Looking for farms for sale in France, whether to start out, expand an existing business or move into a new production: this page brings together every agricultural property listed on ma-propriete.fr, from a farmhouse with a few dozen hectares to a complete estate sold with its livestock, its buildings and its supply contracts. The properties come from farmers preparing to retire, from agencies specialising in rural land, from notaries and from succession advisers. Each listing states the usable agricultural area, the soil type, whether the land is owned outright or let under a tenancy, the condition of the buildings and the working assets included in the sale.
Beyond the listings, this page gives what an overseas buyer almost never finds in English: what farmland actually costs region by region, which productions are concentrated where, the three separate approvals a French farm purchase has to clear, and what makes a farm worth more than its hectares. If your project is still at the idea stage, our white paper « Créer une exploitation agricole » (in French) sets out the legal and funding steps.
Mainland France has roughly 390,000 farms working about 26.7 million hectares of agricultural land, according to the agricultural census published by Agreste in 2020. The number of holdings falls each year while their average size rises, to around 69 hectares: the land does not disappear, it is redistributed as farmers retire.
Demography drives this market. More than four farm managers in ten are over fifty-five, and new entrants do not replace those who leave. Several thousand farms a year therefore look for a successor outside the family, which opens an access to the profession that has not existed for two generations. Buyers are no longer only farmers' children: they are farm employees stepping up, career changers, partnerships expanding, and investors who buy the land and let it to a working farmer.
Land is the base of a farm's value, and it varies by a factor of five between French regions. Two sources complement each other. DVF, the property sales database published by the French tax administration, records the prices actually paid for farmland, vineyards excluded. The SAFER benchmark, published annually, gives a normalised reference for vacant land and pasture offered for sale and for let land, which trades at a discount because the tenancy continues after the sale. The table below sets both against each other for the thirteen mainland regions in 2025. Prices are per hectare, which is 2.47 acres.
In 2025, 14,328 farmland sales were recorded in France excluding vineyards, at a median of €5,307 per hectare and an average of €6,059; four sales in five fell between €2,500 and €10,537. The SAFER benchmark for the same year sets vacant land and pasture at €6,460 per hectare and let land at €5,350, a discount of about 17% reflecting the tenancy in place.
| Region | DVF sales 2025 | Median price/ha | SAFER vacant land | 1-year change | SAFER let land |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes | 1,230 | €3,887 | €5,100 | +4.9% | €4,140 |
| Bourgogne-Franche-Comté | 1,303 | €2,773 | €2,740 | -6.2% | €2,750 |
| Brittany | 1,297 | €5,500 | €6,540 | +0.3% | €5,180 |
| Centre-Val de Loire | 1,195 | €5,480 | €6,260 | -6.1% | €5,700 |
| Corsica | 19 | €5,012 * | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| Grand Est | 1,233 | €5,611 | €6,510 | -4.4% | €6,120 |
| Hauts-de-France | 1,365 | €7,976 | €10,890 | -0.5% | €7,650 |
| Île-de-France | 214 | €7,465 | €8,190 | +5.7% | €7,000 |
| Normandy | 1,442 | €8,305 | €9,610 | +2.9% | €8,410 |
| Nouvelle-Aquitaine | 2,103 | €4,538 | €5,770 | +5.5% | €3,900 |
| Occitanie | 995 | €7,015 | €7,260 | -0.3% | €7,260 |
| Pays de la Loire | 1,873 | €3,267 | €4,100 | +1.5% | €3,350 |
| Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur | 59 | €13,518 | €12,260 | +2.8% | €12,260 |
| France | 14,328 | €5,307 | €6,460 | +0.9% | €5,350 |
* Fewer than 30 recorded sales: indicative value. Sources: DVF property transaction data 2025 (vineyards excluded) and the SAFER 2025 land value benchmark.
Three groups emerge. The cereal basins of the north and the Paris basin carry the highest values on the mainland: deep, even, easily worked soils, and sharp competition between neighbours for any hectare that comes free. The livestock regions of the west and centre trade around the national median, with wide internal gaps between an irrigable plain and a hillside grazing block. Mountain areas and southern mixed farming remain the most affordable, except where market gardening, orchards or vines create micro-markets bearing no relation to the grassland next door.
