On the eve of the Basic Payment Scheme 2015 final deadline of 10 July, the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) had received more than 88,000 applications.
By close of business on 9 July, the number of forms received after the initial 15 June deadline had been confirmed at around 700, and these claims will attract a one per cent penalty for every working day they were late.
The RPA is now validating and verifying all the claims it has received to date ahead of making payments as early as possible from December.
The inspection programme is well under way, the agency said, and initial results have indicated a good level of compliance with the scheme rules.
The system was relaunched at the end of March following IT issues, with farmers asked to submit BPS claims on paper forms, replacing the problematic digital mapping tool which had been used to measure farmland boundaries.
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