China’s revenue from residential land sales fell about 65% in 2025 from its 2020 peak, reports Caixin. Even state-backed investment vehicles have scaled back as a result of the ongoing property downturn.
Data from the China Index Academy show that while the rate of decline narrowed slightly from the previous year, the contraction remains severe. The total planned gross floor area for all types of land sold across 300 cities fell 10.4% year-on-year to 2.46 billion square meters. Residential land transactions specifically dropped 13.6% to 620 million square meters.
According to the Ministry of Finance, revenue from state-owned land use rights transfers fell 10.7% year-on-year to roughly RMB 2.91 trillion ($416 billion) in the first 11 months of 2025. This shortfall weighed on local government fund budget revenue, which dropped 5.5% to approximately RMB 3.63 trillion over the same period. The China Index Academy estimates total land sales revenue across 300 cities reached about RMB 3.3 trillion last year, down 11.4%, with residential land revenue specifically falling to roughly RMB 2.3 trillion.