Ejido Landeh-HEE-doh
Ejido land is communally held agrarian land granted to a rural community by the Mexican State under the Agrarian Law, where members hold use rights but the land cannot be sold as private property until formally converted to dominio pleno.
By Daniel Ortega · Last reviewed 10 November 2026
How it works
<p>Ejido land is held collectively by a rural community under agrarian law and covers 50.8 percent of Mexico's national territory, across about 29,800 ejidos and 2,400 comunidades. Foreign buyers cannot directly own ejido land because membership is reserved for Mexican nationals.</p><p>Conversion to dominio pleno (private ownership) requires ejido assembly approval under Agrarian Law Articles 81 and 82, transforming communal land into private property. After assembly approval, the ejidatario requests the Registro Agrario Nacional to cancel the parcelary certificate, issue a title of ownership, and register it at the local Registro Público de la Propiedad. Since 1992, about 5 percent of ejido land has converted, roughly 5.29 million hectares.</p><p>A substantial share of Riviera Maya coastal real estate sits on land that was ejido within living memory. Buying unconverted ejido land is the most common source of title disputes in the region.</p>