How Long a Foreigner Can Lease Land in the Philippines

By Jot Jacosalem · Roll No. PENDING · IBP PENDING
Last updated September 8, 2026

In September 2025 the Philippines raised the maximum land lease for foreign investors to 99 years. The rule that applies to most foreigners did not change, and it is still 25 years renewable once. Which of the two applies to you depends on a single question.

Two regimes, and which one you are in

A foreign national cannot own private land in the Philippines. That constitutional position is unchanged. What a foreigner can do is lease, and there are two separate statutes setting how long that lease may run.

Republic Act No. 12252, which created the 99-year term, says this itself. Foreign individuals, corporations, associations or partnerships not otherwise investing in the Philippines continue to be covered by Presidential Decree No. 471 and other existing laws on lease of lands to foreigners.

The default rule: 25 years, renewable once

Presidential Decree No. 471, issued 24 May 1974, sets the maximum period for leases of private lands to aliens, or to alien-owned corporations, associations or entities not qualified to acquire private lands, at 25 years, renewable for another 25 upon mutual agreement of lessor and lessee.

Its reasoning is stated on the face of the decree and it explains everything else in this area. The Constitution bans the acquisition of land by aliens and alien-owned entities. Leases of unreasonably long duration would amount to a virtual transfer of ownership, in violation of the intent of that prohibition. The term limit exists to keep a lease from becoming ownership by another name.

The fine is trivial and the consequence is not

Section 2 of the decree provides a fine of not less than ₱500 nor more than ₱1,000, or imprisonment of six months to one year, or both. For a corporation, association or partnership, the president, managers, directors or trustees are criminally liable in lieu of the entity. Those amounts were set in 1974 and have never been adjusted, so read alone they suggest the rule carries no weight.

This matters most for arrangements that look like workarounds. A 25-year lease with a pre-agreed second 25-year term is within the decree. A 50-year lease written as a single term is not, and neither is a chain of instruments designed to run past the ceiling.

Register the lease even under this regime

A lease within the ceiling is still only as good as its enforceability against third parties. Under Presidential Decree No. 1529 a lease of registered land is registered and annotated on the certificate of title, and it takes effect on the title only from the time of registration. A foreign lessee who has not registered is exposed if the landowner sells, mortgages or dies.

The registration machinery described later in this guide is specific to the investor regime, but the underlying point is general. An unregistered lease is a contract between two people. A registered one is a property interest.

The 99-year route, and who qualifies for it

Republic Act No. 12252 was approved on 3 September 2025 and took effect on 19 September 2025. It amends Republic Act No. 7652, the Investors’ Lease Act of 1993, which had allowed a 50-year term renewable once for 25, for an aggregate of 75 years.

The amended law sets a single aggregate ceiling not exceeding 99 years. Renewal has not disappeared from the statute, as explained below, but the ceiling it operates within has moved up by 24 years.

The conditions

• An approved and registered investment. The investor must hold one under the Foreign Investments Act, CREATE as amended by CREATE MORE, or other applicable laws, or must have complied with the investment requirements prescribed by the appropriate investment promotion agency. This is the gateway condition and everything else follows from it.
• A qualifying purpose. The declared policy covers industrial estates, factories, assembly or processing plants, agro-industrial enterprises, land development for industrial or commercial use, tourism, agriculture, agro-forestry, ecological conservation and other similar priority productive endeavors.
• Use restricted to that purpose. The leased area must be used solely for the approved and registered investment, upon mutual agreement of the parties.
• A reasonable area. The leased premises must comprise such area as may reasonably be required for the investment, subject to the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law and the Local Government Code. Both qualifications matter considerably for agricultural land.
• A shorter term is possible. On the recommendation of the Fiscal Incentives Review Board or other relevant agencies, the President may impose a shorter period on investors engaged in vital services or industries considered critical infrastructure, in the interest of national security or government-identified national development priorities.

Tourism projects carry a capital floor

For tourism projects, the lease of private lands by qualified foreign investors is limited to projects with an investment of not less than US$5,000,000, of which 70% must be infused within three years from the signing of the lease contract.

This condition is frequently absent from summaries of the amendment, and tourism is one of the sectors the law was written to attract. A resort or hospitality project below that figure does not reach the investor regime at all, and falls back to 25 years renewable once.

Renewal survives, with a condition attached

Two provisions of the amended Section 5 still deal with renewal. A lease contract renewable at the option of the lessee on the same terms is interpreted to mean renewable upon mutual agreement of the parties. And in addition to the conditions for renewal, the foreign lessee must show that it has made social and economic contributions to the country.

That second requirement is undefined in the statute, which makes it a live drafting and record-keeping question rather than a formality. An investor planning to reach the full 99 years through a renewal should be documenting those contributions from the beginning, not assembling them at the point of application.

How a long lease is registered

The statute alone does not tell an investor what to file or where. The implementing rules, signed on 19 December 2025 by the Department of Trade and Industry through the Board of Investments together with the Land Registration Authority, published on 20 December, took effect on 4 January 2026 and supply the procedure.

