK fishing regulations. Covers vessel licensing, quota allocation, catch recording, I-VMS requirements, and fish export certificates.

Agriculture & Farming

Compare ELM schemes to choose the right environmental funding

Comprehensive comparison of England's Environmental Land Management schemes - Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), Countryside Stewardship (CS), and Landscape Recovery. Includes current status (SFI closed until 2026), payment rates, eligibility criteria, decision framework, and what to do if your SFI application was affected by the March 2025 closure.

Agriculture & Farming

Comply with farming environmental regulations

How to comply with environmental regulations for fertiliser storage and application, pesticide use, the baseline rules that replaced cross-compliance, and nutrient management planning. Covers Nitrate Vulnerable Zones, BASIS certification, hedgerow management rules, and RB209 nutrient planning.

Agriculture & Farming

Comply with Farming Rules for Water

How to comply with the 8 Farming Rules for Water that apply to all farmers in England. Covers planning fertiliser applications, soil testing requirements, buffer zones near water, prohibited spreading conditions, manure storage, livestock management, soil erosion prevention, and enforcement by the Environment Agency.

Agriculture & Farming

Comply with livestock movement standstill periods

Legal requirements for standstill periods after livestock arrive on your holding. Covers standstill lengths by species, exemptions, and penalties for breaching standstill rules for disease control.

Agriculture & Farming

Comply with Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) regulations

How to comply with NVZ regulations if your land is in a designated Nitrate Vulnerable Zone. Covers nitrogen application limits, closed spreading periods, storage requirements, record-keeping obligations, grassland derogation, and penalties for non-compliance. Includes guidance for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland where different rules apply.

Food, Drink & Hospitality

Convert farm buildings to holiday accommodation

How to get planning permission, meet building regulations, and understand the post-April 2025 tax treatment when converting agricultural buildings to holiday lets. Covers Class Q permitted development, fire safety requirements, and the impact of FHL tax regime abolition on farm diversification.

Agriculture & Farming

Deer management obligations in Scotland

Guide to deer management obligations in Scotland under the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996, covering female deer close seasons (male close seasons were abolished in October 2023), authorisations for out-of-season and night shooting, deer management plans, crop damage provisions, and NatureScot control schemes.

Construction & Property

Ecology survey requirements for construction in Scotland

When you need ecological surveys for construction and development projects in Scotland, what types of survey are required, seasonal timing constraints, and how survey results feed into NatureScot licensing and the planning process.

Agriculture & Farming

Farm health and safety essentials

Essential health and safety requirements for farmers and farm workers. Covers legal duties, risk assessment, the top causes of farm fatalities, and practical guidance for managing the most dangerous hazards including vehicles, falls, livestock, machinery, and confined spaces.

Agriculture & Farming

Farm machinery safety

Legal requirements and practical guidance for safe use of farm machinery. Covers PUWER and LOLER compliance, tractor safety, PTO guarding, telehandlers, ATVs, combine harvesters, maintenance requirements, young worker restrictions, and record keeping.

Agriculture & Farming

Fishing and aquaculture: compliance checklist

Use this checklist to confirm your fishing or aquaculture business meets its obligations. Work through the universal shore-based duties every operator shares, then the sections for sea fishing vessels and for aquaculture and freshwater fishing. If you answer no to any item, follow the linked guide before you proceed.

Agriculture & Farming

Forestry compliance checklist

A confirmation checklist for forestry and logging businesses. Work through the cross-cutting duties every forestry business shares, then the section for what you do — growing trees and nursery supply, felling and harvesting, selling timber, or forestry support and tree surgery.

Agriculture & Farming

Forestry operations, consents and timber rules

The consents and product rules for forestry work, by activity. Felling growing trees generally needs a felling licence with restocking conditions; larger afforestation, deforestation, forest roads and quarries need an Environmental Impact Assessment opinion first. Tree nurseries must register as professional plant-health operators and issue plant passports, and suppliers of forest seed and planting stock must register with the Forestry Commission. Marketing your own harvested timber makes you a UK Timber Regulation operator with due-diligence duties. Work on protected trees needs local planning authority consent, and professional pesticide use needs certificated operators.

Food, Drink & Hospitality

Get authorisation for a water activity in Scotland (EASR)

How to get authorisation for any activity affecting surface water or groundwater in Scotland — abstraction, impoundment, engineering in or near a water body, and discharges. Since 1 November 2025 water activities are authorised under the Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations 2018 (EASR), which replaced the Controlled Activities Regulations (CAR 2011) framework. Covers the four-tier authorisation system (General Binding Rules, notification, registration, permit), pre-application advice, fees, and enforcement, all administered by SEPA.

