vb.net getting path of folder in the app folder

It sounds like you are running your application in debug mode in Visual Studio. In that case, the root path for your application is the debug folder. That is where your exe file is that you are running. If you want to include a directory in your application that has reports, you need to add that to your project or you need to create it manually. When you create a setup project to deploy your application, you will have the option of adding folders at the root of your application.

If you are including files that go with your project, put them in a folder in your application and mark them as content files that should always be copied. Then, when you compile your application, it will create that folder and put those content files in the folder. Then you can reference them using the relative path.

The bottom line is that your project's root folder is not your application's root folder. Instead, your root folder is wherever your exe is running from (in this case, the debug directory). If you want content to be relative to the root of the application's directory, you either need to copy it manually, include it in an install file, or include it in the project and mark it as a content file.