Taxes on the sale of agricultural land in Latvia 2026

The short answer

When selling land, a natural person pays personal income tax at 25.5 % on the capital gain — on the difference between the sale price and the acquisition value, not on the whole transaction amount. The rate has been 25.5 % since 1 January 2025; before that it was 20 %.

Agricultural land can be sold free of this tax — but the conditions apply to the buyer, not the seller, and they sit in Article 11.⁷(3) of the law "On Personal Income Tax" (Par iedzīvotāju ienākuma nodokli), not in Article 9, as is often written. The length of ownership is irrelevant to this exemption.

This article is not tax advice. KALME is not a tax adviser and is not a party to the transaction. Every figure here comes with an article number and a verification date so that you can check it yourself; for your own specific situation, check with the State Revenue Service (VID).

1. What the rate is and what it is calculated on

For a natural person, income from selling land is income from a capital gain. Immovable property is a capital asset — Article 11.⁹(2)(4) of the law "On Personal Income Tax".

The capital gain is determined by deducting the acquisition value and the value of investments made during the period of ownership from the disposal price (Article 11.⁹(1)). Tax is paid on that difference, not on the whole transaction amount.

Checked against the consolidated version on likumi.lv in force from 1 January 2026; verification date — 2 September 2026. The additional three per cent is paid in summary form with the annual income declaration, and its calculation takes in all taxable income of the taxation year, not just the land transaction (Article 15.¹(2)).

The acquisition value may also include state fees for drawing up the transaction, for confirming inheritance rights and for registering title in the Land Register, commission payments, as well as interest payments on a loan taken specifically to acquire that asset — Article 11.⁹(5). If the transaction results in a loss, no tax is due and no capital gains declaration has to be filed; losses may be set off only against a profit from another capital asset in the same taxation year, and may not be carried forward to subsequent years (Article 11.⁹(9) and (10)).

2. Agricultural land: an exemption that depends on the buyer

This is where people go wrong most often. The exemption for agricultural land is not in Article 9 among the non-taxable income items — it is in Article 11.⁷(3) ("Special provisions for determining income from the disposal of an agricultural undertaking or agricultural land"). And its conditions speak about the buyer, not about the seller.

Income from the disposal of immovable property which, by its type of use, is agricultural land is not taxed if both conditions are met:

1. Who is buying. Title is acquired by the owner of a farm holding; a person registered in the Register of Enterprises as a commercial company, an individual merchant or a farm holding; a person registered with the State Revenue Service as a performer of economic activity; or the Latvian Land Fund (Latvijas zemes fonds) (Article 11.⁷(3)(1)).
2. What the buyer does. In at least one of the last three pre-taxation periods, more than half of the buyer's economic activity revenue, but not less than €3,000 per year, consists of revenue from agricultural activity; or else the buyer receives state or European Union support payments for agriculture and rural development as a young farmer (Article 11.⁷(3)(2)).

If the buyer is the Latvian Land Fund, the second condition does not have to be applied at all — Article 11.⁷(3.¹).

Two things are often read out of this incorrectly. First: no length of ownership is required here — the 60-month rule described in the next section does not apply to this exemption. Second: the seller does not have to be a farmer. What matters is who buys and what the buyer's revenue is. In practice this means the buyer's eligibility has to be established before the contract is signed, not after.

If the property also contains forest, scrubland or buildings

Few rural properties are agricultural land alone. If you sell a property made up of agricultural land and forest or another type of land (scrubland, bogs, land under water), the exemption is applied proportionally (Article 11.⁷(4)) — and the proportion is determined in one of two ways:

• by a valuation from a certified immovable property valuer that is not older than 12 months on the day the disposal contract is concluded and that states both the total market value and the market value of each part — then the proportion is by value;
• if there is no valuation — in proportion to the share of the area which, by its type of use, is agricultural land.

If there are buildings or structures on the land, there is no choice: the proportion may only be determined by a certified valuer's valuation (Article 11.⁷(5)). And in both cases, where the taxable income is calculated under paragraph four or five, the valuation must be submitted to the State Revenue Service together with the declaration — Article 19(7.¹).

3. The other exemptions: 60 months, declared residence, sole property

These are the exemptions in Article 9(1). They apply to immovable property in general — including land — and they are independent of one another: it is enough for one of them to be met.

