LANDE Review 2026: Farm Loans on Land, With Slow Recoveries

LANDE is a Latvian crowdfunding platform where retail investors lend money to farmers, mostly against farmland and agricultural machinery. It is run by SIA LANDE Platform in Riga and holds a European crowdfunding service provider (ECSP) licence from Latvijas Banka, issued on 7 February 2024. The platform reports €65.9 million funded across 2,386 loans and 11,328 investors.

The pitch is simple: farms need seasonal and investment credit that banks are slow to provide, and land and tractors are collateral that holds value. The loans are small — the average is about €27,600 — and the platform advertises 10–14% a year.

What makes LANDE unusual is that there is no buyback and no lending company in the middle. You lend to the farm, and if the farm stops paying, your protection is the collateral and how quickly it can be turned into cash. This review looks hard at that second part, because LANDE's own figures show a sizeable share of the book is late or in enforcement. For how we score platforms like this, see our methodology; the live profile is at LANDE.

A farmer or agricultural company applies for a loan. LANDE assesses it, sets the interest rate, and publishes it on the primary market. Investors fund it from €50. The homepage claims that fewer than 5% of applications pass its assessment; we could not check that figure independently.

What you actually own

Under LANDE's general loan terms, each investor is a lender under a loan agreement with the borrower. You do not hold a note issued by LANDE, and you do not have a claim on LANDE's balance sheet. The platform acts as administrator and represents the lenders in dealing with the borrower.

Who holds the collateral

The mortgage or pledge is registered in the name of a collateral agent, which holds it on behalf of all investors in that loan. LANDE's terms name three: SIA "SF MGMT collateral" in Latvia, UAB "LANDE LT" in Lithuania and SRL "LANDE PLATFORM RUM" in Romania. All three are 100% subsidiaries of SIA LANDE Platform. The 2025 annual report describes six subsidiaries across Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Poland that handle customer acquisition and collateral.

That structure is normal for Baltic crowdfunding, but it matters: the company enforcing your security belongs to the platform. If LANDE itself got into trouble, investors would depend on those subsidiaries continuing to act for them.

Where the money goes

Borrowers pay monthly or at maturity; the money passes through Lemon Way, a French-licensed payment institution that holds investor accounts, and is credited to you. Some loans are "full bullet" loans repaid in one sum at the end — common for harvest financing — and they carry their own restrictions, covered below.

The platform is operated by SIA LANDE Platform, registration number 40203386735, Roberta Hirša iela 1, Riga. According to its 2025 annual report, Nikita Gončars (Gonchar in the English report) owns 78.67% of the company and chairs the board. The other shareholders listed are the company itself (9.97%), Vauban Nominees Limited (4.59%), an entity named LANDE INVESTORS (4.56%) and BADIdeas OÜ (2.21%).

The second board member is Jānis Laiviņš-Laivenieks, appointed on 2 April 2025, who is also the chief legal officer. Mārtiņš Vītols is chief operating officer. The about page also names country managers for Lithuania and Poland and a head of legal and debt collection for the Baltics.

The company is small: an average of 10 employees in 2025. That is lean for a platform that manages more than 1,000 live loans in four countries and runs its own debt collection, and it is worth keeping in mind when you read the recovery section.

LANDE lists partnerships with the European Investment Fund, Lemon Way, BluOr Bank and Signet Bank. The homepage says the EIF partnership is used to offer farmers uncollateralised financing; we could not confirm whether any such loans are offered to platform investors, so check the collateral field on every loan you fund.

LANDE accepts private individuals aged 18 or over and companies. The help centre says anyone with a bank account in the Single Euro Payments Area can invest, and the full country list appears during registration. US persons are excluded under the terms.

1. 1Register with your email address and create a password.
2. 2Verify your identity and address; this is a standard anti-money-laundering check run with Lemon Way.
3. 3Complete the ECSPR knowledge test and loss-bearing simulation. If you are classed as a non-sophisticated investor, you get a four-day reflection period after each commitment in which you can withdraw without penalty.
4. 4Transfer euros by SEPA bank transfer or Pay by Bank to your Lemon Way account.
5. 5Invest manually from €50 per loan, or set up auto-invest with your own criteria.

