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Cattle movement reporting
Welcome to the Cattle information hub where you can find out more about the new Livestock Information Service (LIS) for cattle. You will need to use the new service from Summer 2026 to report your cattle movements. The new service is being developed in partnership between the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), Livestock Information Ltd, and alongside industry. LIS for Cattle will replace the current Cattle Tracing System (CTS) for England cattle notifications. It will make cattle traceability smarter, faster, and more accurate, providing better disease control.
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Benefits of the new Livestock Information Service for cattle keepers

Saving keepers time through combined on-and-off movement reporting.

Giving keepers the ability to update animal details and log lost, stolen, found, imported, or exported animals.

Creating a digital animal record, reducing the amount of paperwork. 

Providing keepers with more information to improve productivity and efficiency on farm.

Analysing cattle data on farm to give the keeper an insights dashboard. 

Keepers can access up to 18 months of records for cattle on their holding.

Faster disease response from real-time data transfer.

The new LIS for cattle also enables the future use of Bovine Electronic Identification (BEID) from a set date in 2027.

When to take action

You don’t need to do anything just yet, we’ll let you know how and when to register to use the new service in Spring 2026. If you report movements using farm management software, you will need to speak to your software provider in Spring 2026 for instructions on updating your account. You should be able to continue using your software as you do now subject to the software provider agreeing to update their integration with LIS.  

 

To stay up to date, you can sign up to the LIS Newsletter here.

About the ministerial
announcement

The formal ministerial announcement which took place on Monday 2 June 2025, outlined Defra’s plans to introduce changes to cattle identification, registration and reporting from Summer 2026. These new regulations have been shaped by the responses to the public consultation in late 2023.



Plans for Bovine EID

 

This announcement confirmed that Bovine Electronic Identification (BEID) will be introduced for all newborn calves in England from a set date in 2027, using low frequency (LF) technology. Industry will then transition to a fully electronically identified cattle population over time, meaning there will be a period where non-BEID and BEID animals both exist in tandem in the national herd. During this time, animal movements will be able be reported using either EID reads, barcode scans from passports or visual reading of tags as it is currently done. As such, there is no need to retag the national herd.



Plans for the new cattle service

 

The announcement also confirmed the development of a new Livestock Information Service (LIS) for cattle which will replace the current Cattle Tracing System (CTS) for English cattle notifications. This will be launched in a phased rollout, starting with private testing in December 2025, and will gradually progress into a more public testing state in spring 2026. This phased approach will allow any issues to be resolved quickly and ensure a smoother transition for all users. The aim is to roll out the new LIS cattle service to all cattle keepers by summer 2026.



Plans for the future

 
The new service is designed to be futureproof, ensuring it can accommodate changes from the bovine consultation and any future legislative updates. This flexibility allows the system and services to adapt seamlessly to new requirements, which will enable it to evolve into a multispecies traceability service in the future. Existing livestock traceability systems, including the Cattle Tracing System (CTS), will remain in place until multispecies services across the devolved governments are fully operational.

 

You can read the formal announcement here: Electronic ID for Cattle mandatory in step forward for UK biosecurity – GOV.UK