• Point 33 — declared place of residence. The property has been owned for more than 60 months (counting from the day it was registered in the Land Register) and for at least 12 consecutive months within that 60-month period up to the day the disposal contract was concluded it has been the person's declared place of residence, not declared as an additional address.
• Point 33.¹ — sole property. The property has been owned for more than 60 months and, for the last 60 months up to the day of disposal, has been the taxpayer's sole immovable property.
• Point 34.² — reinvestment in another property. The property is registered in the Land Register as the taxpayer's sole immovable property, and the income is reinvested in a functionally similar immovable property within 12 months after the disposal, or else before it. There is no 60-month requirement here.

On point 34.², the State Revenue Service clarifies (the vid.gov.lv page "Income tax on capital gains", updated 20 August 2026) that the reinvested amount must be no less than the difference between the sale price and the acquisition value; the part not reinvested remains a taxable capital gain. If the new property was bought before the sale, the service must be informed within one month of receiving the income (Article 9(8.²)).

There are three further related points that appear less often with rural properties: point 34 (division of property on divorce), point 34.¹ (property disposed of for public needs) and point 34.³ (termination of compulsorily divided property).

One more detail that can decide how the 60 months are counted in land transactions: if a building and the land were entered in the Land Register at different times, the moment of acquisition is taken to be the day on which the building or structure was entered in the Land Register (Article 9(8)), except in the case of point 33.¹.

4. Inherited and gifted property

In Latvia a large share of rural land is inherited or restored, so these rules affect many people. The most important point: there is no separate exemption in the law along the lines of "I am selling inherited property, therefore there is no tax". Article 9(1)(9) exempts the receipt of the inheritance itself, not the later sale.

Inheritance affects two other things — the date from which the 60 months are counted and what the acquisition value is.

• Holding period, inheritance. If the property was inherited by contract, by will or by law from a person related to the taxpayer by marriage or by kinship up to the third degree within the meaning of the Civil Law, then for the purposes of points 33 and 33.¹ the property is deemed to have been owned by the taxpayer from the day it was registered in the Land Register as the property of the deceased. In practice the 60 months have often already passed during the deceased's lifetime.
• Holding period, gift. There is no such carry-over in points 33 and 33.¹ — for an ordinary gift the 60 months are counted from registration in the name of the donee. The donor's time is carried over only in the case of point 34.¹ (disposal for public needs).
• Acquisition value, inheritance. The acquisition value is taken to be the value of the particular capital asset stated in the estate inventory (Article 11.⁹(4)).
• Acquisition value, gift. The value stated in the deed of gift, which may not be greater than the disposal price (Article 11.⁹(4)). If the gift was received from a spouse or a relative up to the third degree and the property is sold within 60 months of registration in one's own name, the acquisition value is determined under special rules — Article 11.⁹(7.³) (the donor's acquisition price, the cadastral value in the year of the donor's registration, or an adjusted cadastral value).
• Restored title. If the immovable property was obtained through the restoration of property rights, the acquisition value is taken to be the current cadastral value (Article 11.⁹(7)).
• Acquired by 31 December 2000 without documents. The acquisition value is the current cadastral value in the year of disposal, divided by the Central Statistical Bureau's consumer price index coefficient for the last 10 years (Article 11.⁹(7.¹)). For 2026 the State Revenue Service has published a coefficient of 1.510 (material updated 13 May 2026); for 2025 it was 1.458.

5. If the seller is a company: CIT and VAT

Corporate income tax: tax only at the moment profit is distributed

If the land is sold by a limited liability company, the profit from the sale is not taxed immediately. The corporate income tax base is formed only by the objects exhaustively listed in Article 4(2) of the Corporate Income Tax Law (Uzņēmumu ienākuma nodokļa likums) — distributed profit (dividends and payments treated as equivalent to them) and deemed distributed profit — and profit from the disposal of immovable property is not mentioned there. The income remains in retained earnings and is taxed at the moment it is distributed.

• Basic rate 20 % on the taxable base, which is divided by a coefficient of 0.8 before the rate is applied (Article 3(1) and Article 4(9)) — effectively 25 % of the amount paid out.
• Alternative rate 15 % with a coefficient of 0.85 — effectively around 17.65 % — which may be chosen by companies whose members during the dividend calculation period are natural persons only (Article 3(5) and Article 4.²). This is new from 1 January 2026 (the law of 3 December 2025).

