Kildare farmland most expensive in Ireland

Kildare has the most expensive farmland in the nation on any holding smaller than 100 ac (40.4Ha), yet it is pushed to second place on the national ladder by Co Wexford when talking about farms above that threshold.

This was revealed in the publication of the 13th annual Society of Chartered Surveyors of Ireland (SCSI), in conjunction with Teagasc.

This year’s survey provides a county-by-county breakdown of the prices of good and poor-quality land, and found that Wexford has the most expensive, good quality land in the country with an average price of €19,226 per acre across the three main size holding categories, just just ahead of Kildare on €19,200.

Leitrim has the lowest average poor quality land prices at €3,772 per acre across the three holding sizes.

At a provincial level, Leinster has the highest average land prices with good quality land fetching €16,603 per acre up nine per cent, while the average price for an acre of poor-quality land remained unchanged at €8,344.

On holdings less than 50 acres, Kildare had the most expensive land at €19,100 per acre, with Tipperary second on €18,779 and Meath in third place at €18,364, just ahead of Carlow on €18,300.

In Wexford, the average price of good quality land on holdings of less than 50 acres is €18,260 per acre, while rounding off the top six places is Laois on €17,750.

In Leinster, sales prices for good land in 2025 on holdings of less than 50 acres range from Kildare’s high of €19,100 – up from €18,680 the previous year – to €11,625 in Longford.

Meanwhile, the prices for poor-quality land range from a high of €11,063 in Meath to €6,000 in both Offaly and Longford, with the price of an acre of poor land in Kildare at €10,400, up from €10,200 in 2024.

In Leinster (excluding Dublin), land rental prices remained relatively stable overall. Land used for grazing, meadowing, silage increased slightly to €299 per acre – an increase of two per cent - while land used for grazing only remained broadly unchanged.

Rental values for cereal crop land declined by four per cent to €306 per acre, while land used for other crops such as maize sugar beet and beans, recorded a strong increase of nine per cent to €383 per acre.  

Chartered Valuation Surveyor Philip Byrne of Coonan Property in Kildare, who is a member of the SCSI’s Rural Agency Committee, says strong demand for agricultural land coupled with continued low supply is underpinning strong prices.

“According to the Central Statistics Office the share of agricultural land that goes sale annually is only around 0.5 per cent of agricultural area.

“Not surprisingly therefore this report finds that succession and probate sales are among the most common sources of land coming to market. In a competitive market dairy farmers continue to be identified by agents as the most active buyer group in the agricultural land market, followed by dry stock farmers and tillage farmers.”