Land Tax

Taxpayer shall be the owner of the land – a natural and legal person. The person (taxpayer) carrying out the obligations of landowners laid down in this Law and exercising the rights of a collective investment undertaking which is not a legal person shall be a management company of this collective investment undertaking.

The object of land tax shall be a private land in the Republic of Lithuania, except for forest land and agricultural land afforested in accordance with the procedure laid down by laws and other legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania

Tax rate shall be from 0.01 % to 4 % of the tax value of land. The specific rates of land tax are set individually by each municipality. The land tax rates established by municipal councils shall be published on the website of the State Tax Inspectorate under the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter - the STI under MoF) and in the municipalities which established them.

Tax value shall be the average market value of land. Also, the tax value of land may be considered, in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 11(2) of this Law, the value of land determined by the individual valuation of land.

Land evaluation shall be carried out using land value zone maps prepared by mass land valuation and models to determine the average market value of the land plot for at least every 5 years.

Tax Reliefs 

No tax shall be imposed on land for:

• diplomatic and consular missions of foreign states, international intergovernmental organisations and their missions;
• bankrupt companies;
• Bank of Lithuania;
• landowners whose tax due in the tax period for all land plots owned by the right of ownership does not exceed EUR 2.

Exempt from land tax shall be:

• commonly used roads;
• common-use land in the area of an amateur garden;
• the area of the plot of land belonging to natural persons whose families do not have working persons at the beginning of the tax period and for whom the level of capacity for work of 0  % - 40 %  has been set, or who have reached the retirement age or are minor children, which does not exceed the size of the exempt area of the plot of land determined by municipal councils by 1 September of the current tax period. Several land plots belonging to a natural person by the right of ownership which are located in areas (area) within the territory of the same municipality for which the same exempt area of the plot of land is fixed shall be considered in this case to be a single plot of land. If a natural person is entitled to the tax relief and has more than one plot of land, the maximum relief to one plot of land shall be granted. For the purposes of this provision, ‘family’ means spouses, persons alone raising children (adopted children) and their children (adopted children, stepchildren) who live with them until they reach the age of 18, and working persons schoolchildren and students in higher education who study in full-time and permanent forms of study programmes;
•  excluded schoolchildren and students from full-time units of educational establishments;
• land in national parks, regional parks, landscape, cultural, geological, geomorphological, botanical, zoological, botanical-zoological, hydrographic and pedological conservation areas and their protection zones, with the exception of agricultural land situated in the aforementioned areas, as well as land of built-up areas, roads and waters;
• land in coastal buffer strips of water bodies;
• land of natural monuments, excluding land of built-up areas and roads;
• land of archaeological (except for old-town cultural layers) and memorial (inoperative cemeteries and burial sites) objects of immovable cultural heritage entered in the Register of Cultural Property, with the exception of built-up areas, roads and waters in the aforementioned territories;
• land of the territories of historical, architectural and artistic immovable cultural heritage objects entered in the Register of Cultural Property in rural areas and the land of ethnographic homesteads located in the territories of ethnographic villages;
• land acquired to set up a farmer’s farm – three tax periods from the acquisition of the ownership right. This benefit is granted to the same person only once; 
• land by the right of ownership belonging to traditional and other state-recognised religious communities, associations and centres.

Local government councils shall have the right to reduce the amount of land tax or to grant exemption from the payment of land tax.

Tax payment

Tax period shall be a calendar year.

New land owners shall pay the tax:

• for the whole year if the land is acquired during the first half of the year;
• beginning the following calendar year if the land was acquired during the second half of the year.

No tax shall be imposed on land:

• the same year if the land is transferred during the first half of the year;
• the following year if the land is transferred during the second half of the year.

Tax shall be computed, tax returns filled in and submitted to taxpayers by 1 November of the current tax period by the tax administrator.

Tax shall be paid by 15 November.

Information and consultation on all tax issues shall be provided by the Tax Information Centre of the STI under MoF by tel. number 1882. The latest information on tax calculation and payment, tax explanations and comments, the most popular questions and answers to them can be found on the website of the STI under the MoF.

Republic of Lithuania Law on Land Tax No. I-2675  was adopted on 25 June 1996.

Links:

• Law on Land Tax No. I-2675