  The lower rate cannot be compared on its own: dividends paid out under the Article 4.² regime are subject to 6 % personal income tax in the recipient's hands (Article 15(5.¹) of the law "On Personal Income Tax"), whereas dividends paid under the standard regime are exempt from personal income tax (Article 9(1)(2.¹)(a)). Per €100 of distributed profit the comparison is therefore €25.00 against €17.65 + €6.00 = €23.65.

• For a non-resident, 3 % of the consideration applies on the disposal of immovable property located in Latvia, but the procedure depends on who the buyer is. Where the buyer is a resident other than a natural person, or a non-resident's permanent establishment, the tax is withheld by the payer (Article 5(1)(2)). Where the buyer is a natural person, nothing is withheld — the non-resident files a return with the State Revenue Service and pays the tax within 30 days of the alienation (Article 5(3)).

Value added tax: land is usually not taxable, building land is

The sale of immovable property is not subject to value added tax — except unused immovable property and building land (Article 52(1)(24) of the Value Added Tax Law (Pievienotās vērtības nodokļa likums)). The standard rate is 21 % (Article 41(1)(1)).

One more place where a land transaction can take you by surprise: the registration threshold. You do not have to register in the register of taxable persons as long as the total value of transactions carried out in the country during a calendar year does not exceed €50,000 (Article 59(1)) — but this threshold also counts sales of immovable property that are not subject to tax (Article 59(2)(2)). It is not counted towards the threshold if the transaction concerns a fixed asset or if it is occasional in nature and clearly differs from the taxpayer's type of economic activity (Article 59(3)). For a single land transaction this usually means no registration obligation arises, but for a performer of economic activity who deals in land regularly, one may.

Immovable property tax in the year of sale

The rate is a matter for the local authority — from 0.2 to 3 % of the cadastral value; above 1.5 % the local authority may set it only for a property that is not maintained. If the local authority has not published binding regulations, land is charged at 1.5 % (Article 3(1) of the law "On Immovable Property Tax" (Par nekustamā īpašuma nodokli)).

For uncultivated agricultural land there is no "3 % rate" — the law provides for an additional rate of 1.5 % (Article 3(1.¹)), which is added to the basic rate. The additional rate is not applied to land whose area does not exceed one hectare, or to land for which restrictions on agricultural activity are laid down in regulatory enactments.

In the year of the sale the tax is usually paid by the seller: the obligation to pay ends with the taxation year following the termination of title, and the buyer starts paying from the following taxation year (Article 7(1) and (3)). Proportional reimbursement of the tax between the parties is a matter for the contract, not an obligation under the law.

6. Who may buy agricultural land

This is a tax article, but this part affects the tax directly: if the buyer cannot acquire the land, there is no transaction, and if the buyer does not meet the conditions of Article 11.⁷, there is no exemption. The rules are in Chapter III¹ of the law "On Land Privatisation in Rural Areas" (Par zemes privatizāciju lauku apvidos); the version in force from 3 April 2026.

The conditions apply to land whose predominant category of use is agricultural land, as well as to notional shares of it (Article 28.¹). A natural person must meet all of the following:

• registered as a performer of economic activity in the Republic of Latvia (this does not apply to owners of farm holdings who operate in the form of a farm holding);
• confirms in writing that the use of the land in agricultural activity will begin within one year of acquisition if the land was declared for direct payments in the previous or the current year, or within three years if it was not;
• the total amount of tax debts does not exceed €150;
• knowledge of the state language at least at level B, grade 2 — only if the person is not a citizen of the European Union, the European Economic Area, the Swiss Confederation or a country of the OECD Code of Liberalisation of Capital Movements.

A legal person must in addition state all beneficial owners and confirm that they comply; the state language requirement applies to holders of capital shares together representing more than half of the voting capital, and to persons entitled to represent the company.

Area limits

• a single natural or legal person — up to 2,000 ha of agricultural land (Article 29(4));
• related persons together — up to 4,000 ha (Article 29(8));
• associations and foundations — up to 5 ha (Article 29(7));
• a municipal council may set a lower maximum area in its territory in its binding regulations (Article 29(6));
• the limits do not apply to inheritance (Article 29(3)).

The municipal commission and pre-emption rights

The lawfulness of the transaction is supervised by the municipal commission (Article 30.¹). The application is submitted to the municipality in whose territory the land is located. The commission's consent is issued in the form of a certificate, and — this is what proves decisive in practice — the deed of transaction is valid for entry in the Land Register only if it is accompanied by that certificate and by the decision of the manager of the Latvian Land Fund not to exercise its pre-emption right (Article 30.¹(4)).

