The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment received a petition from voters in Tuyen Quang province with the content: "Request the Government to consider transferring the authority and functions and tasks of the Branch of the Land Registration Office according to the provisions of current law on commune level. To ensure that commune-level People's Committees are proactive and fully responsible in the decentralized land management process".
Regarding this proposal, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment has the following opinions: The establishment and organization of the Land Registration Office according to the one-level model directly under the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (old) has shown clear effectiveness during the implementation of the 2013 Land Law such as: The results of issuing the first Certificate of Land Use Rights have been basically completed, the rate of dossiers being resolved on time achieved high results; Land Registration Offices with affiliated branches are the core force, playing a leading role in measuring and mapping cadastral maps, building, managing and updating land databases, are a key part of the digital transformation platform of the land sector, contributing to the implementation of the goal of e-Government, towards modern, transparent, non-administrative land services...
Implementing the organization of 2-level local government, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment has reviewed and advised on plans to arrange the Land Registration Office system accordingly. On June 12, 2025, the Government issued Decree No. 151/2025/ND-CP regulating the decentralization of authority of 2-level local governments, decentralization and delegation of power in the field of land, which stipulates that the Land Registration Office has specialized departments and Branches of the Land Registration Office. Branches of the Land Registration Office are located at commune-level administrative units or inter-commune and ward areas decided by the Provincial People's Committee.
This regulation has decentralized to the Provincial People's Committee to decide on the arrangement and organization of Branches of the Land Registration Office located at commune-level administrative units or inter-commune and ward areas to suit the reality of the locality. In the past time, there have been opinions proposing to bring the functions and tasks of the Branch of the Land Registration Office to the commune level. However, besides that, some localities proposed to maintain the model of the Land Registration Office with branches as it is now.
In the current system of land management agencies, the Land Registration Office and its affiliated Branches are directly carrying out land registration and assets attached to land, playing the role of the core professional force in building, updating, managing and operating land databases, ensuring that land data is "correct, sufficient, clean, and live", effectively serving the state management of land and providing public services to people and businesses.
The proposal to transfer the authority and functions and tasks of the Branch of the Land Registration Office to the commune level is an issue with a large scope of impact, directly related to the rights and interests of land users, and at the same time affecting the unity, professionalism and efficiency of the land registration system. This is a major policy, which needs to be comprehensively researched, based on practical investigations and surveys, and a full assessment of the organizational structure, capacity of officials, technical infrastructure, information technology and management requirements of land databases in the current digital transformation context.
Implementing the Prime Minister's direction "the principle is that one task is assigned to one person and one person can do many tasks", recently the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment has advised the Government to issue Decree No. 49/2026/ND-CP detailing and guiding a number of articles of Resolution No. 254/2025/QH15 of the National Assembly stipulating a number of mechanisms and policies to remove difficulties and obstacles in organizing the implementation of the Land Law.
Article 14 of Decree No. 49/2026/ND-CP assigned a number of tasks to register land changes, issue Certificates of land use rights, ownership of assets attached to land (according to regulations previously under the authority of the Land Registration Office, branch of the Land Registration Office at point b, clause 2, Article 136 of the 2024 Land Law) to the commune-level People's Committee, including: issuing Certificates of land use rights, ownership of assets attached to land or confirming changes on the issued certificate for cases where commune-level agencies and competent persons allow changing land use purposes, adjusting land use terms, extending land use terms, changing forms of land use, recognizing land use rights, and re-determining residential land area.
This regulation has transferred authority and functions for some cases of land registration from the branch of the Land Registration Office to the commune level.
