When will I get paid?
You opt-in to BCR in 2024. If we decide that you have an eligible business and that you kept and sent for slaughter eligible animals during 2024, we will issue a BCR payment to you from March 2025.
We will use the information recorded by your farm business on NIFAIS to decide the number of eligible animals you kept and sent for slaughter between 1 January and 31 December each year. It is therefore important that you ensure that the information recorded on NIFAIS for your animals is accurate and up-to-date. If you have a query about the information held on NIFAIS on animals kept by your farm business you should contact your local DAERA Direct office on 0300 200 7840. A list of DAERA Direct offices can be found at the link below.
You will receive a payment of £75 for each eligible animal (except for the period January to March 2024. Payments in this period will be £20 per animal in January, £40 per animal in February, and £60 per animal in March).
The maximum number of eligible animals that can receive a payment under BCR is capped at 352,000 per year for the whole of Northern Ireland. If necessary, we will proportionately reduce the number of eligible animals that each business is paid for under this scheme to ensure that this cap is not exceeded.
BCR payments will be made directly to the farm business that the relevant eligible animal is linked to. We will use the Bank Account details we hold for that farm business for the purposes of issuing the payment. Unless you have already done so, you must provide us with your business’s bank account details for us to issue your payment. If your business’s bank account details change you must inform us immediately. We will not make a payment to any bank account except the bank account which we hold for the business.
If we determine, after you receive your BCR payment, that you were not eligible or that the amount of payment you received was greater than that which you were eligible for, we may decide that you have been over-paid. If we decide that you have been over-paid, we reserve the right to seek recovery of this payment from you. This could include reducing future payments from us for BCR or other schemes that you are eligible for. We also reserve the right to recover any other over-payments or debts (including Enforcement of Judgements Office debts) from your BCR payments.)