Can Foreigners Own Land in Vietnam in 2026? The Legal Answer and the Foreign Quota Explained

No. Foreigners cannot own land in Vietnam. Not through a company, not through a nominee, not on any title. All land in the country is collective property of the people with the State acting as administrator, a principle written directly into Article 53 of the 2013 Constitution and carried through into the Law on Land 2024. What a foreign buyer actually acquires is a different thing: ownership of the building, usually an apartment, sitting on a land-use right that stays with the State.

That distinction is the whole game in Vietnam, and most listings blur it on purpose. So here is the clean version of what a foreign passport holder can and cannot do as of 2026.

What you can own

Under the Law on Housing 2023 (Law No. 27/2023/QH15) and the Law on Land 2024 (Law No. 31/2024/QH15), both in force since 1 January 2025, a foreign individual who is legally permitted to enter Vietnam may buy and own residential housing inside approved commercial development projects. That means apartments and, in some projects, landed villas and townhouses that the developer has been licensed to sell to foreigners.

You get a pink book, the Certificate of Land Use Rights and Ownership of Assets Attached to Land, in your own name. You can rent the unit out, sell it, gift it, and pass it on. What you do not get is the land underneath it. You hold the home; the State holds the ground.

You cannot buy raw land, agricultural land, or a house in an area not designated for foreign sale. You also cannot buy inside zones tied to national defense and security, which are mapped at the provincial level and are non-negotiable.

The 50-year clock

Foreign ownership runs for 50 years from the date on the certificate. It is renewable once, for up to another 50 years, which gives a theoretical ceiling of 100 years. Renewal is not automatic. You apply before expiry and the competent authority decides. Plan around the 50-year term as the real number, not the 100-year headline.

There is one important carve-out. Under the Law on Land 2024, overseas Vietnamese who still hold Vietnamese nationality are now treated as domestic citizens for property purposes. No 50-year cap, no foreign quota, and direct access to land-use rights. If you have a Vietnamese passport alongside your foreign one, you are not in the foreign bucket at all, and that single fact can change your entire purchase structure.

What "foreign quota" means

This is the term that confuses buyers more than any other, so here is the mechanic. Vietnam caps how much of any given project can be sold to foreigners. Decree 95/2024/ND-CP, which implements the Housing Law, sets the limit at 30% of the apartment units in a single building. For landed houses, foreigners can own no more than 250 units within an area equivalent to a ward-level population of roughly 10,000.

When agents say a unit is "in the foreign quota," they mean it counts against that 30%. Once a building hits the cap, the remaining units can only be sold to Vietnamese nationals, and any foreigner who buys after the cap is full will not get a valid certificate. This is the single most common way foreign buyers lose money in Vietnam: they pay deposits on off-plan units in projects where the foreign quota is already exhausted, then discover at handover that the certificate cannot be issued.

Before you sign anything, get written confirmation in the sale contract of the project's foreign quota status and the specific unit's position within it. A developer that delivers projects on time and tracks its quota cleanly is worth more than a cheaper one that does not. Platforms like Bektu (https://bektu.com) exist to check a developer's actual delivery history before you commit, which matters far more in an off-plan market like Vietnam than the glossy brochure does.

How the purchase actually works

A clean foreign purchase looks like this. You confirm the project is licensed for foreign sale and inside its 30% quota. You sign a sale and purchase agreement with the developer, not with a third-party "owner." Payments go in stages tied to construction milestones, in Vietnamese dong through a Vietnamese bank account, which also creates the paper trail you need to repatriate sale proceeds later. At handover, the developer files for your pink book.

Avoid two structures that get marketed to foreigners and do not hold up. The first is the nominee arrangement, where a Vietnamese individual holds the land or house "for you." It is unenforceable, and if the nominee defaults or disappears, you have no standing. The second is buying through a Vietnamese company you control to access land; this is heavily restricted for residential property and triggers a different, far more complex legal regime.

The bottom line

Foreigners cannot own land in Vietnam, but they can own apartments and approved homes on a 50-year renewable leasehold, capped at 30% of any building, with full title to the structure itself. The 2024 and 2023 laws made the rules clearer than they have ever been, and the biggest risks now are not legal grey zones but practical ones: exhausted quotas, off-plan delays, and nominee deals that were never going to work.

If you want the wider regional picture, our guide to where foreigners can own land in Southeast Asia lays out how Vietnam compares to its neighbors, and our breakdown of Cambodia's nominee and long-term lease structures shows what foreigners do in markets with even tighter land rules.