Only euros are accepted. Before depositing, read the defaults section below and decide how long you are prepared to wait if a loan ends up in court.

LANDE is simple to get going with: registration is free and online, an open-banking deposit can land in your account within about a minute, and auto-invest comes in a no-settings version and a detailed one.

Signing up

LANDE says you can create your account "in just a few minutes" and that registration is free. After the identity check and the ECSPR knowledge test, the account is ready for a first deposit.

Deposits

There are two ways to add euros:

• Pay by Bank: you approve the payment in your own online bank, and LANDE says it is usually credited within a few seconds to one minute. It is free from €500; smaller deposits cost €0.50, shown before you confirm.
• SEPA bank transfer: free, credited within 3 business days when it comes from an account in your name and carries your personal reference code.

Setting up auto-invest

LANDE offers two strategies, which you start or pause yourself from the Auto-invest tab:

• Basic, from €50: invests in every newly published loan with no criteria to set
• Advanced, from €100: lets you filter by interest rate, LTV, term, collateral type, schedule type and country

The help centre explains each option in short articles, and strategies can be edited or deleted later.

Using the platform

The website is available in English, German, Latvian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Spanish, French and Polish. LANDE does not mention a mobile app on its site, so investing is done in the browser.

Documents and support

In the Balance section you pick a date range and download an income statement as a PDF, or export the individual transactions for the same period. That covers most of what you need for a tax return. Questions go through the the LANDE help centre, where LANDE also directs investors to contact support.

Deposits are made in euros by ordinary SEPA transfer or by Pay by Bank, an open-banking payment, into your Lemon Way account. LANDE's terms state that all platform fees and commissions are paid by the borrower, and the help centre says withdrawals are currently free of charge.

Uninvested money sits on a segregated account at Lemon Way rather than on LANDE's balance sheet, which limits the damage if the platform itself fails. It does not make it a bank deposit: LANDE's terms state that its services are not covered by any deposit guarantee scheme or investor compensation scheme.

Only uninvested cash can be withdrawn. Money inside loans comes back as borrowers repay, or earlier if you sell on the secondary market.

Each loan page shows the borrower's sector, the collateral, the loan-to-value ratio, the term and the repayment schedule. Terms are long for a crowdfunding platform: the statistics page gives an average of 21 months. Repayment is either monthly (annuity or interest-only) or a single bullet payment.

Auto-invest lets you set criteria such as interest rate, term and collateral type, and the system invests matching loans. LANDE does not list a fee for it.

Collateral mix

The statistics page lists "land, machinery, or harvest" as collateral types. In its May 2026 report, LANDE said loans secured on livestock and harvest had the highest shares of 90+ day delays, and that it was moving away from those categories towards land and machinery. By the July 2026 report, loans backed by land, property or machinery made up 95% in Latvia and 100% in Lithuania, Romania and Poland. That is a sensible correction, but older loans secured on crops or animals are still working through the book.

The homepage quotes a 40–60% LTV range, and the statistics page shows an average LTV of 41%. A low LTV only helps if the valuation is realistic and the land can be sold; rural land in the Baltics and Romania can take a long time to sell at auction.

LANDE uses three return figures, and they measure different things.

• 11.2% is the headline on the homepage ("return per year"). On the statistics page the same number is labelled average interest rate — the weighted contractual rate on loans, not what investors received after losses.
• 10–14% is the range the homepage says investors "typically" earn, depending on the project. It describes the interest rates on offer.
• 12.29% is the average investor return, excluding bonuses, in LANDE's July 2026 performance report. LANDE calculates investor return (Net Annual Return) with the XIRR formula, so it includes penalty interest and timing.

None of these tells you what an investor has lost. The ECSPR disclosure dated 13 September 2026 records no permanent losses yet, even though €3.14 million of loans are classed as defaulted. Until a defaulted loan is written off or recovered, it can keep showing accrued interest in a return figure. A realised return — cash received against cash invested, net of written-off principal — will only be clear once today's enforcement cases finish.

LANDE's statistics also show €5.83 million in total interest paid to investors, which confirms the platform has generated real income. Treat the 10–14% as the price of lending to small farms with slow enforcement, not as a forecast. Our risks page explains why headline rates overstate what arrives.

