Agricultural land and land accumulation: the categories of agricultural land, how a foreign-invested company obtains it, leasing and pooling farmers' land, the limits on accumulation by households and domestic companies, rice land protection and conversion, terms and rent, forest land and water surfaces, building on farmland, and a worked estate example

Agricultural land in the Land Law, and who counts as foreign

Article 9(2) of Land Law No. 31/2024/QH15 divides agricultural land into annual crop land (rice and other annual crops), perennial crop land, forestry land (special-use, protection and production forest), aquaculture land, concentrated livestock land, salt land and other agricultural land. Under Article 4 of Decree No. 102/2024/ND-CP, specialised rice land is land growing two or more rice crops a year, and other agricultural land covers nurseries, flowers and ornamental plants, greenhouses and other buildings serving cultivation or livestock (including soil-less cultivation) and farm works such as worker housing and stores for produce, pesticides, fertiliser and machinery. The category decides what may be done without a change of land use purpose and which special regime applies. The general framework is in Land use rights and the Land Law.

The second threshold question is whether the investing company is, for land purposes, a foreign-invested economic organisation. Article 3(46) of the Land Law defines it as an economic organisation that must meet the conditions and follow the procedures for foreign investors under the Law on Investment to carry out a land-using project, which under Article 20 of Law No. 143/2025/QH15 means, broadly, a company more than 50% foreign-owned; Article 4(1)(b) treats every other economic organisation as a domestic land user. Read together, as Global Vietnam Lawyers also note, the two provisions place a company at or below 50% foreign ownership in the domestic category, with its wider routes, including buying farmland. Because the threshold counts holdings through a foreign-majority Vietnamese company, the shareholding should be checked before a joint venture is designed around it. In this section, foreign-invested company means a company that follows the foreign-investor procedures.

How a foreign-invested company obtains agricultural land

Under Article 180(1), an organisation, including a foreign-invested company, that needs land for agriculture, forestry, aquaculture or salt production is considered by the State for a lease to carry out an investment project, on land the provincial land use plan designates for that use. A cleared State land fund is usually leased by auction. Occupied land is recovered by the State only in the cases in Article 79: an ordinary farming estate is not one of them, but clauses 22 and 23 cover high-tech agricultural and forestry zones, large-scale concentrated production and processing zones serving several districts, provinces or regions, and projects growing and conserving medicinal plants. Otherwise the State lease route works best on land the State already holds, such as land returned by State agricultural and forestry companies under Articles 180(2) and 181. A request for land without auction or tender, or for a change of land use, needs investment policy approval from the provincial People's Committee chairman under Article 24(8) of the Law on Investment (Investment policy approval).

Article 120(2)(a) has always allowed one-off rent for the whole term for agricultural, forestry, aquaculture and salt projects, giving a land use right that can be transferred, sublet, contributed and mortgaged to a credit institution licensed in Vietnam (Article 41(3)). Since 1 January 2026 Article 4(2) of Resolution No. 254/2025/QH15 lets most lessees choose either method, so the choice is a financing decision (Land rent, land prices and Resolution 254).

The other routes in Article 28 also apply. A foreign-invested company may receive land use rights as a capital contribution (Article 28(1)(đ)), and individuals may contribute land use rights to organisations (Article 37(1)(h)). Article 42(1), however, gives the company full Article 41(3) rights only where the contributed land originated in allocation with levy or a one-off lease; household farmland allocated without levy falls outside that wording, so the company's rights and registration should be agreed with the land registration office before signing. The company may also acquire a domestic company that holds farmland, which keeps its rights under Article 41(4), with registration under Article 21 of the Law on Investment where foreign ownership passes 50%. It may not take a transfer of agricultural land use rights outside industrial parks, clusters and high-tech parks, because Article 28(1)(c) confines its transfer route to those zones (FAQ 48; How foreign-invested companies access land).

Article 194 adds concentrated zones for cultivation, livestock, aquaculture and processing, whose developer leases State land and subleases plots much as an industrial park developer does, with each subtenant's rights following its payment method.

