Hunting rights on private forest land in Latvia: who holds them and what they cost you

Hunting rights come with the land — and they show up in the price

When you buy a forest parcel in Latvia, you assume you own everything on it, including the right to hunt across it. That is broadly correct: under the Hunting Law, hunting rights belong to the land's owner or its legal possessor. But the right is more constrained, and more consequential to a purchase, than most buyers expect.

"Hunting rights" mean the legal right to hunt on your own land in the prescribed manner. You can use that right yourself, or hand it to someone else through a written hunting contract registered with the State Forest Service (VMD). What you cannot do is treat the right as unconditional: where and what you may hunt depends on the size of the land and on a separate registration called a hunting district.

For an investor screening a property, hunting rights matter on three fronts at once. They are a usually modest income line if you lease them out; they are a discount on the asking price when the parcel is already under a hunting lease you inherit; and they are a real cost driver, because the deer and moose that hunting is meant to control are the same animals that browse and strip the young stands you are counting on for future value.

Who holds the right, and how it changes hands

The starting point is simple: the right sits with whoever owns or lawfully holds the land. You do not apply for it and it is not granted by the state — it is an attribute of ownership. If you want to hunt yourself, you still have to be a hunter: a hunter's licence obtained by passing the VMD exam, an annual season permit, and, for hunting with a firearm, a police-issued weapons permit.

More often, owners transfer the right. Transfer is done through a written hunting contract (medību līgums), which must be registered with VMD and signed for a term of at least one year. The transfer is exclusive — the right can be handed to only one user at a time — and for jointly owned property (kopīpašums) every co-owner has to sign. Once you sign, you have given the right away for the term: you can neither hunt the land yourself nor sign a second contract with another hunting organisation.

That exclusivity is the detail buyers miss. If the previous owner already registered a hunting contract, it does not lapse when the property changes hands. You inherit it, and you are bound by it until it ends on its own terms. Before closing, it is worth asking VMD whether a contract is already on the parcel, and — separately — whether the hunting user on the other side is actually entitled to hunt the limited game that damages young forest.

The hunting contract: what has to be in it

The contract is a civil agreement, so its commercial terms are up to the parties, but Cabinet Regulation No. 421 ("Hunting Rules"), point 14, sets a minimum content. A contract that leaves any of these out is incomplete and will not register cleanly.

At a minimum, a hunting contract must state:

• the parties — full name, personal identity code and declared address for an individual; name, registration number and legal address for an organisation;
• the subject — the hunting rights in the specific land unit or a precisely bounded part of it, identified by its cadastral designation and property name;
• the rights and duties of both sides, including responsibility for preventing damage by wild game;
• the term, which cannot be shorter than one year;
• the conditions under which the contract ends or is extended.

The hunting district and its minimum size

Owning the right is not the same as being allowed to shoot a deer. Game may be hunted only inside a hunting district (medību iecirknis) registered with VMD, and the person the district is registered to becomes the "hunting rights user" who carries the obligations that go with it. If an owner registers their own district — alone or with neighbours through cooperation agreements — it has to be at least 350 ha; if a hunting rights user registers it, at least 1,000 ha.

The species thresholds are stricter still, and they drive everything. The current minimum district areas (VMD, as of 2026) are:

• moose — 2,500 ha of forest land, scrub and bog;
• red deer stags — 2,000 ha of forest land, scrub and bog;
• red deer hinds and calves — 1,000 ha of forest land, scrub and bog;
• roe deer and wild boar — 350 ha, counting forest, scrub, bog, farmland and most other land.

Why a small owner cannot hunt deer alone — and leases anyway

Here is where the numbers bite. Most private forest holdings in Latvia are far below 350 ha — the typical holding is measured in single or low double-digit hectares, not hundreds. That means the average owner cannot form a district large enough to hunt roe deer or wild boar on their own land, let alone red deer or moose, whichever animals are actually eating their young trees.

The right does not disappear — you keep it — but on its own it is close to unusable for the species that matter. You can still hunt so-called non-limited game (fox, hare, beaver, raccoon dog and similar) on your own land without registering a district, provided you are a licensed hunter. But the limited game — moose, red deer, roe deer, wild boar — can only be taken inside a qualifying district, which a small parcel is not.

The practical way out is to attach your land to the surrounding district by signing a contract with the hunting organisation that already holds the neighbouring ground. Do nothing, and the outcome is worse than neutral: on land where no one hunts, game concentrates precisely because it is left undisturbed, and the damage to your young stands grows year on year. Refusing to deal with hunting does not protect the forest — it hands it to the animals.

