Cases of change of land use purpose required permission from competent state agency in Vietnam

Cases of change of land use purpose required permission from competent state agency in Vietnam (Internet image)

Regarding this issue, LawNet would like to answer as follows:

1. Cases of change of land use purpose required permission from competent state agency in Vietnam

According to Article 57 of the Land Law 2013, cases where land use purpose change must be approved by a competent state agency includes:

- Change the land for rice cultivation to land for planting perennial crops, land for afforestation, land for aquaculture, land for salt production;

- Converting land for planting other annual crops to land for saltwater aquaculture, salt production, aquaculture land in the form of ponds, lakes or lagoons;

- Change of special-use forest land, protection forest land and production forest land to use for other purposes in the group of agricultural land;

- Converting agricultural land to non-agricultural land;

- Converting non-agricultural land allocated by the State without land use levy to non-agricultural land allocated by the State with land use levy or leased land;

- Converting non-agricultural land which is not residential land to residential land;

- Transfer of land for construction of non-business works, land used for public purposes for business purposes, land for non-agricultural production and business that is not commercial or service land to commercial or service land; converting commercial, service, and non-business construction land to land for non-agricultural production establishments.

2. Competence to allocate, lease land and approve change of land use purpose in Vietnam

Competence to allocate, lease land and approve change of land use purpose is as follows:

- Provincial-level People’s Committees may decide on permission for change of land use purpose for, organizations;

- District-level People’s Committees may decide on Allocation or lease of land to, and permission of change of land use purpose for, households and individuals. If these subjects wish to lease or use agricultural land with an area of 0.5 ha or more for trading and service purposes, written approval from the provincial-level People’s Committee is required before the district-level People’s Committee makes decision;

Thus, the agency competent to decide to allow the change of land use purpose specified above is not authorized.

(Article 59 of the Land Law 2013)

3. Conditions for land allocation, land lease and change of land use purpose to implement investment projects in Vietnam

- For investment projects that use paddy land or land for protection forests or land for special- use forests for other purposes and are other than those to be decided by the National Assembly or approved in principle by the Prime Minister, competent state agencies may only decide on land allocation or land lease or permit change of land use purpose when one of the following documents is available:

+ The written approval by the Prime Minister for change of land use purpose for the paddy land with an area of 10 ha or more, and for protection forest or special-use forest with a land area of 20 ha or more;

+ The resolution of the provincial-level People’s Council for change of land use purpose for the paddy land with an area less than 10 ha, and for protection forest or special-use forest with a land area less than 20 ha.

- For investment projects which use land on islands or in border or coastal communes, wards or townships, competent state agencies may only decide on land allocation, land lease or change of land use purpose upon receiving written approval from related ministries and agencies.

- Those who are allocated land or leased land by the State, or permitted by the State to change land use purpose to implement investment projects must meet the following conditions:

+ Having financial capacity to ensure the land use according to the investment project’s schedule;

+ Paying a deposit in accordance with the investment law;

+ Not violating the land law if they are implementing other projects on the state-allocated or -leased land.

(Article 58 of the Land Law 2013)

Nguyen Ngoc Que Anh

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