The median price of land across Ireland was €9,084/ac last year, according to new data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Arable land sold at a much higher price than grassland in 2023, the CSO found.

The national median price of arable land was €16,275/ac, while the national median price for permanent grassland was €8,887/ac.

Last year, 60,344ac of agricultural land was sold nationally, representing 0.5% of the country’s agricultural land, the CSO’s analysis shows.

Commenting on the release, CSO statistician in the prices division Kieran T Healy said the area of land sold in 2023 is a decrease of 2.5% on the 61,875ac sold in 2022 and down 0.4% on the 60,610 acres sold in 2021.

“The median price per acre was €9,084 in 2023 - 12.2% higher than in 2022 when it was €8,094,” he added.

The CSO uses median as opposed to mean (average) to show the most common value of land. The median is the middle value and is not as easily skewed by much higher or lower values.

Regions

Dublin and middle-east regions had the highest median prices of €15,048/ac and €14,398/ac respectively.

The lowest median price was €6,745/ac in the west. However, the highest volume of agricultural land - 13,637ac - was sold in the west.

The lowest volume of agricultural land sold was in the Dublin region at 127ac and southeast at 5,199ac

The median price for an acre of land in the border region was €6,965, was €9,469 in the midlands, while it was €10,023 in the midwest, €13,237 in the southeast and €9,821 in the southwest.

The Irish Farmers Journal’s Land Report 2023 - released in March 2023 - found the that average land prices fell by 2.9% to €11,925/ac last year.