Argentina Foreign Land Ownership Cap Stays at 15%

Politics: Argentina

Argentina foreign land ownership rules will not change this week. President Javier Milei’s bloc dropped the land chapter on Wednesday to save a Senate session, leaving the 15% ceiling of 2011 exactly where it was.

What Milei Pulled, and When

Argentina’s governing bloc withdrew the rural land chapter on Wednesday 5 August 2026. It came hours before a Senate session set for Thursday.

The chapter belonged to the “inviolability of private property” bill, promoted by Deregulation Minister Federico Sturzenegger. The Buenos Aires Herald reports that the scrapped section was Chapter 3.

The decision was sealed at a meeting led by Senator Patricia Bullrich, who heads the governing bloc, with allied caucus chiefs. Several governors had signalled that their senators would vote against.

“It was resolved by consensus to postpone consideration of the chapter of the bill concerning the rural land regime,” a spokesman for La Libertad Avanza and its allies told EFE. He called the decision unanimous, and not a permanent removal.

The bill was filed on 27 March with 53 articles. Thursday was the fourth attempt to bring the text to the floor.

The Rule That Applies Today

For anyone buying rural land, nothing has changed. Law 26,737 of 2011, known as the Ley de Tierras, remains the framework.

Article 8 caps foreign ownership or possession of rural land at 15% of national territory. The same 15% is then applied to the province and to the municipality or equivalent district where the property sits.

Article 9 adds a nationality test. People or companies of any single foreign nationality may not exceed 30% of that 15% quota, which works out at 4.5% of the relevant area.

Article 10 caps a single foreign owner at 1,000 hectares in the core farming zone, or an equivalent area elsewhere. It also bars foreign ownership of land that contains or borders large permanent water bodies, and of land in border security zones.

There is one wrinkle worth knowing. Milei’s emergency decree 70/2023 repealed the Land Law outright, in its Article 154.

That repeal did not stick. The Justice Ministry’s rural land registry states plainly that the restrictions are in force, because a court injunction restored the law and remains in effect.

Why the 25% Offer Was Bigger Than It Looked

The original bill scrapped the cap altogether. Facing resistance, the government offered to lift the ceiling to 25% instead.

That sounded like a modest ten-point move. It was not.

MercoPress reports that the 25% version applied the ceiling by province only. The national and municipal levels would have gone.

This matters because the limit almost never binds at the larger scales. The official registry says no province exceeds 15%, so a provincial-only test would leave room nearly everywhere.

The squeeze is local. The same registry says more than thirty departments are already above the 15% line.

Some sit far above it. MercoPress cites San Carlos at 59% and Molinos at 57% in Salta, General Lamadrid at 56% in La Rioja, and Lácar at 54% in Neuquén.

Those holdings are lawful. The 2011 law was not retroactive, so land bought before it took effect was left alone.

Who Stopped It

Resistance came from the government’s own side. Tucumán’s Osvaldo Jaldo and Neuquén’s Rolando Figueroa said publicly that their senators would not back the chapter.

Figures close to Salta’s Gustavo Sáenz joined them, as did the Radical senator Daniel Kroneberger. Vote counts circulating in the Argentine press put the tally at 35 to 34 against.

The arithmetic was tight enough for single votes to matter. Vice President Victoria Villarruel, whose rift with Milei has been running for weeks, cleared a Peronist senator to take part remotely on medical grounds.

A poll released on 28 July put support for limiting foreign land purchases at 77%.

A demonstration was called outside Congress for Thursday. Its slogan was “the homeland is not for sale”.

What This Means If You Want Argentine Land

Buy under today’s rules, because they are the rules that exist.

Before signing, check the department, not just the province. A purchase can be blocked where the local 15% share is already used up, even in a province with plenty of headroom.

Two absolute bars still apply. Land touching significant permanent water, and land inside border security zones, is closed to foreign buyers, subject to the border regime’s own exceptions.

Remember the personal ceiling as well. One foreign owner may hold no more than 1,000 hectares in the core farming region, or the equivalent elsewhere.

Foreign holdings are not trivial in scale. The Land Observatory, made up of CONICET and University of Buenos Aires researchers, puts the total at about 13.2 million hectares.

Argentine farmland is quoted and traded in US dollars. The official rate sat near ARS 1,495 to the US$ on 6 August.

Argentina is not alone in tightening up. Brazil’s top court recently closed a loophole used to buy farmland through local companies.

What Happens Next, and the Central Bank Bill

The rest of the property package went to the floor on Thursday. It narrows the definition of public utility in expropriations, and allows compensation for lost profits.

It also speeds up evictions, with up to ten days to find housing where children, disabled people or older adults are involved. And it rewrites the Fire Management Law, ending the 60-year protection period on burned forest and the 30-year ban on developing or farming burned land.

The land chapter’s own route back is unclear. Bullrich’s side calls it a postponement, while Ámbito reports that restoring it would require a new bill from the executive.

Milei is meanwhile pressing a separate central bank reform. That bill would bar the BCRA from financing the Treasury directly or indirectly, end temporary advances and stop primary-market purchases of government debt.

It is still only a bill. Like the land chapter, and like the capital markets opening pushed earlier this year, it needs votes the government still lacks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Has Argentina changed its foreign land ownership limit?

No. The chapter that would have raised the cap was withdrawn on 5 August 2026. Law 26,737 of 2011 still caps foreign ownership of rural land at 15%, measured nationally, provincially and locally.

What would the 25% proposal have changed?

It would have raised the ceiling from 15% to 25%. MercoPress reports that it would also have applied the limit by province only, removing the national and municipal tests that actually restrict purchases in some districts.

Is the 2011 Land Law really still in force?

Yes. Milei’s emergency decree 70/2023 repealed it, but Argentina’s rural land registry states that the restrictions remain in force, because a court injunction restored the law and is still in effect.

Can the land chapter come back?

Possibly. The governing bloc describes the move as a postponement rather than an elimination, though Ambito reports that reviving the measure would require the executive to send a new bill.

Sources: MercoPress; Buenos Aires Herald; Infobae; InfoLEG (Law 26,737); Registro Nacional de Tierras Rurales.

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