Pre-emption rights over agricultural land are sequential (Article 30.²):

1. the co-owner of the land — in the manner laid down in the Civil Law;
2. the tenant of the land, whose lease contract has been registered with the municipality or in the Land Register at least one year before the day the transaction is concluded;
3. the manager of the Latvian Land Fund — and if the fund exercises its pre-emption right, the disposal transaction cannot be revoked. The fund's manager has a pre-emption right over any land or land unit that contains agricultural land.

The requirements on buyer eligibility, the commission's certificate and pre-emption rights do not apply in several cases (Article 30.³), the most common of which for rural properties are: the acquirer's area of agricultural land together with the land being acquired does not exceed 10 ha for a natural person and 5 ha for a legal person; inheritance; transactions between spouses and relatives of the first or second degree; land consolidation; and transactions involving land in an area where the municipal spatial plan provides for development.

Failure to comply with the written confirmation carries administrative liability — a warning or a fine depending on the area, up to 1,000 fine units for a legal person (Article 39). The commission checks that the confirmation is fulfilled.

Two obligations from the Land Management Law

• Valuable land. If the quality assessment of agricultural land is higher than 50 points, the municipality ensures its preservation by setting restrictions on fragmenting the land and on changing its category of use; if the assessment is above 45 but does not exceed 50 points, the municipality may set such restrictions (Article 4, points 1 and 1.¹, of the Land Management Law (Zemes pārvaldības likums)).
• Degraded territory. When disposing of land that is partly or wholly located in a degraded territory, the user of the land informs the acquirer of this (Article 4, point 5). That is a direct obligation of the seller.

Soil quality — the same land quality score that Article 4 of the Land Management Law talks about — is a separate layer on the KALME map in the paid plans.

7. How and when you declare

The seller declares it themselves, in the State Revenue Service's electronic declaration system or in person. The form is the declaration of income from a capital gain (DK). The deadline depends on the amount of transactions in the quarter — Article 19(5.³):

The tax is paid into the single tax account (Article 19(3.²)). A non-resident must submit the declaration by the 15th day of the month following the month in which the income was received (Article 19(5.²)).

Even if no tax is due, you may still have to declare. Non-taxable income — including income from selling agricultural land with the Article 11.⁷ exemption — is reported in the annual income declaration if its total for the year exceeds €10,000 (Article 19(2)). In a rural land transaction this threshold is frequently exceeded.

And once more about the valuation: if the taxable income is calculated proportionally under Article 11.⁷(4) or (5), a certified valuer's valuation must be submitted together with the declaration (Article 19(7.¹)). The valuation is ordered by the seller, and it may not be older than 12 months on the day the contract is concluded — which is why it is arranged before the transaction, not after.

8. A worked example

The example is invented, and it shows only the course of the calculation, not the value of any particular property. In a real transaction the figures are checked with the State Revenue Service.

Modra is selling a 10 ha property: 5 ha of agricultural land, 3 ha of clear-felled area and 2 ha of scrubland, with no buildings on it. She inherited the property from her father in 2009, and the value stated in the inheritance certificate is €4,268.62. The sale price in both variants is €50,000. There is no certified valuer's valuation, so the proportion is determined by area: agricultural land is 5 ha out of 10 ha, that is 50 %.

The difference is €5,830.75 — 11.7 % of the transaction amount. It arises not from the price and not from the seller, but from who the buyer is.

The example does not include state fees and the other expenses allowed under Article 11.⁹(5), which would increase the acquisition value and reduce the tax accordingly. If there were a building on the property, the proportion could only be determined by a certified valuer's valuation, and the result would be different, because the split would then be by value, not by area.

What land costs today

The tax is calculated on the price, so the question "what is it worth" is just as practical as the question about the rate. KALME does not value it and does not estimate the price — it shows what has actually been sold and for how much:

• The price of agricultural land in Latvia (in Latvian) — a median of €4,305/ha over the last 12 mature months (May 2025 – April 2026, 1,547 transactions); half of the transactions fall between €2,885 and €6,357/ha; a median for each of the 31 novads.
• The price of forest land in Latvia (in Latvian) — a median of €3,000/ha in 2026 (data up to 6 August); 13,354 transactions in 2022–2026, of which 1,291 fall in the 2026 window.
• On the KALME map, every transaction is visible where it took place — with the area, the land composition, the date and the price per hectare.