Agriculture & Farming

Grow and sell crops: seed, spraying and certification

Arable and horticultural growers face rules at every stage of the crop cycle — certified seed if you market seed, certificates of competence for everyone who applies pesticides professionally, regular sprayer testing, and registration duties for vineyards and wine production. Water and nutrient rules sit alongside these and have their own guides.

Food, Drink & Hospitality

Host weddings and events on your farm

How to set up and run a farm wedding or event venue. Covers planning permission, licensing, fire safety, insurance, and food safety requirements for converting agricultural buildings to event spaces.

Agriculture & Farming

Identify and tag livestock correctly

Legal requirements for identifying and tagging cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and deer. Includes species-specific tagging deadlines, tag specifications, passport requirements, and replacement rules.

Agriculture & Farming

Identify and tag sheep and goats

How to identify and tag sheep and goats correctly. Covers double EID tagging for breeding stock, batch tagging for animals going direct to slaughter under 12 months, tagging deadlines, and replacement rules for lost or damaged tags.

Agriculture & Farming

Install renewable energy on your farm

How to get planning permission and financial support for solar panels, wind turbines, and other renewable energy on agricultural land. Covers permitted development limits, agricultural land classification, and the Smart Export Guarantee.

Construction & Property

Invasive species obligations in Scotland

Your legal obligations regarding invasive non-native species in Scotland. Covers criminal offences under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, Schedule 9 species, Japanese knotweed management, and NatureScot's species control orders.

Agriculture & Farming

Join the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway

How to join the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway, a government programme that funds annual vet reviews and endemic disease follow-ups for livestock keepers in England. Covers eligibility, payment rates by species, and how to book and claim.

Agriculture & Farming

Keep children safe on farms

Legal requirements and practical guidance for protecting children on farms. Covers age restrictions for farm work and machinery, prohibited activities for under-13s and 13-16 year olds, safe play areas, visitor safety, and what family farms must do to keep children safe from workplace hazards.

Agriculture & Farming

Keep holding registers for livestock

Legal requirements for recording livestock identification, movements, births, deaths, and annual inventories. Covers cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and deer with species-specific deadlines and retention periods.

Food, Drink & Hospitality

Manage access land and SSSIs on your property

Understand your obligations as a landowner of open access land or Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs). Covers right to roam, reduced liability, temporary closures, SSSI consent requirements, and penalties for non-compliance.

Construction & Property

Managing land within an SSSI in Scotland

Your legal obligations when you own, occupy, or manage land within a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Scotland. Covers Operations Requiring Consent, NatureScot's enforcement powers, management agreement payments, and what happens if you damage SSSI features.

Agriculture & Farming

Meet bovine TB testing requirements for cattle

Comprehensive guide to bovine TB testing requirements for UK cattle farmers. Covers testing frequency by risk area (HRA, Edge, LRA), pre-movement testing (60 days validity, 30 for Scotland), post-movement testing (60-120 day window), reactor handling (10 working day removal), compensation system and reduction rules (up to 95% for non-compliance), movement restrictions during breakdowns, and record-keeping requirements. Includes geographic callouts for Wales and Scotland differences.

Agriculture & Farming

Meet cattle welfare requirements

Legal welfare requirements for keeping cattle in England, covering the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and the Welfare of Farmed Animals Regulations 2007. Includes the five welfare needs, housing standards, permitted procedures (disbudding, castration), transport rules, and inspection requirements.

Agriculture & Farming

Meet pig welfare requirements on your farm

Legal requirements for pig welfare in England. Covers the five welfare needs, space requirements, environmental enrichment, permitted procedures, housing standards, transport, slaughter, and record-keeping. Applies to all pig keepers including commercial farms and smallholders.

Agriculture & Farming

Meet poultry welfare requirements

Legal requirements for keeping poultry in the UK, including the five welfare needs, stocking densities, lighting, litter management, environmental enrichment, beak trimming restrictions, and biosecurity measures. Covers laying hens, broilers, and free-range systems.

Agriculture & Farming

Meet sheep welfare requirements on your farm

How to meet your legal obligations for sheep welfare in the UK. Covers the Five Welfare Needs, housing and shelter, lambing management, permitted procedures (tail docking, castration), shearing, foot care, feeding, transport, record keeping, and scrapie monitoring. Essential for anyone keeping sheep commercially or as a smallholder.