These figures place the land; they do not price a farm. Two holdings of the same size in the same district can trade at three times the difference depending on the state of the buildings, the quality of the herd and the strength of the outlets. For county-level detail, see our land price observatory, then run the numbers with our financial calculators.
Benchmarks give the price of land; our listings give the price actually asked for a complete property. As of 25 September 2026, 160 farms and agricultural properties were on the market on this site, across every production and every region. The median asking price is €540,000 and the average €820,000: the gap between the two measures the spread of the catalogue, a handful of large estates pulling the average well above what an ordinary buyer meets. The median is the figure to keep.
Two very different markets sit behind that single figure. The 120 listings covering a complete working farm — buildings, land and often livestock or plantings — show a median of €650,000, with eight in ten between €260,000 and €1,800,000. The 39 listings of bare land — vacant, let, or shares in a farmland company — show a median of €56,000, eight in ten between €19,000 and €380,000. A few hectares of grassland and an equipped dairy unit are neither the same budget nor the same project.
The productions best represented at the moment are vacant farmland, arable crops, mixed farming, poultry units and dairy holdings. These are asking prices at a given date, not transaction prices: read them as a picture of the supply currently available, alongside the DVF and SAFER figures above, which measure what actually changes hands. The catalogue moves every week; these benchmarks are those of 25 September 2026.
Buying an agricultural property in France means choosing a production system first: it dictates the buildings, the area required, the working capital, the workload and how the income falls across the year. These are the main families in our catalogue, each with direct access to its listings.
arable and combinable crops cover the largest share of the country: wheat and barley, maize, oilseed rape, sunflower and pulses, on holdings that often exceed a hundred hectares across the northern plains, the Beauce, the Champagne berrichonne and the Lauragais. Capital sits in land and machinery, labour is limited, and income follows commodity prices. At the other end, market gardening — which here also covers horticulture and nurseries — can produce a living from a small area, provided there is water, protected cropping and a route to market. fruit growing sits between the two: an orchard is a living asset that takes several years to come into bearing and has to be replanted in blocks. specialist crops gather the high-value niches, from aromatic plants to seed production.
dairy farming remains the backbone of the west, from Normandy to the Massif Central: it needs a herd, a milking parlour, slurry storage capacity and forage self-sufficiency, and returns a regular income under a collection contract. beef farming occupies the grassland of the Limousin, the Charolais and the foothills, with lighter building requirements but larger areas. sheep farming and goat farming suit human-scale projects, often combined with farmhouse cheese-making and direct selling, and they use rough grazing and slopes that arable farming cannot. mixed farming covers holdings that combine a herd with crops — the most common model in many departments, and often the most accessible route for a first purchase.
poultry farming and pig farming rest on a building rather than on hectares: value lies in the poultry house or the piggery, in its build date, its compliance and the contract tying the producer to a marketing group. These units sit on small areas but require a slurry spreading plan and consent under the French classified installations regime. rabbit farming and other productions — beekeeping, snail farming, fish farming, insects — follow the same logic of specialisation. boarding kennels runs on rules of its own, closer to a business goodwill than to a farm.
Not every project means taking over a whole farm. vacant farmland suit a buyer who is expanding, or placing savings in a tangible asset; let farmland, sold with a sitting tenant, offer a lower entry price against a regulated rental yield and less liquidity. Buying shares in a farmland company lets an investor take a stake in a farming structure without owning the land directly, a common route in family successions.
This is what listings never say, and what stops more purchases than any other factor: in France, owning agricultural land does not entitle you to farm it. Three separate mechanisms apply, and each one can block a purchase. An overseas buyer who discovers them at the notary's office has usually lost several weeks and sometimes a deposit.
