1. Can production forest land be converted to residential land?
According to Point c, Clause 2, Article 9 of the 2024 Land Law, production forest land is a group of agricultural land used mainly for agricultural, forestry, or aquaculture production purposes.
Meanwhile, residential land (the common name for residential land) belongs to the group of non-agricultural land used to build houses and works serving life and society.
Article 121 of the 2024 Land Law stipulates the conversion of land use purposes as follows:
"1. Cases of land use purpose change that must be permitted by competent state agencies include:
a) Converting rice-growing land, special-use forest land, protective forest land, and production forest land to other types of land in the agricultural land group.
b) Convert agricultural land to non-agricultural land.
c) Converting other types of land to concentrated livestock land when implementing large-scale concentrated livestock projects.
d) Converting non-agricultural land allocated by the State without land use fees to other types of non-agricultural land allocated by the State with land use fees or land lease.
d) Converting non-agricultural land that is not residential land to residential land.
e) Converting land for construction of public works, land used for public purposes with business purposes to land for non-agricultural production and business.
g) Converting non-agricultural production and business land that is not commercial or service land to commercial or service land".
Accordingly, converting agricultural land (including production forest land) to non-agricultural land (including residential land) is one of the cases where land use purpose change is allowed but must be permitted by the competent State agency.
Therefore, people using production forest land are allowed to change the land use purpose to residential land.
2. What are the conditions for converting production forest land to residential land?
To convert production forest land to residential land, permission must be obtained from the competent State agency (People's Committee - District/Provincial People's Committee) where the land is located.
Accordingly, the People's Committee at district/provincial level shall decide to allow the change of land use purpose based on the following grounds:
- The annual land use plan has been permitted and approved by the competent State agency.
- Land use needs are stated in the application for change of land use purpose.
Thus, only when the above conditions are met, will the People's Committee issue a decision allowing land users to change the purpose of use from production forest land to residential land.
