Is it legal to build barns on land for cultivation of perennial trees in Vietnam?

Hello, for your request, Lawnet would like to answer as follows:

1. What is land for cultivation of perennial trees?

According to Clause 1, Article 10 of the Land Law 2013, land for cultivation of perennial trees is a type of land belonging to the group of agricultural land. In addition, in Appendix 01 explaining how to determine the type of land, types of land users, and types of land management objects of Circular 27/2018/TT-BTNMT, there are guidelines for determining specific perennial crops as follows:

“Land for perennial crops is land used for the purpose of growing plants that are planted once, grown, and harvested for many years according to the provisions of Joint Circular No. 22/2016/TTLT-BNNPTNT-BTNMT dated June 30, 2016 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development - Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, including:

- Perennial industrial plant: a perennial plant for products used as raw materials for industrial production or that must be processed to be used, such as rubber trees, cocoa, coffee, tea, cashews, pepper, coconut, etc;

- Perennial fruit trees: Perennial trees for products that are fruits for eating fresh or in combination with processing, such as pomelo, orange, rambutan, plum, apricot, mangosteen, longan, durian, litchi, mango, etc;

- Perennial medicinal plant is a perennial plant for medicinal products such as anise, cinnamon, bean curd, camphor, ginseng, etc.;

- Other perennial plants are perennial plants for timber, shade, and landscaping (such as cypress, eucalyptus, mother of pearl, acacia, milkweed, hibiscus, sesame buds, etc.); including the case of mixed planting of many different types of perennial plants or the intermingling of perennials and annuals.

In case the land for planting perennial crops is combined with aquaculture and providing services, in addition to making statistics for the purpose of growing perennial crops, additional statistics must also be made for other purposes such as aquaculture, production, and non-agricultural business (in case of simultaneous use for both purposes, statistics shall be based on both purposes)."

2. Is it legal to build barns on land for cultivation of perennial trees in Vietnam?

In Clause 1, Article 10 of the Land Law 2013, there are provisions on classification of agricultural land groups as follows:

"1. Agricultural land, including:

a/ Land for cultivation of annual crops, including paddy land and land for cultivation of other annual crops;

b/ Land for cultivation of perennial trees;

c/ Land for production forests;

d/ Land for protection forests;

e/ Land for special-use forests;

f/ Land for aquaculture;

g/ Land for salt production;

h/ Other agricultural land, including land used to build greenhouses and other building types for cultivation purpose, including fanning not directly on the land, or to build breeding facilities for cattle, poultry and other animals as permitted by law; land for cultivation, breeding and aquaculture for the purpose of learning, research or experimentation; land for planting and nursing seedlings and breeders, and land for growing flowers and ornamental plants."

Thus, it can be seen that land for cultivation of perennial trees and land for building breeding facilities for cattle, poultry and other animals are considered agricultural land but belong to two different subgroups.

At the same time, in Clause 1, Article 57 of the Land Law 2013, it is stipulated:

"Cases in which change of land use purpose requires permission by competent state agencies:

- Change of land for rice cultivation to land for perennial crops, forests, aquaculture or salt production;

- Change of land for other annual crops to land for saltwater aquaculture, salt production or aquaculture in ponds, lakes or marshlands;

- Change of land for special-use forests, protection forests or production forests to land for other purposes within the type of agricultural land;

- Change of agricultural land to non-agricultural land;

- Change of non-agricultural land which is allocated by the State without land use levy to non-agricultural land which is allocated by the State with land use levy, or to leased land;

- Change of non-agricultural land which is not residential land to residential land;

- Change of land for construction of non-business facilities or land for public purposes involving commercial purpose, or non-agricultural land for business and production purposes which is not land for trading or services to land for trading or services; change of land for trading or services or land for construction of non-commercial facilities to land for non-agricultural production establishments."

Thus, Citizens do not have to ask for permission when changing the land use purpose from land for cultivation of perennial trees to land for building breeding facilities for cattle, poultry and other animals as permitted by law, but will have to carry out registration of land changes.

Please Login to be able to download