Leasing farmers' land and pooling it for production

Most farmland is held by households in small plots, so the practical question is how to farm at scale without owning the land. Article 37(1)(d) allows an individual holding agricultural land allocated within the quota, recognised, received by transfer or held on one-off terms to lease its land use right and assets to other organisations and individuals, and practitioners, including Viet An Law, read organisations as including foreign-invested companies. The lease is a civil contract, need not be notarised and cannot outlast the landlord's own term; an individual leasing from the State on annual rent may sublet only its lease rights and assets (Article 37(2)(d)).

Article 192 calls this concentration of agricultural land: farming a larger area through exchanges under a consolidation plan, leases of land use rights, or production and business cooperation using land use rights, voluntarily and transparently. The organisation or individual concentrating land must send a land use plan to the commune People's Committee for monitoring and agree how land will be returned if its use changes within the agricultural group (Article 192(4)). Article 77 of Decree No. 102/2024/ND-CP lists what the agreements must cover: the method and duration for each plot, each holder's contribution of land to internal roads and irrigation, the return of land and each party's rights and obligations.

Commercial models combine household leases, output-sharing cooperation, aggregation through a cooperative and contract farming, in which the company takes no interest in the land; the contracts are covered in Agro-processing, food safety, cooperatives and contract farming.

Accumulation: what households, individuals and domestic companies may do

Accumulation of agricultural land differs from concentration: the land user itself acquires a larger holding by receiving transfers or capital contributions of agricultural land use rights (Article 193). An individual may receive transfers of up to 15 times the Article 176 allocation quota for each land type, as fixed by each province (Article 177), and may exchange agricultural land with other individuals within the province free of income tax and registration fee (Article 47). An individual who does not farm directly and receives rice land above the quota must form an economic organisation and have a rice land use plan approved (Article 45(7)).

A domestic economic organisation has no numerical cap but needs an agricultural land use plan stating location, area, purpose, production plan, capital, term and timetable (Article 45(6)), which must be approved or refused within 25 days (Article 78 of Decree No. 102/2024/ND-CP); since 1 July 2025 the approval has been given by the commune-level People's Committee chairman (Article 5(1)(a) of Decree No. 151/2025/ND-CP). Only then may it agree transfers or contributions with landholders and register them. Under Article 45(8) an economic organisation may not take transfers of protection or special-use forest land from individuals unless conversion is planned. This route is closed to a company following the foreign-investor procedures, which is why foreign groups so often place farmland with a domestic partner, a cooperative or a minority-owned joint venture and contract with it.

Rice land: protection, changes of crop and conversion

Article 182 commits the State to protect rice land and restrict its conversion, and Article 121(1) requires permission to convert rice or forest land to another type of agricultural land and to convert any agricultural land to non-agricultural land. Decree No. 112/2024/ND-CP of 11 September 2024 sets the detail.

Changing the crop without converting the land. A user may change its crop structure on rice land if the land can return to rice (Article 182(5)). Under Article 6 of the decree only rice land other than specialised rice land may move to perennial crops, nothing may change in zones planned for high-yield, high-quality rice, changes must follow the provincial and commune annual plans and be registered with the commune, and rice combined with aquaculture may lower up to 20% of the area by no more than 120 cm. The land stays recorded as rice land. Buildings directly serving production may stand on rice land only as the province permits, in concentrated rice areas of at least 50 hectares, on one storey and without basements (Article 9).

Converting rice land. A project needs permission consistent with the land use plan and, where it seeks State land or a change of use, investment policy approval; converting 500 hectares or more of two-crop wet-rice land needs the Prime Minister's approval (Articles 24(2) and 25 of Law No. 143/2025/QH15), and Article 4(3) of Resolution No. 254/2025/QH15 removed the separate People's Council resolution. A user converting specialised rice land to non-agricultural use pays an amount set by the province at no less than 50% of the area multiplied by the rice land price in the price table, within 30 days of notification and with late interest of 0.03% a day; public investment projects are exempt (Articles 12 and 13 of the decree). The former topsoil plan requirement in Article 182(4)(a) of the Land Law and Article 57 of the Law on Crop Production was repealed from 1 January 2026 by Law No. 146/2025/QH15 (Articles 15 and 16(4)).