LANDE is one of the few platforms that charges investors nothing directly. Its terms say all fees and commissions are paid by the project owner, meaning the farmer.

• Account and investing: free.
• Auto-invest: no fee listed.
• Deposits: no LANDE fee for bank transfer.
• Withdrawals: free "currently", according to the help centre.
• Secondary market sales: no fee.
• Currency: euros only, so no exchange fee on the platform.

The cost is inside the loan. The borrower pays LANDE's fees on top of the interest, and in enforcement the loan terms put collection expenses and the platform's or collateral agent's costs ahead of principal when proceeds are distributed. The terms say the borrower bears those costs, but if the collateral does not cover everything, investors receive what is left after costs.

For how these fees compare with the other licensed platforms we rate highest, see our P2P lending fees comparison.

LANDE does have a secondary market, where you can sell your claim rights to other investors. There is no fee to sell. The terms set the price at the outstanding principal, so loans trade at par — there is no discount mechanism to clear a loan that nobody wants.

Some loans cannot be sold at all:

• full bullet loans, which are excluded because of their repayment structure;
• defaulted loans;
• loans not yet issued, and loans past their final payment date.

Amounts between €2 and €99.99 must be sold whole; larger holdings can be split into pieces of at least €50. After you buy on the secondary market, you must wait for the next scheduled payment before reselling.

Late loans that have not been formally defaulted can apparently still be listed, but at par a late loan is unlikely to find a buyer. In practice, liquidity exists for performing loans and disappears for the ones you most want to exit. With an average term of 21 months, plan to hold to maturity.

There is no buyback guarantee on LANDE. The help centre says so plainly. Real-estate loans are secured by collateral; grain projects have used insurance, personal guarantees and three-way agreements with harvest buyers.

That is a different bet from a consumer-loan platform. A buyback promise is only as strong as the lending company behind it, and those have failed. On LANDE nobody promises to pay you if the farmer does not; instead the collateral agent can take and sell the security.

How that works under the general loan terms:

1. 1After a 5-day delay, late interest and penalties start.
2. 2After 30 days of non-payment, LANDE can terminate the loan and demand full repayment.
3. 3The collateral agent enforces the security, usually through a bailiff auction, and distributes the proceeds among the lenders.
4. 4Proceeds go first to collection expenses, then to the platform's and collateral agent's costs and unpaid interest, then principal, then late interest and penalties.

The strength of the collateral depends on three things you cannot see from the platform: whether the valuation reflects what a forced sale achieves, how long courts and bailiffs take, and whether anyone bids at a rural auction. LANDE's average LTV of 41% leaves room for a large discount. It does not remove the time cost.

SIA LANDE Platform holds ECSP licence No. 27-10/2024/23, granted by Latvijas Banka on 7 February 2024 under Regulation (EU) 2020/1503. The register lists facilitation of loans, individual portfolio management of loans, operation of a bulletin board, credit scoring of projects and suggesting prices or interest rates. The licence is passported to all EU member states. LANDE's transparency page also lists an earlier approval from Latvia's former Financial and Capital Market Commission.

What the licence gives you

• A supervised operator with minimum capital, governance and conflict-of-interest rules.
• A key investment information sheet for each loan, an entry knowledge test and a reflection period for non-sophisticated investors.
• Annual disclosure of default rates under Article 20 of the regulation, which LANDE publishes.

What it does not give you

LANDE's terms state that its services are not covered by deposit guarantee schemes or investor compensation schemes. If a farmer does not repay, the licence does nothing to make you whole. If LANDE fails, your loan agreements and the collateral held by the agents should continue to exist, but recovery would depend on a replacement administrator. This is not a bank deposit.

LANDE publishes annual reports from 2020 and auditor's reports from 2022 on its transparency page. The 2025 accounts, audited by Orients Audit & Finance SIA (sworn auditor Olga Kuzmiča), received an unqualified opinion dated 28 May 2026.

• Net turnover: €2.36 million in 2025 (2024: €1.96 million).
• Profit: €206,485 in 2025 (2024: €196,086).
• Equity: €722,593 at 31 December 2025.
• Total assets: €1.17 million.

