Based on Clause 1, Article 121 of the 2024 Land Law, the conversion to residential land is regulated as follows:
Article 121. Change of land use purpose
1. Cases of land use purpose conversion that must be permitted by a competent State agency include:
a) Converting rice land, special-use forest land, protection forest land, and production forest land to other types of land in the agricultural land group;
b) Converting 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 for land lease;
e) 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 non-agricultural production and business land;
g) Converting non-agricultural production and business land that is not commercial or service land to commercial or service land.
Thus, specialized rice land is still converted to residential land, which means it is still converted to residential land, but the conversion of specialized rice land to residential land must be permitted by a competent state agency.
According to the provisions of Clause 5, Article 116 of the 2024 Land Law amended by Point a, Clause 2, Article 57 of the 2024 Urban and Rural Planning Law, the basis for converting garden land to residential land is as follows:
Article 116. Basis for land allocation, land lease, and permission to change land use purposes
4. In case of deciding and approving investment policies for projects with phasing progress or land recovery, compensation, support, and resettlement according to progress, the competent state agency for land allocation and land lease decides on land allocation and land lease according to the progress of the investment project, land recovery progress, compensation, support, and resettlement.
5. The basis for allowing the conversion of agricultural land use purposes in residential areas, agricultural land in the same land plot with residential land to residential land or conversion of non-agricultural land types that are not residential land to residential land for households and individuals is district-level land use planning or general planning or zoning planning according to the provisions of law on urban and rural planning approved by competent authorities.
Accordingly, the basis for converting rice cultivation to residential land is district-level land use planning or general planning or zoning planning according to the provisions of law on urban and rural planning that has been approved by competent authorities.
According to the provisions of Clause 2, Article 22 of Decree No. 151/2025/ND-CP, commune-level administrative units after arrangement are allowed to continue to use district-level land use plans, district-level annual land use plans or plans established according to the provisions of law on urban and rural planning that have been approved by competent state agencies according to the provisions of law before July 1, 2025 in the area or land use targets in the land allocation and zoning plan of provincial planning are allocated to commune-level administrative units after arrangement to serve as a basis for performing state management tasks on land until the review and planning of land use plans according to new administrative units is completed.