Agriculture & Farming

Meet your aquaculture and freshwater fishing duties

If you run a fish farm, shellfish farm, hatchery or recirculating aquaculture system, or fish freshwater commercially, you need authorisation from the Fish Health Inspectorate, the right marine or freshwater licences, and — for shellfish — classified production areas. This guide covers all the sector-specific licensing and consenting from aquaculture authorisation through to water abstraction for land-based farms.

Agriculture & Farming

Meet your sea fishing vessel duties

If you operate a sea fishing vessel commercially, you must hold a fishing vessel licence, register the vessel and meet MCA safety requirements, and — if you buy or sell first-sale fish in England — register with the MMO. This guide covers all three duties.

Agriculture & Farming

Navigate farm assurance schemes

Comparison of major UK farm assurance schemes including Red Tractor, RSPCA Assured, Soil Association Organic, and LEAF Marque. Covers membership costs, audit frequency, standards above statutory baseline, market access benefits, and overlap with statutory requirements. Includes decision framework for choosing schemes by farm type and market, and devolved nation schemes (QMS, FAWL).

Agriculture & Farming

Prepare for farm inspections and audits

How to prepare for regulatory inspections and farm assurance audits. Covers which bodies inspect farms, what triggers inspections, your rights during visits, and how to build a good compliance track record that can reduce inspection frequency.

Agriculture & Farming

Prepare for the end of BPS delinked payments

What farmers need to know as delinked payments end in 2027. Covers payment reduction schedules (76% in 2025, 98% in 2026-2027), reference amount calculations, key dates, and how to replace lost income through Environmental Land Management schemes and other funding options.

Construction & Property

Protected species offences and penalties in Scotland

Quick reference for criminal offences and penalties relating to protected species in Scotland. Covers European Protected Species, Wildlife and Countryside Act offences, raptor persecution, beaver protection, and vicarious liability.

Agriculture & Farming

Recognise and report notifiable animal diseases

How to identify signs of notifiable diseases in livestock and report suspected cases to APHA. Covers bovine TB, avian influenza, foot-and-mouth, swine fever, and other notifiable diseases with immediate reporting requirements.

Agriculture & Farming

Register land to keep livestock

How to obtain a County Parish Holding (CPH) number before keeping cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, or poultry. Includes registration process, required information, and herd/flock mark allocation.

Agriculture & Farming

Report livestock movements and comply with standstill rules

How to report cattle, sheep, goat, pig, and deer movements using government traceability systems. Includes reporting deadlines, standstill periods, and required documentation for disease control compliance.

Agriculture & Farming

Run a compliant forestry business

Whatever forestry work you do — growing, felling, haulage to roadside or tree surgery — the same core duties apply, and health and safety leads by a distance: forestry has one of the highest fatal-injury rates of any sector. Manage the high-hazard fieldwork, keep chainsaws and lifting equipment compliant with certificated operators, insure your employees including seasonal and contract workers, do not discriminate, and handle personal data lawfully.

Agriculture & Farming

Run a shooting, game or wildlife management business

Shooting and game businesses are regulated through firearms certificates from the police, statutory close seasons for game birds and deer, and wildlife law that controls what may be killed or taken and how. Since 2007 no game licence or game dealer licence is needed in England and Wales, but releasing gamebirds on or near protected sites now needs a licence, and deer management runs on different rules in Scotland.

Retail & Consumer Goods

Set up and run a compliant farm shop

How to register, comply with food safety, and handle VAT when selling produce directly from your farm. Covers food business registration, HACCP requirements, and VAT treatment of different products.

Agriculture & Farming

Set up and run a safe fishing or aquaculture business

Whether you operate a fishing vessel, run a fish farm or harvest shellfish, you have shore-based duties that apply across the board. This is the universal spine for fishing and aquaculture businesses. It takes you through your general health and safety duty for premises and shore-based operations, fire safety for hatcheries, processing sheds, net stores and offices, employers' liability insurance, equality and data protection.

Food, Drink & Hospitality

Set up camping or glamping on your farm

How to comply with planning permission, licensing, and safety requirements when offering camping or glamping on agricultural land. Covers the 60-day exemption, caravan site licensing, and glamping-specific regulations.

