This paper analyses the impact of increasing direct payments on land rents in six new EU member states in which agricultural subsidies largely increased as a result of their EU accession. We find that up to 25 eurocents per additional euro of direct payments is capitalized in land rents. In addition, the results show that capitalization of direct payments is higher in more credit constrained markets, while capitalization of direct payments is lower in countries where more land is used by corporate farms.