Every sale of agricultural property is notified to the regional SAFER by the notary. SAFER is a state-supervised land agency, and it has two months to step into the buyer's place at the agreed price or, if it considers that price excessive, at a revised one it proposes. It then resells the property to a candidate of its own choosing, favouring new entrants to farming and the consolidation of existing holdings. This is neither a formality nor a ban on foreign buyers: a well-prepared farming project, presented in advance, is defended successfully before a SAFER committee. A purely financial purchase, or an expansion by an already comfortable neighbour, has a harder time.
Separately from ownership, farming the land requires clearance under the French structural control regime. Depending on the area taken on, the distance from your farm base, your qualifications and how the land sits within the regional farm structure plan (SDREA), the operation needs either a simple declaration or a prior authorisation to farm issued by the prefect. This second lock is the one buyers discover last, because it has nothing to do with the deed of sale and everything to do with the right to cultivate. Thresholds and priorities are set region by region.
Where the land is let, the French agricultural tenancy continues automatically for the benefit of the sitting tenant, who also holds a priority right to buy. A purchaser therefore does not automatically recover the use of the parcels acquired. The reverse also holds: where the seller farms land rented from third parties, those tenancies do not pass with the sale — the buyer must sign a new tenancy with each owner, who is free to refuse. Outside the rare transferable tenancy, a lease cannot be assigned to a successor except within a narrow family circle. This is the first point to have the notary verify, because it determines how much land your project can actually use.
On a working farm for sale in France, land is often only half the asking price. Added to it are the buildings — their build date, their compliance, slurry storage capacity, insulation and ventilation in livestock housing — the machinery included, the herd valued on its health status and genetics, stocks in the barn or the silo, and the plantings on orchard and vineyard holdings. Then come items that no photograph shows: basic payment entitlements (BPS), collection or integration contracts, shares held in a cooperative, spreading agreements signed with neighbours, and the water abstraction permit with its remaining term.
Where the sale includes the farmhouse, insist on a line-by-line breakdown. The dwelling follows the local residential market, the production tool follows its own profitability: they are neither financed nor depreciated in the same way, and merging them distorts the negotiation as much as the funding plan.
Farming systems follow geography, and prices follow with them. Each regional page gathers the listings for that territory, the productions that dominate there and local land values.
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes · Bourgogne-Franche-Comté · Brittany · Centre-Val de Loire · Corsica · Grand Est · Hauts-de-France · Île-de-France · Normandy · Nouvelle-Aquitaine · Occitanie · Pays de la Loire · Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Yes. There is no nationality restriction on owning agricultural land in France, and no residency requirement to purchase. What is regulated is farming the land, not owning it: beyond a surface threshold, working the land requires an authorisation under structural control, which takes account of professional qualifications. Many overseas buyers therefore own the land and let it to a French farmer under a tenancy.
There is no flat rate. Farmland traded at a median of about €5,300 per hectare in 2025, with four sales in five between €2,500 and €10,500 depending on region and soil quality. Buildings, machinery, livestock and stocks are added on top and frequently match the value of the land on an equipped livestock holding. A fifty-hectare mixed farm and a three-hectare housed poultry unit can carry the same price for very different realities.
SAFER is the regional land agency that supervises farmland transactions. It can pre-empt — substitute itself for you within two months of the notary's notification — and then resell the property to a candidate it selects, favouring new entrants and the consolidation of existing farms. It does not block foreign buyers as such, but it does arbitrate in favour of active farming projects. Presenting your project before signing changes the outcome considerably.
Vacant land is available to its buyer immediately. Let land is occupied by a tenant holding a French agricultural tenancy, which continues after the sale and carries a priority right to buy. That occupation translates into a discount of roughly 17% on the SAFER benchmark. Buying let land means acquiring an income asset; buying vacant land means acquiring a working tool.
Hectares, always. One hectare is 2.47 acres, and all land prices in France are quoted per hectare. Building areas are given in square metres. Listings also state the usable agricultural area, which counts only the productive land and excludes woods, tracks and the farmyard.
Retiring farmers, rural estate agencies, notaries and succession advisers list their properties here as handovers come up. Narrow your search by production, area, budget or region, then set up an e-mail alert so a farm matching your criteria reaches you the day it is listed. Selling a farm: list your property and present it to buyers looking for exactly that kind of holding.
