About Scot-LAND
Scot-LAND is a free, open map of Scotland's land, built around Annual Ground Rent, the yearly rental value of the land itself. For now it shows Data Zones, small areas of a few hundred homes. Our aim is to value each piece of land, step by step, from accurate public data. It shows where that value comes from: homes and businesses, farms, wind, water, fish farms, forests and peat. Anyone can use it: the public, community groups, journalists, researchers and people who make policy.
Why it matters
Today Scotland raises money by taxing work and trade: Income Tax, VAT, Council Tax, business rates. Those taxes do damage. Economists call it deadweight loss: jobs not created, homes not built and businesses that never start. Annual Ground Rent is different. It is not an extra tax. Collected instead of taxes like Council Tax and business rates, it would fund public services without that damage, and land held empty for speculation would come back into use. Scot-LAND shows the evidence so everyone can judge the case for themselves.
What Scot-LAND is not
It is not a bill or an official valuation. It does not propose a rate. It shows the evidence. We only show owners from public records, never private owners' names, sale prices or title plans. We use open data only. Paid sources may be added later, each one clearly tagged. Paid data is never republished or offered for download. The map stays free. Larger data packs and an API may be paid services later.
Why we are building this
Scot-LAND is being built because there is no tool like it.
The spark was a run of official reports on how land is valued for tax. They do not endorse this site, but they name the gap that has held policy back.
- In October 2025 the Scottish Land Commission published Approaches to land valuation in the tax system. It found that Scottish homes are still valued on 1991 bands, that those bands include the building, and that the land alone is never valued. Publishing the report, the Commission said Scotland has no national way to revalue homes, and no single database joining the map, the register and sales.
- In March 2026 its paper Next steps for land reform said Scotland does not have enough data on land use, value and ownership to use its tax powers in a transformative way, and falls behind other countries in gathering it. It noted public interest in Annual Ground Rent (sometimes called land value tax) but did not set a rate.
- In August 2026 its five-year route to modernising land tax administration said Scotland lacks an up-to-date, complete picture of land value, a hurdle that comes up again and again in debates on Annual Ground Rent (sometimes called land value tax).
This map is our answer to that gap. You can look at any area and see a research estimate of what its land is worth to use. The building stays with whoever made it. Annual Ground Rent figures are research estimates. They are not a bill or an official valuation. Scot-LAND does not propose a rate.
Read how we built this.
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