To fill out Form CCC-902E, the Farm Operating Plan for an Entity, you list every member’s ownership share and taxpayer ID, document the entity’s contributions of land, capital, equipment, labor, and management, and sign the certification, then file the completed form with your local county FSA office before your program enrollment deadline. The form is what the Farm Service Agency uses to decide whether your business is “actively engaged in farming” under 7 CFR Part 1400 and can receive payments from programs like Price Loss Coverage and Agricultural Risk Coverage. Get it wrong and every dollar the entity expects from those programs stops.
Who Files the CCC-902E
This is the entity version. Corporations, LLCs, limited partnerships, general partnerships, joint ventures, trusts, estates, charitable and tax-exempt organizations, public schools, and city-, county-, or state-owned entities all use it when they seek FSA benefits under programs subject to 7 CFR Part 1400. Individual producers file CCC-902I instead. If your farm is structured as a multi-person business of any kind, CCC-902E is yours.
You do not refile annually. A valid CCC-902E on file works as a continuous certification for payment eligibility and limitation purposes. Update it when something structural changes: a new member joins, ownership percentages shift, the entity starts renting land it used to own, and similar. When that happens, notify the county office promptly with a new form.
What to Pull Together Before You Open the Form
Missing paperwork is the most common reason a CCC-902E stalls. Gather all of the following first:
- The entity’s Employer Identification Number.
- Full name, address, and taxpayer identification number for every person or sub-entity with an ownership interest. If a member’s full TIN is not already on file with FSA, you need the complete number; otherwise the last four digits are enough.
- Exact ownership percentages for every member.
- Land records showing acreage owned versus leased, lease terms, and whether each parcel is cash-rented or share-rented.
- Equipment ownership documents or lease agreements, including fair-market-value terms for any equipment leased from a member.
- Capital documentation showing where operating money comes from and how it is used: loans, retained earnings, member contributions.
- Labor and management logs tying specific people to specific activities like crop selection, marketing decisions, financing, and fieldwork, with hours where you can supply them.
Every contribution you list has to be “at risk,” meaning the entity genuinely stands to lose money if the operation fails, and each member’s contributions must be commensurate with their claimed share of profit and loss. Listing equipment the entity does not actually risk losing, or padding a capital contribution, invites a denial.
You can download a blank form from the USDA eForms site at forms.sc.egov.usda.gov or pick one up at your local USDA Service Center. Filling it in on screen before printing reduces handwriting errors.
Working Through the Twelve Parts
The form runs from Part A to Part L. Here is what each section asks and where operations most often get flagged.
Part A: Entity Information
Legal name, EIN, mailing address, and state of organization. Match the name exactly to your organizing documents (articles of incorporation, operating agreement, trust instrument). A mismatch prompts a clarification request.
Part B: Type of Operation
Choose the entity type. This choice governs how FSA scores contributions later. Joint operations like general partnerships and joint ventures have each member evaluated individually for payment eligibility. Legal entities like corporations and LLCs are evaluated as a unit.
Part C: Member Information
List every person and sub-entity holding an ownership interest, with name, address, TIN (last four digits or full number as described above), and exact ownership percentage. FSA traces payments through multiple layers of ownership using this data. Omitting a member or misstating a percentage can reduce payments or make the entity ineligible outright.
Part D: Summary of Contributions
Summarize who contributes land, capital, equipment, labor, and management. Each member’s contributions should line up with their ownership share. The detailed breakdowns follow.
Part E: Land
Report each parcel, ownership or lease status, and lease type (cash rent or share rent). Cash-rent tenants face stricter rules, covered further down. Include total acres and identify the landowner for each parcel.
Part F: Capital Sources and Uses
Show where operating capital comes from (member contributions, bank loans, lines of credit, retained earnings) and how it is used. FSA is looking for evidence the entity independently finances its own farming rather than passing through someone else’s money.
Part G: Equipment
List equipment used in the operation and whether it is owned, leased, or custom-hired. Equipment leased from a member of the entity must be at fair market value to count as a valid contribution. Below-market arrangements between the entity and its own members draw scrutiny.
Part H: Custom Services
List outside contractors used for planting, spraying, harvesting, or other fieldwork. Heavy reliance on custom services undercuts a claim that the entity’s own members supply significant labor.
Part I: Labor Not Provided by Members
Report hired labor from anyone not listed in Part C, with the type of work and approximate hours. Together with Part J, this is how FSA gauges whether members are doing the farming or outsourcing it.
Part J: Management
Describe what management activities each member personally performs. Be specific: who chooses crops, who negotiates grain sales, who arranges financing, who supervises hired labor. “Oversees the operation” is not enough. The regulation defines active personal management as personally participating in decisions about capital, labor, agronomics, and marketing. When a member claims management as their contribution rather than physical labor, that management must be critical to the operation’s profitability.
