Foreign Buyers Accounted for 0.7% of Japan's Large-Scale Land Filings in Late 2025
Japan's transport ministry says foreign individuals and companies filed 68 of 9,573 large land acquisition notices in the second half of 2025, or 0.7%.
Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism published on 15 September 2026 a tally of large-scale land acquisitions by foreign nationals and foreign corporations. Between July and December 2025, 9,573 notifications were filed under the National Land Use Planning Act, covering 23,845 hectares. Of those, 68 filings, or 0.7%, came from foreign individuals or foreign companies, and they accounted for 124 hectares, or 0.5% of the notified area.
What the figure actually measures
The notification regime is not a register of every purchase by a foreign buyer. It is triggered only above a size threshold: 2,000 square metres or more inside an urbanisation promotion area, 5,000 square metres or more in a city planning area outside it, and 10,000 square metres or more beyond city planning areas. An apartment purchase never reaches those thresholds. The dataset therefore describes large parcels, and the annex lists forestry among the stated uses, with two foreign filings covering 13 hectares. It says nothing about the condominium market that most cross-border buyers actually enter.
The split inside the 68 is worth reading on its own. Foreign individuals accounted for 31 filings and 76 hectares; foreign corporations for 37 filings and 48 hectares. Within that total, 13 filings covering 16 hectares came from permanent residents or special permanent residents, meaning people living in Japan rather than offshore purchasers.
China leads on count, the United Kingdom on size
The nationality table shows China with 28 filings, 41.2% of the foreign total, and 42 hectares, 33.8% of the foreign-acquired area. Hong Kong and the United States follow with seven filings each, at 13 and 11 hectares. Pakistan recorded four filings and two hectares, while the United Kingdom and Iran registered three each.
The United Kingdom is the line worth pausing on: three filings but 19 hectares, 15.0% of the foreign-acquired area. That is the second-largest area share from the joint fifth-largest filing count. Australia shows the same pattern in miniature, with two filings and 13 hectares. Count and area rank differently because a handful of large single parcels can outweigh many smaller ones.
The share has drifted up from a low base
The ministry also published a reference series for earlier periods, compiled on an estimated basis rather than from declared nationality. It puts foreign-party filings at 51 cases in 2021 (0.3%), 50 in 2022 (0.3%), 64 in 2023 (0.3%), 83 in 2024 (0.4%) and 49 in the first half of 2025 (0.5%). Area tells a noisier story: 896 hectares in 2021, 2.1% of the total, fell to 160 hectares in 2022 at 0.3%, then rose to 442 hectares in 2024 at 0.9%. Because the earlier figures are estimated and the new ones are declared, the two series should not be read as a single continuous line.
What it means for a buyer looking at Japan
Japan places no nationality restriction on property ownership, and title is full freehold including the land beneath the building. From our 7 September snapshot, the national price level is 2,950 US dollars per square metre, a derived estimate carrying Medium confidence, with a gross rental yield of 4.34% and a net yield of 4.05% after the 6.72% effective tax we model for a standardised non-resident case. Transaction costs run to 10.9%, our bubble risk score is 67, in the elevated band, and the price-to-income ratio is 11.6. Over ten years the price series is up 35.0% in yen but down 1.9% in dollars, because the currency gave back what the market gained.
Set against 23,845 hectares notified in the same six months, 124 hectares is a small number. The publication matters less as a market signal than as a change in transparency: the ministry has put a figure on a debate that has run for years largely without one.
Sources: MLIT https://www.mlit.go.jp/report/press/tochi_fudousan_kensetsugyo02_hh_000001_00122.html