Nicaraguan Government’s Land Grab, What it Means
“We Can’t Sell, Inherit, or Mortgage the Land”
A new law nationalizes over 14% of the national territory, including cities and Indigenous communities. We speak with residents of the border zone.
HAVANA TIMES – Nestled at a point in Nicaragua’s border territory, just a few miles from the Costa Rican border, sits Andrea’s farm. For more than two decades, this property belonged to her family and she planned to pass it on to her children one day. But now, according to the new Border Territory Law in Nicaragua—approved by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo—the property belongs to the State. The law claims as “inalienable property” all land from the border limits to 15 kilometers inside the country. Andrea says this creates “a horrifying legal uncertainty.”
Since the Border Territory Law was passed on August 5, 2025, there has been “an atmosphere of fear” and “uncertainty” in the area, Andrea warns. For security reasons, she asks that her identity and the exact location of her property be withheld.
“No one tells us anything… and since there are still no regulations for the law, we know nothing—not even what rights we might have on this land that now belongs to the State,” she adds.
“We are in suspense,” Andrea says. “We can’t sell, inherit, or mortgage; we can’t do anything,” she repeats.
More Than 14% of National Territory Nationalized
The new legislation repeals the 2010 Law on the Legal Regime of Borders and its regulation, reformed in 2020. Those instruments already defined the 15-kilometer strip as border territory but recognized private and communal property within it. Only the first 5 kilometers were considered “inalienable State property.”
Legal experts consulted by CONFIDENCIAL estimate that the Border Territory Law affects between 18,735 and 18,885 square kilometers of Nicaragua. This is calculated by multiplying the more than 1,200 kilometers of northern and southern borders by the 15 km stipulated in the law. This area represents more than 14% of the country’s total land area, estimated at 130,373 km².
The new law does not apply to the country’s coastal areas, as they are governed by the Coastal Zone Development Law. However, lawyers point out that some coastal sections fall within the 15-km strip now declared State property. These affected coasts are in the departments of Rivas, Chinandega, the Caribbean Autonomous Regions, and Río San Juan.
Lives Paralyzed by Legal Uncertainty
Andrea says the legal insecurity and uncertainty over what might happen to their property are negatively impacting life, work, and investment in the border territory. Producers like her feel it is “not worth it” to invest in land they no longer feel secure about.
“I had plans for planting, improving pastures, preparing the soil, but how can I plan anything if I don’t know what will happen with all this?” Andrea asks.
Before the law was passed, she planned to cultivate seven manzanas of land (about 12 acres), but now she has cut that down to one or two—just enough to “survive.”
The lack of regulations for the new law worries her as well since some laws in Nicaragua have gone years without regulation. “That means that everyone living here in the border territory is left in this legal limbo, not knowing what to do or where to go,” she says.
Verónica, who lives in an urban area within the 15-km strip near the southern border, believes the “uncertainty” caused by the new law is “enormous,” especially since it covers entire cities and high-value tourist zones.
She regrets that the 2010 law, repealed on August 5, allowed buying and selling property even in “inalienable State territory.” “The way it was regulated, owners could still buy and sell property,” she says. Now, she warns, “I doubt anyone can sell—much less find someone who wants to buy.”
A Regime of State Property
A Nicaraguan legal expert, speaking on condition of anonymity, explained that the new law amounts to “confiscation of private, communal, and cooperative property,” aiming to strengthen a “state property model” promoted by the Ortega-Murillo regime.
He notes that this model of state property “was already being imposed” but on a smaller scale through the Coastal Zones Development Law, the National Water Law, and the Environmental Law. In all these cases, the regime reduced the amount of national territory that can be private or communal, affecting both national and foreign investors and shrinking the area under private or communal ownership.
By creating a state property regime, he adds, the dictatorship avoids “the political costs” caused by the individual and mass confiscations after the 1979 revolution.
Indigenous Communities Fear Colonist Invasions
Over 300 km away from Andrea’s farm, along the Coco River marking part of the Nicaragua-Honduras border, lies Mario’s Indigenous community. Here too, the new law has sparked “serious concern” and raised alarms about new colonist invasions into Indigenous lands.
The community leader believes the law “is not beneficial for Indigenous people.” Within the 15-km strip are large parts of Indigenous lands, forests, rivers, farmland, and artisanal mines—resources used by local communities but coveted by colonist settlers.
“We’re all scared because beyond this, we don’t know what will happen… So far there’s been no presence from national authorities, maybe because it’s so new, but perhaps later on,” he says.
The Caribbean Coast Indigenous Defenders Network estimates that around 100 Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities near the Honduran and Costa Rican borders will be affected because the law “directly undermines” their legal security and autonomy.
“This new law not only contradicts existing legal frameworks but legitimizes the dispossession of Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples from their lands and the exploitation of their natural resources; it allows the State to carry out expropriations and forced displacements without prior, free, and informed consent, under the justification of sovereignty and national security,” the defenders said in a statement.
From Property Owners to “Squatters”
Another Nicaraguan lawyer, also speaking anonymously, notes that the 15-km strip in the new law is “conceptually different” from that in the 2010 law. Previously, it was about legalizing Army actions in the area but did not affect property rights.
Now that the State owns the entire 15-km strip, private property, community land, Indigenous land, and even protected areas no longer exist in legal terms. The population living there has been “reduced to squatters,” the lawyer says.
In civil law, a squatter is someone who occupies land or property without legal title or right. In this context, it means people have no security or stability in their land ownership.
He emphasizes that in cases where farmland is used as collateral for loans, if foreclosed, the Public Prosecutor’s Office must be notified since it now administers all State property.
Greater Territorial Control
Nicaraguan activists believe the new law gives the Ortega-Murillo regime a tool to strengthen its control over strategic areas and resources.
The Democratic Renewal Union (Unamos) called the law “an arbitrary, confiscatory measure representing a new assault by the regime in its quest for absolute control over the country’s territories and resources.”
Environmental activist Amaru Ruiz, president of the now-canceled Fundación del Río, also argues the law seeks to legitimize mining concessions in protected areas near the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border.
Changes in the New Border Territory Law
The new Border Territory Law, passed on August 5, 2025, repeals the 2010 Border Legal Regime Law (Law 749). That law recognized private property in the border territory, while the new one declares all border territory State property.
- Law 749: 49 articles and a regulation (reformed in 2020).
- New Law: Only 4 articles, no regulation mentioned.
The old law recognized private property in the border area, classifying it as:
The Border Legal Regime Law recognized both “public domain” and “private domain” lands in the border territory. The new Border Territory Law—with only four articles—eliminates all private property within 15 km of the border inside the country.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.