The Nature Restoration Levy Regulations 2026 were made on 10 September 2026 and, under regulation 1, came into force on 11 September 2026. The instrument extends to England and Wales and was approved by both Houses under the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025. Its purpose is operational rather than political: it supplies the detailed rules that make the nature restoration levy work in practice. As the explanatory note states, the levy gives developers a route to meet certain environmental obligations through payment to Natural England, with the proceeds then funding conservation measures in the relevant Environmental Delivery Plan, or EDP. The Regulations therefore turn Part 3 of the 2025 Act into a working regime for liability, billing, enforcement, reviews, appeals and the use of levy funds.
One of the clearest effects is on timing. Regulations 5 and 6 require development to be held back until the levy position has been dealt with. For planning permissions, the granting authority must impose a condition preventing commencement until the levy has been paid in full or, where Natural England allows instalments, the first instalment has been paid. For relevant development under general consent, the same restriction is deemed to apply where the development had not already begun before the request to pay was accepted. That moves the levy into the pre-commencement stage of project planning. It also gives Natural England a formal signalling role, because the body must notify the relevant authority once the payment condition has been satisfied. For local planning authorities, listed building cases and marine licensing, the Regulations set out which authority is to receive that notice.
The liability rules are detailed and matter for both developers and landowners. For development authorised by planning permission, a person may assume liability by sending Natural England a written assumption of liability notice after the request to pay has been accepted and the relevant consent position is in place. Liability can later be transferred by notice. For development authorised by general consent, the committed developer becomes a liable person once the trigger in regulation 10 is reached. Where nobody assumes liability for a planning-permission scheme, Natural England must, in defined circumstances, impose liability on the owners of the land unless that would cause substantial injustice. It may also impose liability on owners where a due amount remains unpaid and reasonable recovery steps have failed. The standard rule is joint and several liability, but where owner liability is imposed it may be apportioned by reference to the open market value of each material interest, assessed on the basis that the development was completed the day before apportionment. The Regulations also make specific provision for trustees, deceased estates and later transfers of liability.
Once liability arises, Natural England must issue a liability notice to each liable person. That notice must identify the development, list the liable persons, state the levy amount, specify the payment date or instalment dates, explain inflation adjustment, and set out the consequences of non-payment, including surcharges, interest and review or appeal rights. The service rules are modernised: documents may be sent by post or electronically, and an electronic notice is treated as given at 9am on the next working day. The charging structure is then built from regulation 23 onwards. Natural England’s charging schedule may set rates by reference to the size or impact of development, including area, building numbers, unit numbers, location, intended use or environmental effect. It may also apply different rates for different zones or kinds of development, and it may include supplementary charges where payment by instalments creates added administration. The legislation requires Natural England to have regard to the actual and expected costs of delivering, managing, maintaining and monitoring the EDP measures, together with reasonably attributable administrative and collection costs.
Regulation 24 converts that charging schedule into the levy amount. A provisional figure is calculated by reference to the applicable schedule and the details of the relevant development. If the provisional amount is below £50, the levy is nil. Otherwise, the amount is indexed between the year the charging schedule took effect and the year liability arose, using the RICS Community Infrastructure Levy Index and, if that is unavailable, the CPIH series published by the Office for National Statistics. The same indexation approach carries into payment. Regulation 26 adjusts sums paid so that the real value of payments is maintained when measuring what remains outstanding. Liable persons may ask Natural England to calculate what must be paid in the current year to clear a specific outstanding amount. If the development changes materially, liable persons must notify Natural England, which must recalculate the levy. That duty is significant because a failure to report a material change can itself lead to a surcharge if the recalculated levy is more than £300 higher than the earlier figure.
The Regulations also deal with schemes that do not proceed as first described. A committed developer or liable person may ask Natural England to rescind acceptance of a request to pay on grounds set out in the Schedule. Those grounds include failure to make the required application within six months, refusal of the necessary permission, revocation or lapse of the only permission, or a decision not to proceed with the development as described. Natural England may also rescind on its own initiative in some circumstances. That relief is not retrospective in every case. A cancellation notice ends future levy liability, but it does not erase amounts that were already due before cancellation, nor surcharges or interest attached to those amounts. The instrument also allows payments to be transferred between overlapping developments where one scheme is not going forward, and it requires overpayments to be repaid as soon as practicable in most cases, with interest, subject to the stated exceptions.
Part 3 of the instrument places firm limits on how levy receipts may be used. Natural England must spend levy funds for a development on conservation measures listed in the applicable EDP and tied to the identified environmental feature for which the levy was charged. Eligible spending includes delivery, management, maintenance, monitoring and administration, and the Regulations allow shared system costs to be attributed across EDPs where that is reasonably attributable. There is also a reporting discipline. Natural England must account separately for levy funds under each EDP and must report, in midpoint, final and annual reporting, the outstanding levy position and the amount spent on conservation measures, including network conservation measures. If an EDP ends or is revoked, the rules continue to direct how the money is to be used, including, where section 70 of the 2025 Act applies, on remedial action. The explanatory note also records that no separate impact assessment was produced for this instrument because it concerns a levy, with the relevant assessment having been prepared for the 2025 Act itself.
Enforcement powers are extensive. Natural England may impose a surcharge where nobody assumed liability and owner liability has to be imposed, where payment remains overdue after 30 days, six months or 12 months, or where a material change was not notified and the recalculated levy is sufficiently higher. The late-payment surcharge is set at the greater of 5% of the outstanding amount or £300 on each occasion, while interest on overdue sums accrues automatically at 2.5 percentage points above the Bank of England base rate. If non-payment continues, Natural England may issue a warning notice and then a stop notice prohibiting specified activities on the site, apart from works needed in the interests of health and safety. The levy is recoverable as a debt due to Natural England, and the levy amount becomes a local land charge affecting the land until discharged or otherwise brought to an end. Where the outstanding levy amount is at least £2,000, Natural England may seek county court consent to enforce that charge. The High Court or county court may also grant an injunction to restrain breach of a stop notice.
The review and appeal structure is likely to be as important as the charging rules themselves. A liable person may ask Natural England to review the levy amount, and an owner may ask it to review an apportionment of owner liability, generally within 28 days of the relevant notice. Those reviews must be carried out by someone who was not involved in the original decision. While a review or a levy-amount or apportionment appeal is outstanding, the relevant amount is not payable and cannot become overdue. Appeals then move to the Secretary of State. The Regulations allow appeals on levy calculation, apportionment, surcharges, interest, warning notices and stop notices, each with its own grounds and time limits. Taken together, the instrument creates a complete compliance code around the nature restoration levy. For developers, the message is that payment can discharge specified environmental obligations under an EDP, but only within a system that gives Natural England strong control over commencement, collection, recovery and oversight.