Can Foreigners Buy Property in Uzbekistan? The Land, Building and 108-Country Rules

Foreigners can buy property in Uzbekistan, but only the building, never the land under it. You can own an apartment, a house, an office, or a hotel outright, with a title in your name. You cannot own a single square meter of Uzbek soil, because land in Uzbekistan is exclusively state property under the Constitution and the Land Code. That split, full ownership of the structure sitting on a state-owned plot you hold through a use right, is the thing to understand before you look at a single listing in Tashkent.

The land rule is absolute, the building rule is generous

Uzbekistan's Land Code vests ownership of all land in the state. There is no private freehold land for anyone, Uzbek or foreign. What individuals and companies hold instead is a right of use or a long-term lease over the plot, while owning the building on it in full. For a foreign buyer this is less limiting than it sounds, because almost every foreign purchase is an apartment or a commercial unit, and the apartment itself is yours. The underlying land comes attached as a use right rather than as ownership. This is a common structure across Central Asia and it functions much like ownership in day-to-day terms, but it is legally not the same, and any contract that claims to sell you Uzbek land outright is describing something that cannot exist.

The 108-country rule and the money thresholds

The bigger recent shift is on the buyer side. Historically a foreigner needed a residence permit to buy property in Uzbekistan. That changed when the Cabinet of Ministers approved a list of foreign states whose citizens may purchase newly constructed real estate, excluding land, without holding a residence permit. That list covers 108 countries. If your nationality is on it, you can buy a new-build unit as a pure investment, without first becoming a resident, provided the purchase clears a minimum value.

The thresholds are set by location and by whether the building is finished. In Tashkent city, Samarkand city, and Tashkent province, the property must be worth at least the equivalent of 150,000 US dollars if it is still under construction, or 180,000 US dollars if it has been commissioned. In the other provinces, the floors drop to 70,000 and 80,000 dollars respectively. These are not taxes or fees, they are qualifying minimums: buy below the threshold and you fall outside the no-residence-permit investment scheme. The rule is aimed squarely at new construction. It is designed to channel foreign money into the primary market and the building boom in Tashkent, not into resale of old Soviet-era stock.

One caution that the government states plainly and that buyers routinely miss: acquiring real estate under this investment scheme does not by itself grant permanent registration or a residence permit. Ownership and immigration status are separate. There is a parallel route where a larger property investment can support a residence permit, but the ordinary sub-threshold-to-mid purchase does not convert into the right to live there. If someone sells you a Tashkent apartment as a shortcut to Uzbek residency, read the decree, not the brochure.