This publication presents estimates of Agricultural Land Prices for both arable land and permanent grassland per acre at the State and regional level. In interpretation of these figures, allowance should be made for the fact that only a small amount of agricultural land is sold each year. In addition to this, certain agricultural land transfers are excluded from the data (see exclusions for more information). For example, the volume of eligible land (i.e. all agricultural land sold minus excluded transactions) sold in 2021 was only 1.3% of the total agricultural land area as detailed in the most recent CSO Census of Agriculture.
Administrative data from the Revenue Commissioner’s Stamp Duty Returns is used to calculate the median and mean price of land sold. To determine the type of land sold, data matching is carried out using the Stamp Duty Return (SDR) data, Property Registration Authority of Ireland (PRAI) data and the Census of Agriculture 2020 (COA).
The stamp certificate number is used to match the SDR data to the PRAI data in order to acquire the X and Y co-ordinates related to the property. The XY co-ordinates define the geographical small area, where the land is located, and the small area code which is added to the SDR data. Finally, the SDR data is matched to the COA data by the small area code and the land type associated with the sale is attached to the sale data.
As the statistics relate to the land sold purely for agricultural use, the following transactions are excluded from the statistics:
Occasionally there may be revisions in following years due to how the data is processed. The year of transaction for agricultural land transactions is taken from the execution date listed on the stamp duty return. The legal deadline for submitting stamp duty returns is within 44 days of the date of execution of the transaction. However, in some cases, returns are submitted later than this date and as a result more data becomes available in the following year.
Median Price per Acre: Median price is the value directly in the middle when the transactions are sorted in order of price per acre. By taking the median price, the final figure is less susceptible to being skewed in one direction or another by extremely large or extremely small values, giving a better idea of the typical price of one acre of land in Ireland.
Mean Price per Acre: The mean price per acre is calculated by dividing the total value of the land sold in each region by the total volume of the land sold in each region.
Value of Land Sold: The total amount of money spent on purchases of agricultural land.
Volume of Land Sold: The total area of agricultural land sold.
Arable Land: Land worked regularly, generally under a system of crop rotation.
Permanent Grassland: Land used permanently (for five or more years) to grow herbaceous forage crops, through cultivation (sown) or naturally (self-seeded) and which is not included in the crop rotation on the holding.
Commonage: Commonage is defined as land in which multiple tenants hold an undivided share in the property and have a distinct and separate interest in that property. The land is not physically divided so no one person owns a particular part of the property. That is to say, it is communally owned and operated and third parties must treat the co-owners as a single unit for transactions in respect of the land. Commonage land transactions are not included in the figures.
The regional classifications in this release are based on the NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Units) as set in the Commission Regulation (EU) 2016/2066. The NUTS3 regions correspond to the eight Regional Authorities established under the 2014 Local Government Act (Regional Authorities). The composition of the regions is set out below