The operator is profitable, if small, and has been for at least two years. That is better than many peers. Its equity is also modest next to more than €35 million of loans that have not been fully repaid, so the platform itself could not absorb meaningful losses — which is not its role, but it limits what it can spend on long enforcement.

The annual report gives 9,750+ registered investors, 1,790+ projects and €46.9 million raised by the end of 2025, with €20.8 million outstanding. The homepage now shows 11,328 investors and €66 million, so the book has grown by roughly €19 million in 2026. Fast growth makes a default rate look lower than it will be once new loans age.

This is the section that matters most. On 21 September 2026 the statistics page showed:

• Funded: €65.86 million across 2,386 loans.
• Repaid: €30.07 million (1,285 loans).
• Current: €26.19 million (827 loans).
• 5–30 days late: €4.19 million (105 loans).
• 31–60 days late: €1.65 million (46 loans).
• 60+ days late: €0.62 million (15 loans).
• Defaulted: €3.14 million (108 loans).

The homepage says the default rate "remains stable at less than 5%". Measured against everything ever funded, €3.14 million is 4.8%, so the claim is technically correct. Measured against the €35.8 million not yet repaid, the picture is different: €9.6 million, or about 27%, is either late or defaulted. More than a quarter of the live book is not paying on time.

The regulatory disclosure

LANDE's ECSPR performance disclosure dated 13 September 2026 gives a default rate of 9.35% since 30 September 2020, with yearly figures of 3.82% (2021), 5.28% (2022), 5.22% (2023), 1.73% (2024), 0.00% (2025) and 3.63% (2026 so far). It also lists 144 projects in judicial or collective proceedings, 63 with modified due dates, and no permanent losses recorded yet. The low 2025 figure most likely reflects loans too young to have defaulted rather than a better year.

How collateral is enforced

LANDE's process moves from its own collection team, to a registered letter and notary warning, to court. The help centre says a court hearing can come 3–9 months after filing, and LANDE tries to arrange refinancing instead because of that delay. Once a judgment is obtained, bailiffs sell the land or machinery at auction.

In its May and July 2026 reports, LANDE said most 90+ day loans were already in enforcement with bailiffs. It reported one defaulted Lithuanian loan fully recovered and returned to investors, several Romanian debtors signing payment agreements after LANDE hired a large local collection agency, and recoveries from two named Romanian borrowers in July. These are real results. What LANDE does not publish is an aggregate figure — how much defaulted principal has been recovered, at what share of the collateral valuation, and after how long. Without that, the collateral's value on paper cannot be compared with what auctions have actually produced. Ask for it before committing a large amount.

1. 1Arrears and slow enforcement. About 27% of the loans not yet repaid are late or defaulted. Recovery through Latvian, Lithuanian, Romanian or Polish courts and bailiffs takes many months, often longer than the loan term.
2. 2Collateral realisation. A 41% average LTV is a good cushion on paper. Forced sales of rural land and used machinery can fetch far less than the valuation, and there is no published record of auction outcomes.
3. 3Agricultural and weather risk. Harvests, commodity prices and animal disease move many borrowers at once. Livestock and harvest-secured loans have already performed worst.
4. 4Related-party collateral agents. The entities holding your security are 100% owned by LANDE. That works while LANDE is healthy; in a platform failure it adds a layer of dependence.
5. 5Illiquidity. The secondary market is at par only, excludes bullet and defaulted loans, and cannot clear late loans in practice.
6. 6Platform concentration. A ten-person company, 79% owned by its CEO, runs origination, servicing and collection in four countries.

These are not bank deposits and no compensation scheme applies. Size the allocation so that money locked in a two-year enforcement case would be an inconvenience, not a problem.

This is general information, not tax advice. LANDE's help centre says it does not withhold tax on interest, because it acts as an intermediary between investors and borrowers and Latvian law does not require it to. You receive interest gross.

That means you declare and pay tax on the interest yourself in your country of residence, under its rules for interest or capital income. LANDE provides a downloadable income statement in your account. How defaulted loans, penalty interest and eventual recoveries are treated differs from country to country — in some, a loss can only be claimed once it is final, which on LANDE can take years. Speak to a tax adviser in your country before you file.