BCMS cattle records are one of the areas UK livestock farmers most consistently fail on inspection. Roughly 50% of farms inspected have had cattle identification or movement recording failures. Most are not failing because they moved the animals incorrectly: they are failing because the paperwork was late, incomplete, or not retained long enough. This article covers what the law requires, what the penalties are, and what is changing with the LIS transition in 2026.
The British Cattle Movement Service runs the Cattle Tracing System. That database holds every cattle birth, death and movement in the UK. The legal requirements are not complicated, but they are strict.
Every keeper of cattle must keep a holding register. It must record all cattle on the holding. This is a legal requirement, not optional record-keeping. The register must include:
The register must be available for inspection on request. It can be kept on paper or on a computer. If kept digitally, it must be printable. Keep the records for 10 years from the end of the year of the last entry. For animals that have left the holding, keep them for 3 years.
Beyond the on-farm register, cattle keepers must report cattle births, deaths, and movements to BCMS within 3 days. There are four ways to report. Postal movement cards. The CTS Self-Service telephone line, for up to 50 movements in one call. CTS Online, which is the web page. Other software, through CTS Web Services. Software that connects directly to CTS Web Services sends these reports for you. You then cannot forget the 3-day deadline after a busy day of moving cattle.
Every bovine animal must have a cattle passport issued by BCMS. When an animal dies, the passport must be returned to BCMS. This is where many farmers trip up: passports not returned after death trigger penalties. Historically, failure to return passports correctly has resulted in a 3% cut to the Single Farm Payment. Under ELMS, the equivalent penalties apply to SFI and Countryside Stewardship claims.
Livestock movement recording failures are a criminal offence. In practice, enforcement is primarily through subsidy payment reductions rather than criminal prosecution for most farms, but the possibility of prosecution exists.
The financial penalties are real: passport errors and movement reporting failures can cost 3% of the total Single Farm Payment (or equivalent ELMS payment). On a large livestock farm, that is a significant sum. EA and APHA field officers inspect livestock, and they can start legal action for what they find. A court can fine you up to £5,000 for each animal in a movement recording offence.
If you discover that a movement was incorrectly reported, BCMS must be contacted immediately to amend the record. Errors corrected promptly attract less severe consequences than errors discovered at inspection.
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The Cattle Tracing System (BCMS/CTS) is being replaced by the new Livestock Information Service (LIS) during 2026. This is a significant change to the infrastructure of UK livestock recording, even if the legal requirements themselves do not change immediately.
LIS entered private testing in December 2025 and public testing in spring 2026, with a phased rollout to all cattle keepers throughout 2026. It replaces not just BCMS but also the Scotland-specific ScotEID and other regional databases with a unified platform. The aim is improved interoperability between livestock data and wider farm and veterinary records.
If you are using livestock management software that integrates with CTS/BCMS, your software provider will need to update that integration to connect to LIS. Check with your provider that they are on track with LIS integration before the system goes fully live. Herdwatch has confirmed LIS compatibility. Other platforms should be asked directly.
DEFRA has announced a change for 2027. All cattle born in England after a set date must carry electronic identification, and it must use low-frequency technology. This mirrors what already applies to sheep and is intended to support faster and more accurate movement recording and biosecurity tracing.
For livestock farmers, this means that from 2027 any new cattle will need EID tags rather than or in addition to conventional ear tags. Your software must read EID data from a handheld or fixed reader. It must then record that data and send it into the movement report. Nobody should type an ear tag number again.
If you are choosing livestock management software now, confirm whether the platform is building EID integration into its 2026 and 2027 roadmap. Some systems have not prepared for this. They will force staff to type data by hand as the number of EID-tagged animals grows.
Bovine TB testing requirements vary by region and area risk classification. In England, the frequency ranges from annual testing in low-risk areas to 6-monthly testing in higher-risk and intensive action areas. Wales requires annual testing throughout.
The TB testing rule is exact. Keep the test results for 3 years and 60 days from the date of the test injection. These records must be produced on request from the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) or an inspector. Some farms have had a TB breakdown. They may hold herds under movement restriction, or under voluntary interferon gamma testing. Those farms must keep more records.
TB testing records need to include:
Your software should hold the TB test history against each animal. A separate spreadsheet or paper folder is slower to search at an inspection. It also loses records across the years of retention.
The fine is up to £5,000 for each animal. The rule you must meet is a date: three days from the movement.
Your defence is therefore not the record itself. It is proof of when you made the record and when you sent it.
An ordinary database cannot prove that. A row holds a date field, and a person with access can change that field. The record then says one thing, and nothing shows whether it always said it.
We build farm systems on engage.re. Each entry is an event, and each event carries a hash of the event before it. A change to one entry breaks the chain, so any change is visible. The date on your movement record is therefore evidence, and not a claim.
The three retention rules on this page also sit on the records themselves. Ten years for the holding register, three years for animals that have left, and three years and 60 days for a TB test. Each record carries its own rule, so no person has to remember which rule applies.
We explain the wider evidence question in who answers when an AI agent gets it wrong. We explain retention in can you prove you deleted someone's data.
Combining the BCMS compliance, LIS transition, EID preparation, and TB record requirements, the minimum that a useful livestock management system needs to deliver:
Herdwatch covers most of this and integrates with BCMS/CTS and ScotEID. Some farms need livestock records, crop management and SFI evidence in one system. The options are few. A system of your own is often the most practical way to stop matching platforms by hand. The real advantage is one source of truth across livestock, crop, and compliance records, with no data duplicated between separate tools.
Our live farm demo covers these rules in a working system. It holds a livestock register with movement logging, health records, withdrawal calculations and a holding register ready for inspection. Sign in as an owner, a worker or a vet.
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