Part K: Remarks
Use this space to explain anything unusual: a mid-year role change, a reorganization, context that helps FSA understand a contribution that looks thin on paper.
Part L: Certification
An authorized representative signs and dates, certifying that everything is true. Submitting false information on a federal form is a crime under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, carrying up to five years in prison and fines up to $250,000 for individuals.
What “Actively Engaged in Farming” Requires
Everything in the form is aimed at a single test. Under 7 CFR Part 1400, the entity must make a significant contribution of capital, land, or equipment, plus a significant contribution of active personal labor, active personal management, or a combination of the two.
For labor, “significant” means the lesser of 1,000 hours per calendar year or 50 percent of the total hours a comparable farming operation would need, scaled to the member’s ownership share. For management, there is no hour count; the member must personally participate in decisions critical to profitability across capital management, labor oversight, crop selection, and marketing. A member claiming a combination has to show that labor and management together carry a critical impact on profitability equal to what either alone would require.
Every contribution has to be at risk. A land contribution that is a lease with guaranteed payments regardless of outcome does not satisfy the at-risk test the way share-renting does.
Member Disclosure and Why TINs Matter
Under 7 CFR § 1400.10, the entity must disclose the name, address, valid taxpayer identification number, and ownership share of every person or sub-entity holding an interest. FSA traces payments through up to four levels of ownership, a process called direct attribution, using whatever ownership interest each person or entity holds on June 1 of the current year.
Missing identification numbers have concrete consequences. If a person or sub-entity holding 10 percent or more of the ownership interest at the fourth level or above does not provide a valid TIN, the entity is ineligible for payment entirely. If the missing TIN belongs to someone with less than 10 percent at that level, payments to the entity are reduced proportionally instead. One overlooked number can shut off the whole payment.
Two Situations That Trip Entities Up
Cash-Rent Tenants
Entities that rent cropland for a fixed cash payment face a tighter test. A cash-rent tenant must provide a significant contribution of equipment plus significant active personal management, or a significant contribution of active personal labor. Paying cash rent and hiring out all the work does not qualify.
For legal entities like corporations and LLCs, the entity itself must provide the equipment, while the members collectively supply the required management or labor. For joint operations like general partnerships, each individual member must independently meet the labor or management requirement; one partner cannot carry another. When an operation fails the cash-rent tenant test, FSA applies a “cropland factor” that reduces payments across the operation based on the percentage of cropland that is owned or share-rented and otherwise eligible. The reduction can be severe for mostly-cash-rented operations.
Foreign Ownership
A person who is neither a U.S. citizen nor a lawful permanent resident is generally ineligible for payments under Title I programs, CCC Charter Act programs, and certain conservation programs, unless that person provides land, capital, and a substantial amount of personal labor in crop production on the farm. For a legal entity, if more than 10 percent of ownership is held by foreign persons, the entity itself becomes ineligible unless each foreign member provides a substantial amount of active personal labor in crop production. The entity may submit a written request to the Deputy Administrator for reduced payments reflecting only the eligible members’ share.
Report any increase in foreign ownership after the program contract is executed to the county committee. If foreign ownership rises above 10 percent after a payment has been made, the entity must refund it.
Submitting the Form
Return the completed CCC-902E to your county FSA office. You can hand-deliver, mail, or fax it. If you have a USDA eAuthentication account with Level 2 access, you can submit electronically through forms.sc.egov.usda.gov. Electronic submission is faster and creates an automatic record, but the Level 2 credential requires verifying your identity in person at a Service Center or through a remote identity-proofing process. To locate your county office, use the Service Center locator at farmers.gov/working-with-us/service-center-locator.
Keep a copy of everything you submit along with any confirmation you receive. If you are enrolling in ARC or PLC for the current program year, the CCC-902E has to be on file before the enrollment deadline; for the 2025 program year, that deadline was April 15. FSA cannot process program payments for an entity that lacks a valid farm operating plan on file.
After You File
The county committee reviews the submission to verify the entity meets the regulatory requirements: member disclosures, contribution levels, and the actively-engaged-in-farming standard. If information is missing or unclear, the office will request supplemental documentation before making a determination. Ignoring those requests can suspend payments.
Once review finishes, FSA issues a determination letter stating whether the entity qualifies as actively engaged in farming for the applicable program year. A favorable determination clears you to receive payments. An unfavorable one, or one that gets any fact wrong, can be appealed to USDA’s National Appeals Division; you have 30 days from receiving the adverse determination to request a hearing. Detailed records of entity meetings, financial statements, and contribution logs are your best evidence on appeal. A well-documented farm operating plan is far easier to defend than one built on vague descriptions and round numbers.