Game damage: who pays, and the risk to your regeneration

Damage from game is not a footnote in Latvian forestry — deer and beavers are among the main causes of loss to young stands. Roe deer nibble the tops off small saplings; red deer damage pine right after planting and again at five to fifteen years; moose break the leaders of five- to fifteen-year pine and aspen and strip bark from older aspen and spruce; beavers dam drainage ditches and drown whole stands. Every one of those hits the exact regeneration you paid to establish.

The law is specific about who carries that loss. Under Article 29 of the Hunting Law, if you have not transferred your hunting rights, you are responsible for the game damage on your own land — and in that case no compensation is due to you. Transfer the rights by contract, and the hunting rights user becomes liable for the damage instead. That single fact reframes the lease: signing one is not only about income, it is about moving the damage risk onto the people who are allowed to reduce the herd.

Either way, the owner keeps a standing duty to take protective measures against game damage, and that duty survives the contract unless the contract says otherwise. Where a claim does arise, the amount is not set by the hunters or the owner but assessed by the municipality's hunting coordination commission under Cabinet Regulation No. 269, which covers damage to forest stands, farm animals, crops and properly maintained rural infrastructure.

For a buyer, the message is not "avoid parcels with game" — there are none without it — but to price the regeneration risk honestly. A stand you plan to clear-cut and replant sits inside years of vulnerability, and whether the surrounding hunting user is willing and legally able to keep deer and boar in check is a real input to that plan, not a detail to sort out after the deal.

Before you sign: the buyer's checklist

Hunting rarely makes or breaks a forest deal on its own, but it belongs in due diligence, because the wrong answer quietly costs you either income or standing timber. The checks are quick and mostly free.

Before closing, confirm:

• whether a hunting contract is already registered on the parcel with VMD — you inherit it, and it binds you for at least its remaining term;
• whether the surrounding hunting user's district is large enough to legally hunt the deer and boar that damage young stands — a lease with an organisation that cannot cull the animals near you is worth little;
• that any contract you sign includes a clean termination clause with written notice, so you are not locked into an indefinite arrangement;
• that, if you hold or plan young stands, you do not agree to feeding stations near them — feeding concentrates animals and increases browsing, and the rules already bar feeding stations within 100 m of pine, spruce and birch stands under five metres tall;
• that, on land with drainage systems, the hunters take on clearing beaver dams from the ditches.

What it does to the price

This is where hunting rights meet valuation. An existing, registered hunting lease travels with the parcel: the new owner inherits it, cannot hunt the land during its term, and cannot freely manage game damage on their own regeneration. Those constraints are exactly why the market prices an inherited lease at a discount — MezaData's own valuation treats a registered hunting or agricultural lease as roughly a 5 to 15 percent reduction, depending on how long it has left to run.

The discount is not really about the lease payment. Lease income for a typical small holding is modest and often close to symbolic; nobody buys forest for the hunting rent. What the discount reflects is lost control — an encumbrance you did not choose, on land you now own, for a term you cannot shorten at will.

Read the other way, that is also the opportunity. A parcel with no lease, or one whose lease ends soon and carries a termination clause you can use, leaves you free to strike your own arrangement with a competent hunting organisation — one that both keeps the herd off your young trees and takes the damage liability off your books. The right is worth most not as rent, but as leverage over the single biggest natural risk to your regeneration.

FAQ

Do I automatically get hunting rights when I buy forest?

Yes — hunting rights belong to the land's owner, so they pass to you with the property. What does not pass automatically is the ability to use them: on a holding below 350 ha you cannot form a district to hunt deer or boar, and if the previous owner signed a hunting contract, you inherit that contract and cannot hunt the land yourself until it ends.

Can I earn money by leasing out hunting rights?

You can, but for a typical small forest the payment is modest and should not be the reason you buy. The greater value of a lease is practical: it moves the liability for game damage onto the hunting rights user and puts the animals that browse your young stands within reach of people legally allowed to reduce them.

Who pays if deer destroy my young pines?

It depends on whether you transferred your hunting rights. If you did not, you carry the loss yourself and no compensation is due. If you signed a hunting contract, the hunting rights user is liable, and the amount is assessed by the municipality's hunting coordination commission under Cabinet Regulation No. 269.

Sources

• VMD — Hunting contracts, districts and permits — how hunting rights are transferred, the contract registration and one-year minimum term, and the current minimum district areas by species (updated 21 January 2026).
• likumi.lv — Hunting Law — hunting rights belong to the landowner; Article 29 on who is liable for game damage.
• likumi.lv — Cabinet Regulation No. 421 "Hunting Rules" — the mandatory contents of a hunting contract (point 14) and the split between limited and non-limited game.
• LV portāls — The hunting rights user is liable for forest game damage — how damage liability works under Article 29 and how the municipal hunting coordination commissions assess it (Regulation No. 269).
• LVMI Silava — What an owner should know about hunting on their property — which species damage which stands at which ages, feeding-station rules, and young-stand protection methods.