People can apply for residential land more easily in 2025 for two reasons: First, the land only needs to be in accordance with the approved district-level land use planning.
Second, it is necessary to comply with the approved district-level land use planning instead of having to live in the same plot of land with housing and meet the additional conditions on land use time as before according to Article 103 of the 2013 Land Law.
According to regulations, the cost of converting agricultural land to residential land includes:
- Land use fees when converting land use purpose to residential land.
- Certificate issuance fee.
- Registration fee.
- Photo appraisal fee.
In particular, land use fees are one of the major and important costs when changing land use purposes, often up to several hundred million VND.
And from January 1, 2026, when the new land price list is officially applied, it will certainly have a significant impact on the land use fee that people have to pay.
Currently, the formula for calculating land use fees when converting the purpose from agricultural land to residential land is stipulated in Clause 1, Clause 2, Article 8 of Decree 103/2024/ND-CP as follows:
In which:
(1) Land use fee of the land type after changing land use purpose is calculated as follows:
(2) Land use fees and land rents of land types before changing the purpose of use are calculated as follows:
- In case the land before changing purpose is agricultural land allocated by the State without collecting land use fees or has the origin of legal transfer and has been allocated by the State without collecting land use fees:
Land fee before changing land use purpose = Land area x Land price of corresponding agricultural land type in land price list
- In case the land before changing purpose is agricultural land leased by the State with one-time rental payment for the entire lease term, the land fee before changing purpose of use is calculated as follows:
It can be seen that the formula for calculating land use conversion costs is closely linked to the Land Price List. As analyzed above, the solid increase in the land price list also leads to people having to pay land use fees when changing the purpose of use much more than before January 1, 2026.
Therefore, although the conditions for applying for residential land are expanded, if done after January 1, 2026, people will spend a lot of money to change the purpose of use.