Terms, rent and the duty to use the land

A State lease for a project runs for the project term, up to 50 years, or up to 70 years where the Law on Investment allows a longer project term (Article 172(1)(c)). An extension must be applied for in the last year and at least six months before expiry; if none is granted, assets not removed within 24 months are lost without compensation (Article 172(3) and (4)). Long-cycle crops such as durian, coffee or rubber should be planned against these dates.

Annual rent is the table price, multiplied by the annual coefficient and a provincial percentage of 0.25% to 3% (Article 26 of Decree No. 103/2024/ND-CP as amended), fixed for five-year cycles; for water-surface areas it is set at no less than 20% of the rent unit price of adjoining land with the same purpose and term (Article 28). Rent exemptions for agricultural projects are in Investment incentives and high-tech agriculture.

Land must be used. Leaving annual crop or aquaculture land unused for 12 consecutive months, perennial crop land for 18 months or forest planting land for 24 months, and missing the deadline in a penalty decision, is a recovery ground (Article 81(7)); project land unused for 12 months after handover, or 24 months behind schedule, can be recovered after a paid extension of up to 24 months without compensation (Article 81(8); Land recovery, compensation and non-use). Orchard establishment periods belong in the project schedule.

Forest land and water surfaces

Production forest. The State leases production forest land to economic organisations and individuals (Article 184(2)), and to foreign-invested companies for production afforestation projects (Article 184(5)); a foreign investor's afforestation project needs the Prime Minister's investment policy approval (Articles 24(7) and 25 of Law No. 143/2025/QH15). A lessee of natural production forest may not transfer, sublet, mortgage or contribute its rights (Article 184(3)).

Converting forest. Under the Law on Forestry as amended by Law No. 146/2025/QH15 from 1 January 2026, conversion must fit the forestry, provincial or land use plan, have a policy decision of the provincial People's Council (or the project's investment policy approval where that belongs to the National Assembly, the Prime Minister or the People's Council), and follow payment of replacement afforestation money (Articles 19 and 20). The money is three times the converted area for natural forest and the same area for planted forest, multiplied by the provincial unit price, paid into the provincial Forest Protection and Development Fund (Article 21). The provincial chairman decides conversions for organisations (Article 23), and a policy decision not followed by a conversion decision within 24 months must be renewed (Article 20(2)).

Water surfaces. Pond, lake and lagoon land is leased to economic organisations and foreign-invested companies for aquaculture, agriculture or agriculture combined with non-agricultural purposes (Article 188(1)), and coastal water-surface land may be allocated or leased to them (Article 189). Marine aquaculture needs a sea area allocation under Article 44 of the Law on Fisheries, now for up to 50 years with extensions totalling no more than 20 years (Livestock, aquaculture and animal health).

Building on agricultural land and combined uses

Greenhouses, net houses, soil-less systems, barns, nurseries and stores for produce, inputs and machinery are other agricultural land under Article 4(7) of Decree No. 102/2024/ND-CP, so they need no conversion to non-agricultural land, although converting rice or forest land to them needs permission (Article 121(1)(a)) and buildings must meet construction law. Packing houses, cold stores and processing plants are generally non-agricultural production facilities needing non-agricultural land, which should be confirmed with the province at the outset.

Article 218 permits combined multi-purpose use: agricultural land may also serve commercial and service purposes, livestock and medicinal plants, and may carry solar power, telecommunications works and outdoor advertising (Article 218(1)(g)). Under Article 99 of Decree No. 102/2024/ND-CP the combined area may not exceed 50% of the main-purpose area, structures must be easy to dismantle, the use may not outlast the main term, and a plan including restoration must be approved, for an organisation by the provincial People's Committee within 15 days, subject to the delegations in Decree No. 151/2025/ND-CP. The commercial, non-agricultural or solar area pays annual rent at the price-table rate. Agri-tourism and agrivoltaic projects are usually structured this way.