Cases that require permission to change land use purpose
According to Article 121 of the 2024 Land Law, land users are only allowed to change the purpose of use if permitted by a competent state agency in the following cases:
- 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;
- Converting agricultural land to non-agricultural land;
- Converting other types of land to concentrated livestock land when implementing large-scale concentrated livestock projects;
- Conversion of 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;
- Conversion of non-agricultural land other than residential land to residential land;
- Converting land for construction of public works, land used for public purposes with business purposes to non-agricultural production and business land;
- Converting non-agricultural production and business land that is not commercial or service land to commercial or service land.
Note: When changing the land use purpose according to regulations, the land user must fulfill financial obligations according to the provisions of law; the land use regime, rights and obligations of the land user are applied according to the type of land after changing the land use purpose.
Cases that do not require permission
Article 121 of the 2024 Land Law also stipulates that the conversion of land use purposes not falling under the above cases does not require permission from a competent state agency.
Notably, in the case of land users who are originally residential or non-agricultural land, have a long-term stable use term, have converted to other purposes, now converted to residential land and are in accordance with the land use planning, they do not have to pay land use fees.
