Woodland ownership: key data

Woodland ownership in Scotland

On 18 December 2025 estimates for different ownership types of woodland across Great Britain, including Scotland, were published. The report presents the analyses of a survey carried out between 2015 and 2020, augmented with data collected during 2012 to 2015. Read the full report. 

The estimates for woodland ownership in Scotland are set out in Table 1, on page 13 of the report. The key data are:

Ownership type	Woodland area (000) ha	% of country woodland area
Charity funded by voluntary subscription	23.6	1.7
Crown, Church and Educational Institution	3.3	0.2
Local Authority	8.4	0.6
Mixed	3.7	0.3
Not supplied	50.9	3.7
Other	15.0	1.1
Other public – not PFE or Local Authority	14.3	1.0
Private Business - companies, partnerships and syndicates	191.0	14.0
Private Community	12.9	0.9
Private Personal	547.8	40.2
Private forestry or timber business	43.4	3.9
Public Forest Estate (PFE)**	448.7	32.9

Notes:

* Ownership types are described in the report’s Glossary (page 22)

**Public forest estate: term used in the report to describe government owned woodland formerly managed by the Forestry Commission. This ownership type is also defined as “forested land” under Section 12 of the Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Act 2018.

Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Act 2018 (The Act)

The purpose of publishing this data is to meet the requirement under section 14 of the Act to publish information on forest holdings in Scotland.