Agriculture & Farming

Set up equestrian or livery services on your farm

How to comply with VAT, licensing, and insurance requirements when offering livery, riding lessons, or equestrian facilities. Covers VAT treatment, riding establishment licensing, and specialist insurance needs.

Agriculture & Farming

SFI closure and transition to future farming schemes

What the SFI closure means for farmers and how to plan for the transition. Covers what happens to existing agreements, options during the closure period, the reformed SFI 2026 offer, and alternative funding including Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier and Capital Grants. Essential guidance for farmers affected by the March 2025 SFI closure.

Agriculture & Farming

Slurry and silage storage compliance (SSAFO)

How to comply with SSAFO regulations for storing silage, slurry, and agricultural fuel oil on farms. Covers construction standards, storage capacity requirements, notification procedures, exemptions for pre-1991 structures, and Environment Agency enforcement. Includes guidance for farms in Nitrate Vulnerable Zones where stricter storage requirements apply.

Agriculture & Farming

Understand farm rules after cross-compliance ended

What environmental, animal health, and land management rules still apply to farms now that cross-compliance has ended. Explains how enforcement changed when cross-compliance ended on 31 December 2023 and which regulators are responsible for what.

Construction & Property

Understanding nature conservation law in Scotland

How Scotland's nature conservation framework works, why it differs from England and Wales, and what it means for businesses operating in Scotland. Covers the role of NatureScot, the hierarchy of protected areas, species protection, the biodiversity duty, and how conservation requirements interact with the planning system.

Agriculture & Farming

Understanding the Water Framework Directive for businesses

How the Water Framework Directive shapes UK water regulation — river basin management, water body classification, the no-deterioration principle, and what it means for any business whose activities affect surface water or groundwater. Explains the post-Brexit retention position and the four-nation regulatory landscape.

Agriculture & Farming

Understand Landscape Recovery funding for large-scale environmental projects

What Landscape Recovery is and whether it could suit your land. Covers the three-phase process (project development, implementation, land management), funding available (up to 500,000 development funding, 500 million total government commitment), current Round 1 and Round 2 projects, and the scheme's current closed-to-new-entrants status.

Agriculture & Farming

Understand your farm's regulatory obligations

A regulatory map for UK farms, showing which of 10+ regulatory bodies apply by farm type. Links to detailed compliance guides for each area.

Retail & Consumer Goods

Which farming rules apply to your business

Farming is regulated by what you produce and where you farm. Livestock keepers register land and animals before anything moves; arable and horticultural growers face seed, spraying and water rules; every farm in England now answers to the rules that replaced cross-compliance. Work out which farm type fits your business below, then follow the matching guidance.

Agriculture & Farming

Which fishing and aquaculture regulations apply to your business

Every fishing and aquaculture business shares the same workplace health and safety foundation for shore-based operations, then the rules diverge by whether you operate a sea fishing vessel, run an aquaculture production business, or fish freshwater commercially.

Agriculture & Farming

Which forestry rules apply to your business

Forestry businesses — woodland managers, tree nurseries, felling and harvesting contractors, timber merchants and tree surgeons — answer to the Forestry Commission and its devolved counterparts for consents, HSE for one of the highest-hazard work environments in any sector, and a set of product and plant-health regimes for moving trees and marketing timber. What you must do depends on what you do: grow, fell, sell or support. Work out which you are and follow the right guide.

Construction & Property

Wildlife management and muirburn licensing in Scotland

How the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 changes wildlife management practices in Scotland. Covers the new muirburn licensing regime, trap and snare reforms, glue trap ban, and general licences for bird control.

Tax & Finance

Check if you need to register for VAT

Find out if your business must register for VAT based on your taxable turnover. Covers the £90,000 threshold, what counts as taxable turnover, the rolling 12-month test, and when voluntary registration makes sense.

Business Structure

Mandatory registrations every business must complete

Step-by-step guide to the registrations every business must complete before trading, regardless of sector. Covers HMRC tax registration, ICO data protection fee, mandatory insurance, and pension auto-enrolment.

Premises & Operations

Meet your business waste duty of care

Understand your legal responsibilities when producing, storing, or disposing of business waste. Covers using registered waste carriers, completing waste transfer notes, and the stricter rules for hazardous waste.

Compliance & Legal

Pre-trading compliance checklist

A concise yes/no checklist to verify you have completed all mandatory pre-trading requirements, including business registration, tax, insurance, licences, premises approvals, and data protection.