Who may buy agricultural land in Uttar Pradesh — precisely

Can a non-agriculturist or an outsider buy agricultural land in UP?

Yes. Uttar Pradesh does not restrict the purchase of agricultural land to agriculturists — nothing in the UP Revenue Code imposes an agriculturist test, so a non-agriculturist, and a resident of another state, may buy. On this axis UP is as open as Rajasthan and Haryana, and it is the opposite of the Himachal-style bar. We verify this the honest way — by the absence of any restricting provision — and note that the freedom to buy is subject to the acquisition cap below, which is the real UP constraint.

How much may a single buyer acquire — the 12.5-acre cap

This is the distinctive UP rule, and the one most often mis-cited. Section 89(2) of the UP Revenue Code 2006 provides that no person may acquire agricultural land by purchase or gift from a bhumidhar with transferable rights if, as a result, the transferee's holding — aggregated, for a natural person, with the land held by the family — would exceed 5.0586 hectares, that is 12.5 acres, in Uttar Pradesh. It is an acquisition cap: a limit on how much you may accumulate by buying, distinct from the ownership ceiling below. (A correction worth stating: this is Section 89(2) — not "Section 154", which in the current Code is a land-revenue provision and was only the acquisition-cap number in the old, repealed 1950 Act.)

Is there any way to acquire more?

Yes, for the right buyer and purpose. Section 89(3)–(4) lets the State Government or an authorised officer permit acquisition beyond the 12.5-acre limit by a registered firm, company, LLP, trust, society or charitable or educational institution, where it is satisfied the acquisition is in the public interest and likely to generate non-agricultural economic activity and employment — with approval tiered by area (the Collector, the Commissioner, or the State Government) and a requirement to commence the project within a few years. So a company assembling land for a genuine project has a route; an individual land-banking past 12.5 acres does not.

Who may sell — the tenure classes

The seller must be able to sell, and in UP that turns on the bhumidhari class. The Revenue Code (§74) sets the classes: a bhumidhar with transferable rights (§75) can sell, mortgage or gift; a bhumidhar with non-transferable rights (§76) cannot, until the status converts after the statutory period; an asami (§78) is a subordinate cultivator with no ownership to convey. A buyer confirms the seller is a bhumidhar with transferable rights before anything else — a sale by a non-transferable bhumidhar is not the transaction it appears to be.

The Scheduled-Caste transfer restriction

One more buyer-identity check UP imposes: a bhumidhar belonging to a Scheduled Caste may not transfer land to a non-Scheduled-Caste person except with the prior permission of the Collector, granted only on specified grounds. In the current Revenue Code this is Section 98 (it was Section 157-A of the old 1950 Act — another number worth correcting). So on land held by an SC bhumidhar, the seller's community and the Collector's permission are read into the file, not assumed away.

And the ceiling on total holding

Separate from the acquisition cap is the ownership ceiling. The UP Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act 1960 (as reduced by the 1972–73 amendment) limits a tenure-holder's holding — broadly 7.30 hectares of irrigated land for a family of up to five, with a further two hectares of irrigated land per adult son up to a maximum addition of six hectares, and land-class equivalences for unirrigated and grove land. So UP's land law caps a buyer twice over — how much may be acquired by purchase (§89), and how much may be held (the 1960 Act) — and both are computed before a serious assembly, not after.

A note on sourcing

Because these sections decide real money, one honesty point: the UP Revenue Code and the 1960 Ceiling Act text were confirmed against India Code and established legal databases, but the primary India Code PDFs were access-restricted at the time of our check, so a buyer relying on this to the letter should have the exact section text eyeballed against the India Code copy before acting. The section numbers above — §89(2) for the cap, §98 for the SC restriction, §74–78 for tenure — are the current, correct ones; the older §154/§157-A numbers belong to the repealed 1950 Act.