Much of the commentary written when the law passed predates these rules, so a guide dated late 2025 may describe the term without describing how to obtain it.

What the contract itself must contain

Before the procedure, the document. Section 4 of the amended Act directs the Register of Deeds to register the lease only if all of the following exist:

1. The investor presents proof of an approved and registered investment.
2. The date of commencement and the maximum duration of the lease are certain.
3. The technical description of the property is clearly specified.
4. The lessee has performed preparatory acts for the commencement of its investment project.
5. The lease contract contains a provision for its termination in case of a change in the purpose or project for which the lease was intended, or in case of failure to commence the investment project within a reasonable period from signing.

Which agency

The investor submits an application to the agency matching the investment. The agency screens the documents. If they are compliant, it notifies the Registry of Deeds for the province or city where the land is located, and the Registry registers the lease and annotates it on the land title. Where the land is untitled, the lease is recorded in the Registry’s Primary Entry Book for Unregistered Lands.

Annotation on the title is the point of the exercise. Registration is the operative act that renders the lease binding against third persons, which is what turns a contract between two people into a durable property interest.

What a registered leasehold is worth

The commercial value of the amendment is not only the extra 24 years. It is what the leasehold becomes once registered.

It can be sold, transferred, assigned, or used as security for a loan. Where the buyer, transferee, assignee or creditor is a foreigner or foreign-owned enterprise, the conditions and limitations on the use of the leased property continue to apply to them. A leasehold that can be mortgaged is an asset a lender can price, which is the difference between a project that can be financed and one that cannot.

It is protected once registered. A registered lease contract is not subject to collateral attack. It cannot be altered, modified or cancelled except in a direct proceeding in accordance with law.

It may be subleased unless the lease says otherwise. Unless the lease contract expressly prohibits it, the lessee may sublease the property with the consent of the lessor, and the conditions applying to the principal lease apply to the sublease. Sublease contracts must be registered with the Registry of Deeds and annotated on the certificate of title, and the penal provisions of the Act apply to them as well.

What brings a lease to an end early

Withdrawal or misuse. Withdrawal of the approved and registered investment during the term of the lease, or use of the leased area for a purpose other than the authorised one, warrants ipso facto termination of the lease contract, without prejudice to the lessor’s right to be compensated for damages suffered.

Failure to start. Where the investment project is not commenced within three years from the signing of the lease contract, the Fiscal Incentives Review Board, the Board of Investments or the relevant investment promotion agency orders the lessee to explain the delay and, if merited, requires commencement within a reasonable period. Failure to comply with that order may, after due notice and hearing, cause the revocation of all entitlements granted under the Act.

The three prohibited acts. A contract is null and void ab initio, and both parties are exposed to a fine of ₱1,000,000 to ₱10,000,000 or imprisonment of six months to six years at the discretion of the court, where it stipulates a lease period in excess of the statutory ceiling, provides for use of the premises contrary to law, public order, public policy, morals or good customs, or results in the lease of land in excess of the approved area. Where the excess area is due to the acts of the lessee, the lessee is solely liable. For corporations, associations or partnerships, the president, manager, director, trustee or responsible officers bear the criminal liability.

Under Presidential Decree No. 471, by contrast, there is nothing to terminate. A lease that exceeds the ceiling was never valid.

Two practical points follow. A foreign investor’s land tenure is only as secure as the registration behind it, so an investment that lapses can take the lease with it. And in either regime the risk sits with the party who has already paid, which is usually the foreign lessee.

If you already hold a lease

Lease contracts approved under Republic Act No. 7652 remain valid until the expiration of their approved term. Renewal of those contracts is allowed where the lease meets the conditions and limitations under the amended Act, and the aggregate period, including the renewal, is subject to the new ceiling rather than the old one.

An investor holding a 50-year lease granted under the old regime therefore has a route to the longer aggregate. It runs through the conditions set out above, including registration and the maintenance of an approved and registered investment, so it is worth assessing well before the renewal date rather than at it.

The rules also address contracts signed in the gap between the Act and the rules. Leases executed from 1 October 2025 up to the effectivity of the rules are allowed, with the parties given a period from effectivity to comply with the conditions, requirements and limitations of the Act and the rules. Failing that, the termination provisions apply. Anyone who signed in that window has a deadline whether or not they are aware of it.

Putting the land in someone else’s name

A foreigner who finds the 25-year ceiling restrictive is often offered an alternative: buy the land in a Filipino spouse’s or friend’s name, or through a corporation that is 60% Filipino on paper and controlled in practice by the foreign investor.

A lease is the lawful route to long-term land use for a foreigner. Arrangements that place land in another person’s name in order to secure beneficial ownership for a foreign national carry criminal exposure for both parties under the Anti-Dummy Law, and the paperwork used to document them often gives the foreign investor far less protection than he believes.

That subject is covered separately in our guide to the Anti-Dummy Law and nominee shareholders.

This guide is one of the foreign investment guides, which are read in order there and dated against the instruments they rest on.

This guide sits under the firm's foreign investment and market entry practice.

This guide states the law as at the date above. It is general information about Philippine law and not legal advice, and reading it does not create a lawyer-client relationship.