Despite the intensity of public debate, the total share of U.S. land held by foreign interests is smaller than many assume. Based on Farm Bureau Economist Daniel Munch’s analysis of the USDA’s Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA) database, about 3.61% of all privately held land in the United States, roughly 48.85 million acres, is owned or leased by foreign investors.

Here’s a closer look at who owns what in the United States!

Foreign Ownership Distribution

The rankings of foreign owners may surprise people who follow political headlines. Canada is by far the largest foreign holder of U.S. land, with roughly 15.35 million acres, accounting for more than a third of all foreign-held acreage. 

Other major foreign owners include the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, France, Portugal, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Ireland. Collectively, these mostly allied nations account for the majority of foreign-held U.S. agricultural land. Munch notes that when you combine domestic owners with these friendly countries, well over 99% of privately held land ends up owned by U.S. citizens or allied nations.

Foreign ownership is not distributed evenly across the map. Texas has the most foreign-held land in absolute terms, with around 3.57 million acres owned or leased by foreign interests, representing about 3.6% of the state’s 158 million privately held agricultural acres. Some of that is tied to timber, pasture, and large-scale wind and solar developments. Maine stands out more for its share than its total acreage; about 21% of its 16.5 million agricultural acres are recorded as foreign-held, almost all of which is forest land primarily owned by Canadian timber interests.

Chinese Landownership in the US

China’s role, while politically prominent, is relatively small in the AFIDA data. In the 2022 dataset, Chinese investors were initially linked to about 383,000 acres, but that figure was later revised down to about 277,000 acres in the 2023 update after the USDA corrected some complex ownership structures. 

That 277,000-acre figure represents roughly 0.02% of U.S. agricultural land. Munch explains that a large share of this acreage stems from a Chinese firm’s purchase of a major U.S. pork processing company, which already owned farmland and facilities in states such as Virginia, North Carolina, and Missouri. When the company changed hands, those acres became “Chinese-owned” on paper. Another large chunk came from a single 160,000-acre purchase in southwest Texas by a Chinese billionaire for a renewable energy project. After Texas lawmakers blocked the project from connecting to the electric grid, the land has reportedly been sold off over time.

Other nations that are often mentioned in public debates barely register in the AFIDA data. North Korea has zero recorded acres, Russia has 11, Cuba has 58 (likely tied to Cuban immigrants in Florida rather than the Cuban government), Venezuela has about 90,000 acres largely tied to a sugar-related company in Florida, and Iran has around 3,000 acres. In practical terms, the bigger story is Canadian timber and European renewables, not a quiet foreign takeover of American farmland.

Impact of Foreign Landownership in the United States

National security concerns sit at the emotional center of the foreign ownership debate. Highly publicized cases, such as the proposed Chinese corn mill near Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, have driven bills in multiple states to restrict Chinese land purchases near sensitive military or infrastructure sites.

Cases like these are understandably concerning and have raised real national security questions. At the same time, the acreage associated with Chinese interests is very small in the AFIDA data, highly concentrated in a handful of commercial transactions, and does not, at this point, suggest a systematic campaign to acquire U.S. farmland for strategic military purposes.

Economically, the effects of foreign landownership vary widely by region and sector. In many rural communities, foreign capital in timber and renewable energy can support jobs, property tax bases, and local infrastructure. Because roughly half of foreign-held land is forest land, much of it has a limited direct impact on food production. 

In other cases, particularly where high-quality cropland is converted to large solar arrays, local farmers are more concerned. While wind turbines can usually coexist with crops and pasture, large-scale solar development generally takes land out of agricultural use entirely, which can put upward pressure on land prices and reduce the amount of land available for beginning farmers.

As conversations about the role of foreign landownership in the United States continue, legislators must balance financial benefits with protecting the livelihoods of American farmers and landowners. If you have questions about foreign landownership in your area, get in touch with your local Land Professional today!