Ley 368-22: The Land-Use Law That Reclassified Every Lot in the DR

For twelve years the Dominican Constitution carried an instruction nobody had followed. Article 194, adopted in 2010, made it a priority of the State to pass a land-use planning law. It took until December 2022.

That law is Ley núm. 368-22, on Territorial Ordering, Land Use and Human Settlements, published in Gaceta Oficial No. 11092 on 22 December 2022. Its implementing regulation arrived later still — Decreto 486-25, published in Gaceta Oficial No. 11212 on 29 August 2025, replacing an earlier Decreto 396-25 issued that July.

If you own land in the Dominican Republic, or you are about to buy some, this is now the law that decides what your land is for. And one of its provisions can quietly void a permit you already paid for.

01What does Ley 368-22 actually do?

Ley 368-22 sorts all land in the country into legal classes and puts municipalities in charge of drawing the lines. Every municipality with a territorial plan classifies its land as urbano, urbanizable or no urbanizable. Municipalities without a plan may use only two of those three. The class governs what may be built.

That last point is the one that surprises foreign buyers, because it inverts the assumption most of them arrive with. In much of the DR there is no zoning map hanging in a municipal office that you can walk in and consult. The law creates the obligation to make one — it does not mean one exists yet for your town.

The law also created the Sistema Nacional de Información Territorial, a national territorial information system intended to hold all of this in one place, and it set deadlines. Counted from the entry into force of the 2025 regulation, municipalities have twenty-four months to produce their territorial plans, the Instituto Geográfico Nacional has twelve months to deliver national cartography settling disputed municipal boundaries, and municipalities have eighteen months to produce interim urban-delimitation instruments in the meantime.

On that reckoning the cartography was due in August 2026 and the municipal plans fall due in August 2027. Which means the map that will classify your land, in most of the country, is being drawn right now.

02How does the law classify land — and what happened to "rural"?

Three classes, defined in Articles 33 to 36. Urbano is land already built up and serviced: a consolidated road network, water supply and drainage, electricity, waste collection, and integration into the existing urban fabric. Land missing one of those services still counts if it can be connected to what already exists nearby. Land that has been built out across two-thirds of its buildable surface can also qualify.

Urbanizable is land that may be urbanised under the municipal plan, and it is the category to read carefully. Under Article 35, urbanizable status is temporally limited. If the urbanisation works set out in the plan are not carried out within the period, the land does not stay urbanizable — it reverts to no urbanizable. Urbanizable status can also never outlast the plan that granted it.

No urbanizable — expressly equated in the law with suelo rural — covers land tied to farming or forestry, land that must be protected for environmental, cultural, vulnerability or risk reasons, and land under a mining concession.

Two details matter more than they look. First, a municipality without a territorial plan may classify land only as urbano or no urbanizable. There is no middle category to fall into. Land that is not already urban is rural by default.

Second, Article 112 states that land previously described as rural is to be read as no urbanizable in every document where that classification appears, and Article 111 requires the new terminology across all public administration. If an older document describes your land as rural, that word now carries the legal weight of the new category.

03Does an old use-of-land permit still work?

Not necessarily — and this is the provision most likely to affect somebody reading this. Article 109 preserves authorisations properly issued under the rules in force at the time, where the authorised work was actually started. Article 110 deals with the ones that were not.

Under Article 110, an administrative authorisation that is two years old or more without the authorised work having begun is deemed expired. The use-of-land application must then be made again — and it is judged under the parameters of Ley 368-22 and its subsidiary rules, not the ones in force when the original permit was granted.

Read that consequence carefully. It is not simply a renewal formality. A permit obtained under older, more permissive parameters gives no assurance those parameters come back on re-application. If the land has since been classified differently, the second answer can be a different answer.

This is a live issue on the Samaná peninsula and the North Coast, where lots are routinely bought as long-term holds and sit unbuilt for years. If you bought land with a use-of-land approval in hand and never broke ground, the document in your file may no longer do anything. The law does not define what counts as having "started" the authorised work, which is precisely the question to put to a Dominican lawyer rather than resolve from a website.

04How does this interact with Samaná's tourism zoning?

They stack — they do not replace each other. On the north coast of the Samaná peninsula, building parameters come from Resolución MITUR No. 06/2011, the tourism sectoral plan that divides the territory into Unidades Ambientales and fixes ground occupation, green area, height and density for each. That instrument is not repealed by Ley 368-22.

What changes is that a municipal classification now sits underneath it. For a tourism project the practical position is that you need the municipal use-of-land authorisation and the Ministry of Tourism's No Objection. Satisfying one does not excuse the other, and the stricter constraint governs.

If you want to see what the tourism parameters allow on a given part of the Samaná coast, our What Can I Build? calculator works through the Unidad Ambiental rules — ground occupation, minimum green area, maximum levels and bedroom density. It answers the MITUR half of the question. The municipal half depends on a plan that, in most municipalities, is still being written.

05What happens if land is used against its classification?

