According to Clause 1, Article 121 of the 2024 Land Law, cases of land use purpose change that must be permitted by competent state agencies include:
- 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.
- Convert agricultural land to non-agricultural land.
- Convert other types of land to concentrated livestock land when implementing large-scale concentrated livestock projects.
- 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.
- Converting non-agricultural land that is not residential land to residential land.
- Converting land for construction of public works, land used for public purposes with business purposes to land for non-agricultural production and business.
- Converting non-agricultural production and business land that is not commercial or service land to commercial or service land.
At the same time, Clause 5, Article 116 of the 2024 Land Law stipulates that households and individuals are allowed to change the purpose of using agricultural land in residential areas, agricultural land in the same plot of land with residential land to residential land if it is consistent with the district-level land use planning or general planning or zoning planning according to the provisions of the law on urban planning approved by competent authorities.
From the above regulations, it can be seen that from August 1, 2024, the basis for allowing the conversion of agricultural land use to residential land use is the district-level land use plan instead of the annual district-level land use plan as before.
Accordingly, the district-level land use planning stipulated in Article 62 of the 2024 Land Law is 10 years (20-year vision). And the district-level land use plan is prepared annually.
Note that for rice-growing land and forestry land, the land use purpose can only be changed to another purpose after having a Resolution of the Provincial People's Council.
Thus, the conditions for changing the land use purpose to residential land will depend on the actual time and the approved district-level land use plan, and the competent authority will decide to change the land use purpose to residential land. In case the land is not in accordance with the annual land use plan of the district level, it will not be converted to residential land.