These are summaries of registered transactions, not a valuation of any particular property, and they may not be used in place of the price when calculating the tax — the tax is calculated on the price stated in the contract.

9. Frequently asked questions

How much is the tax on selling land in 2026?

Personal income tax of 25.5 % on the capital gain, that is, on the difference between the sale price and the acquisition value (Article 15(5) of the law "On Personal Income Tax", checked on 2 September 2026). If total taxable income for the year exceeds €200,000, a further 3 % applies to the excess.

Is 20 % really gone?

It is. The 20 % rate on capital gains was in force until 31 December 2024. In 2026 it still applies only to transactions that were started by 31 December 2024, have not been completed and for which the relevant declaration has been submitted (paragraph 196 of the transitional provisions).

I am selling agricultural land. Do I have to be a farmer myself?

No. The conditions of Article 11.⁷(3) apply to the buyer. The seller's status is not a condition.

How do I check whether the buyer qualifies?

The law requires two things: registration status (a farm holding, a commercial company, an individual merchant or a performer of economic activity registered with the State Revenue Service; or the Latvian Land Fund) and the revenue condition — in at least one of the last three years, more than half of economic activity revenue, but not less than €3,000, from agricultural activity; or else young farmer support payments. In practice the buyer confirms this, and it is worth establishing before the contract. Whether a particular buyer qualifies should be checked with the State Revenue Service (VID) — KALME cannot confirm it.

I inherited land. Will there be tax when I sell it?

There is no separate exemption for inherited property. There will be no tax if one of the Article 9 exemptions or the Article 11.⁷ agricultural land exemption applies. Inheritance helps in two ways: the 60 months are counted from the day the deceased was registered (if the kinship is up to the third degree), and the acquisition value is taken to be the value stated in the estate inventory, which is usually low and therefore increases the capital gain.

How long do I have to hold the land for there to be no tax?

The length of ownership is entirely irrelevant to the agricultural land exemption. For the Article 9 exemptions it is more than 60 months, and in addition either the declared residence condition (point 33) or the sole property condition (point 33.¹) must be met.

What if I sell for less than I paid?

Then there is no capital gain, no tax is due and no declaration of income from a capital gain has to be submitted. Losses may be set off against a profit from another capital asset in the same taxation year, but they may not be carried forward to subsequent years.

Can KALME tell me how much I will have to pay?

No. KALME shows registered transactions and, here, the articles of the law with a verification date. The tax calculation in a particular situation depends on documents that only the owner and the State Revenue Service see. With a specific question you should turn to the service.

Sources and verification date

All the legal statements in this article were checked on 2 September 2026 against the consolidated texts of the laws on likumi.lv and the materials published by the State Revenue Service. Laws change; if you are reading this later, check the current version again.

• The law "On Personal Income Tax" (Par iedzīvotāju ienākuma nodokli), version in force from 1 January 2026. Articles: 9, 11.⁷, 11.⁹, 15, 15.¹, 19 and the transitional provisions.
• Corporate Income Tax Law (Uzņēmumu ienākuma nodokļa likums) — Articles 3, 4, 4.² and 5.
• Value Added Tax Law (Pievienotās vērtības nodokļa likums) — Articles 1, 41(1)(1), 52 and 59.
• Land Management Law (Zemes pārvaldības likums) — Article 4, points 1, 1.¹ and 5.
• The law "On Land Privatisation in Rural Areas" (Par zemes privatizāciju lauku apvidos) — Chapter III¹ (acquisition of agricultural land into ownership).
• The law "On Immovable Property Tax" (Par nekustamā īpašuma nodokli) — Articles 3 and 7.
• State Revenue Service (VID): "Income tax on capital gains" and methodological materials on income from the disposal of immovable property and agricultural land.
• Price figures: the Real Estate Market Database (NĪTIS), © State Land Service (VZD), open data. Processing: KALME, SIA.
• Prepared by KALME, SIA (reg. No. 43603092426). Corrections: [email protected].

KALME is not a tax adviser, is not a party to the transaction and does not provide tax advice. This article is a summary of legal provisions with references, not a recommendation to act in a particular way. Check how the tax applies in your situation with the State Revenue Service (VID) — the service itself also encourages you to do so before selling immovable property.