Fines, and they reach further than the person holding the shovel. Article 82 sets administrative fines as multiples of the public sector minimum wage: one to fifty for minor infractions, and one hundred and one to one thousand for serious ones. A repeat minor infraction within three years doubles the penalty, and none of it displaces penalties available under other laws.

Article 101 is the provision the property trade should read twice. Civil liability for breaches of this law extends beyond whoever carried out the work to any intermediary in the real estate business and to the intervening professionals — where they acted with intención dolosa, deliberate intent. That qualifier matters, and it cuts both ways: an agent is not automatically on the hook for a client's zoning breach, but an agent who knowingly sells land for a use its classification forbids is exposed in a way that did not exist before.

Separately, anyone who facilitates irregular occupation of state or private land faces the serious-infraction penalties and can be sued in damages by those affected. And under Article 103, none of this displaces liability for environmental damage under Ley 64-00.

One more provision worth knowing: Article 74 permits human settlements only on titled land, and only where municipal land-use rules allow it. The law defines a settlement broadly — the place where a group of people resides and habitually carries out its social and economic activities — so this is not confined to informal occupation. It is another reason why buying land held on a Carta Constancia rather than a proper title is a structural problem and not merely a financing inconvenience. Our guide to beachfront land and the 60-metre maritime strip covers the related coastal restrictions.

06What can you check before you buy?

Five things, in order, and none of them require a lawyer to begin:

1. The date on any use-of-land authorisation. If it is two years old or more and no work was started, treat it as expired until a lawyer tells you otherwise.
2. Whether the municipality has adopted a territorial plan. If it has not, expect only two classes, and expect rural by default.
3. How the title describes the land. "Rural" now reads as "no urbanizable".
4. Whether the land is titled at all — a Certificado de Título, not a Carta Constancia.
5. For tourism projects, the MITUR position as well as the municipal one. Both, not either.

07Key terms

Ordenamiento territorial — territorial ordering; the planning of how land in a territory may be used.

PMOT — Plan Municipal de Ordenamiento Territorial, the municipal territorial plan that performs the classification.

Suelo urbano / urbanizable / no urbanizable — the three land classes of Article 33.

Uso de suelo — land use; also the name of the municipal authorisation confirming a permitted use.

No Objeción — the Ministry of Tourism's non-objection, required for tourism projects.

Intención dolosa — deliberate wrongful intent, the threshold for intermediary liability under Article 101.

08Frequently Asked Questions

Does Ley 368-22 change what I can build on land I already own?

It can, but not immediately and not by itself. The law creates the classification system; the municipal plan applies it to your parcel. Until your municipality adopts a plan, the classification available is only urbano or no urbanizable. Existing authorisations for work already started are preserved under Article 109.

My land is described as "rural" on the title. Is that a problem?

It is now a classification with legal consequences rather than a description. Article 112 provides that land described as rural is read as no urbanizable, which restricts development to uses compatible with that class. Whether it blocks your specific plan depends on the municipal rules and is a question for a Dominican lawyer.

Is my old use-of-land permit still valid?

Only if the authorised work was started. Article 110 deems an authorisation two years old or more expired where the work never began, and requires a fresh application judged under the new law's parameters. The law does not define what counts as starting work, so confirm your position with counsel rather than assuming.

Does this replace the MITUR zoning rules in Samaná?

No. Resolución MITUR 06/2011 continues to set tourism building parameters on the Samaná north coast, and a tourism project needs both the municipal use-of-land authorisation and MITUR's No Objection. The two regimes stack, and the stricter one governs.

Can a real estate agent be held liable under this law?

Under Article 101, civil liability extends to any intermediary in the real estate business and to intervening professionals — but only where they acted with deliberate intent. It is not strict liability. An agent who knowingly markets land for a prohibited use is exposed; one who did not know is a different case.

When will my municipality actually have a plan?

The law gives municipalities twenty-four months from the entry into force of the 2025 implementing regulation, which points to 2027. Interim urban-delimitation instruments were due sooner. Timelines of this kind have slipped before in the DR, so treat the deadline as the intention rather than the guarantee.

09The bottom line

Ley 368-22 is the first serious attempt to answer a question the Dominican Republic had left open for decades: who decides what a piece of land is for. For most buyers the answer will arrive as a municipal plan sometime in the next couple of years, and until it does, the safest assumption is the restrictive one.

The provision to act on today is Article 110. If you are holding land with a permit you never used, that is worth checking this month, not when you are ready to build.

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This article explains the general framework of Ley 368-22 and is not legal advice. Land classification is an act of your local government applied to a specific parcel, and nothing here tells you what class your land is in. Before acting, consult a Dominican attorney — you can find independent options in our professional directory.

Primary source: Ley núm. 368-22, Gaceta Oficial No. 11092 of 22 December 2022, official text published by the Consultoría Jurídica del Poder Ejecutivo. Implementing regulation: Decreto 486-25, Gaceta Oficial No. 11212 of 29 August 2025.