Livestock paperwork arrives under a pile of codes. This guide sorts the common UK forms into what you send, what travels with the animal and what you keep, and says where each one is available.
A livestock form is something you send, something that travels with the animal, or something you keep. In England and Wales you apply for a cattle passport by the day the calf is 27 days old, using CTS Online, farm software or form CPP12. A CPP35 is not an application: it is the notice BCMS sends when it cannot issue a passport. Sheep move on a LIS-1 in England, pigs on eAML2, and animals for slaughter carry food chain information. The holding register, medicine book and health plan stay on the farm.
Livestock paperwork falls into three groups, and the group tells you what to do with a form. Some you send: a passport application, a movement notification. Some travel with the animal: the passport, a movement document, food chain information, a transport certificate. And some you keep for inspectors: the holding register, the medicine book, TB charts, the health plan.
The names are a mess because they come from different agencies. A CPP number belongs to BCMS, food chain information to the Food Standards Agency, and sheep and pig documents to whichever system your nation uses.
Many are now done online, with paper as the fallback, and several have no official layout: the law says what must be recorded, not what the page looks like. Our paperwork glossary covers the wider vocabulary. I only list forms I could find on an official page.
For cattle in England and Wales these are BCMS forms, all listed on the GOV.UK cattle passport page.
| Form | What it is for | Where it is available |
|---|---|---|
| CPP12 | Passport application, used to register a birth by post | GOV.UK, posted to BCMS |
| CPP52 | The current one-page A4 passport | Issued by BCMS |
| CPP9A | Application for a replacement passport, with a £20 fee | GOV.UK |
| Continuation sheet | Extra movements once the passport is full; keep it with the passport | BCMS |
You do not have to use paper. You can register the birth on CTS Online, through compatible farm software, or on the CTS self-service line. The deadline is the same whichever route you use: by the day the calf is 27 days old, as our 27-day passport rule guide explains.
A lost passport needs form CPP9A within 14 days of realising it is missing, and the animal must not move off the holding until the replacement arrives. See our guide to a lost or damaged cattle passport. Wales cattle reporting is planned to move to EIDCymru from November 2026, and Scotland and Northern Ireland run their own systems, covered in our ScotEID, EIDCymru and NIFAIS guide.
People call it the late registration notice. GOV.UK calls it a notice of registration, and you do not fill it in. If you miss the application deadline, BCMS will not issue a passport and sends the notice instead.
What the notice means is set out on the cattle without passports page. An animal holding the notice cannot leave the holding alive without a BCMS movement licence, and must never enter the human food chain. Animals over 48 months old can only go to an approved BSE sampling site; younger ones only to a hunt kennel or knacker's yard. The licence is form CPP1b. It travels with the animal. You do not report that movement yourself, but you must update your holding register.
A calf under 27 days old that must move before its passport arrives, for welfare or an emergency such as flooding or fire, goes through the BCMS helpline. If the details pass validation a passport is issued. If not, the calf gets a CPP35.
You can appeal if you had a good reason for missing the deadline, and ask BCMS whether a DNA test could support a passport. My advice is not to plan around either: the time to act is before day 27. See what a late passport means.
In England and Wales cattle moves are reported to BCMS and recorded on the passport, so there is no separate cattle movement form. Sheep, goats and pigs do have one, and the name depends on the nation.
| Animals and nation | Document | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Cattle, Northern Ireland | MC2A, MC2B, MC2C, MC2D | Seller sends MC2A on the day animals leave; buyer sends MC2B on the day they arrive; C and D are keepers' copies |
| Sheep and goats, England | LIS-1 | Four identical pages; receiver reports within 3 days |
| Sheep and goats, Wales | AML1 | Report online at EIDCymru or use the paper form; EIDCymru posts paper forms |
| Pigs, England | eAML2 movement document | Set up before the move; sender confirms within 24 hours |
The detail sits on the official pages: Welsh Government's AML1 page, DAERA's cattle notification page, the sheep and goat reporting guidance and the pig movement guidance. Keep paper LIS-1 copies for 3 years from the date the animal arrives, unless both sides reported online. Whatever the species, you also update your holding register within 36 hours. Our guides to sheep movement reporting and pig movement records go deeper.
These are what an inspector asks to see. None has a prescribed layout.
Our farm records retention guide gathers the periods.
Start at GOV.UK for England and Wales, where BCMS, the Livestock Information Service and eAML2 are all signposted. Scotland reports through ScotEID and Northern Ireland through DAERA. The FSA publishes the food chain forms, and your vet supplies the TB chart.
Where there is a choice, I would use the online route: it is quicker and leaves a record. Keep paper for documents that travel with the animals, and photograph your copy before the lorry leaves. The usual trap is completing the movement document after the animals have gone, then finding the numbers do not match the register.
FarmHQ, the farm office app for UK cattle and sheep farms, is in beta. It drafts passport applications, movement entries and medicine records from one animal record, and you confirm each one. It is free to start, and plans are on our pricing page. This is not legal advice: if a form does not fit your situation, ask BCMS, LIS, your vet or trading standards.
A CPP35 is the notice of registration BCMS issues when it cannot issue a cattle passport, for example because the 27-day deadline was missed. It is not an application form. An animal holding one cannot leave the holding alive without a BCMS movement licence, and must never enter the food chain.
No. In England and Wales you can register a birth on CTS Online, through compatible farm software or on the CTS self-service line. Form CPP12 is the postal route. Whichever route you use, register the birth by the day the calf is 27 days old.
A TB52c is the clear TB test chart. AHDB's TB Hub says clear charts confirm the tested cattle can be moved, that a clear pre-movement test is valid for 60 days from injection in England and Wales, and that the charts must be kept for three years and 60 days as evidence of testing.
Food chain information is the declaration a slaughterhouse requests from the holding supplying the animals. The Food Standards Agency publishes standard forms for cattle, sheep and goats, pigs, poultry, equines and other species, and operators may adapt them.