Many US States Passing New Laws on Foreign Ownership of Land, Report Says

At least 22 states recently have approved legislation regulating foreign ownership of U.S. land, reflecting growing interest in addressing the potential national security and economic implications of such investments, the Congressional Research Service said in a new report this week.

The new laws, which were enacted from January 2023 to July 2024, differ in their approaches, CRS explained. Some states require disclosing or studying foreign ownership, while others prohibit certain transactions and may require divestitures.

Some restrictions apply only to agricultural land, while others address land near military bases, critical infrastructure, economically valuable sites or all land within a state. Some states seek to regulate transactions with people and entities from certain countries or on certain federal lists, while others aim to do so for all non-U.S. citizens.

One state law, Florida Senate Bill 264, which creates two sets of land ownership restrictions, is being challenged in federal court on constitutional and other grounds, CRS noted. The other states with new land laws are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Federal policymakers have also recently weighed in on foreign ownership of land. In March, Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed into law an FY 2024 six-bill appropriations package that adds the agriculture secretary to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to review agricultural transactions (see 2403110058). Meanwhile, the Treasury Department is proposing to add 59 military bases across 30 states to CFIUS’s jurisdiction (see 2407090003).

Some groups are concerned about the trend. Two nonprofits urged Treasury this month to ensure its investment screening regulations don’t unfairly discriminate against foreigners (see 2408200031). They also asked the department to do more to curb a rise in “xenophobic” U.S. state and federal land laws.