Counties Cork, Galway, and Mayo saw the most applications made under the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) and other area-based schemes for 2026.

These three counties were the only ones to see over 10,000 BISS applications each.

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon earlier announced that 122,151 farmers had applied for BISS and related schemes before the May 15 deadline.

The area-based application includes a range of schemes under Pillar I of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), including the Eco Scheme, Complementary Redistribution Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS), Complementary Income Support for Young Farmers (CISYF), Protein Aid, Straw Incorporation Measure (SIM), and Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC).

Co. Cork saw the most applications, with 11,975, followed by Co. Galway with 11,422 and Co. Mayo with 10,823.

Five counties - Clare, Donegal, Kerry, Roscommon and Tipperary - saw over 5,000 applications each.

The lowest number of applications came from Co. Dublin, with 573, the only figure below 1,000.

Two counties - Carlow and Louth - saw less than 2,000 application each.

The application figures for each county are as follows (these figures do not include 2,902 temporary reference number applications):

Applications will be subject to administrative checks to determine eligibility.

Apart from scheme applications, there were also 34,359 applications received for transfer of entitlements.

The closing date for the receipt of transfer of entitlements applications was also May 15.

However, if a change made to a BISS online application leads to a farmer having insufficient land to use all of their entitlements, they will have the opportunity to submit a transfer of entitlements application up until midnight on May 31.

This is only available to farmers who can show that they have made a change to their BISS application by May 31, and that change has directly led to the need to transfer entitlements.