Japanese Land Prices Rose a Fifth Year as Growth Narrowed Outside Tokyo and Osaka
Japan's prefectural land price survey, released on 15 September 2026, shows a fifth consecutive rise: 1.5% for all uses, 1.0% residential and 2.9% commercial.
Land prices in Japan rose for a fifth consecutive year, according to the prefectural land price survey the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism released on 15 September 2026. The national all-use average gained 1.5%, residential land 1.0% and commercial land 2.9%, measured at 21,466 survey points against a valuation date of 1 July 2026.
A source note that belongs at the top rather than the bottom
The ministry's own release states the direction of every series. All uses, residential and commercial each rose for a fifth straight year; commercial widened its gain while all uses and residential held the same pace as last year. What the release text does not contain is a single percentage. The figures in this article come from the Jiji Press wire report and from a second Japanese outlet, both carrying the release, and the two agree on every number we use.
We say so explicitly rather than presenting them as ministry text. The distinction is the difference between a number a reader can check and a number a reader has to take on trust.
The national figure is carried by a small part of the country
The three major metropolitan areas rose 4.4%, up from 4.3% a year earlier. Regional areas as a whole rose 0.4%, a fourth consecutive increase. The nationwide average is 1.5%.
The metropolitan areas are therefore running roughly eleven times the pace of the rest of the country. A national average of 1.5% is what arithmetic produces when a small and expensive share of the land moves at 4.4% and the large, cheap remainder moves at 0.4%. The headline is a national number that very little of the nation actually experienced.
Where the momentum is turning
Nagoya rose 1.9%, down from 2.1%. The four major regional cities of Sapporo, Sendai, Hiroshima and Fukuoka rose 4.1%, down from 5.3% a year earlier, a fall of 1.2 percentage points in a single year. The ministry's text confirms the shape in words: Tokyo and Osaka widened their gains, Nagoya narrowed, and the four regional cities narrowed.
So the headline reads as a fifth year of increases and the composition reads as Tokyo and Osaka accelerating while almost everywhere else decelerates. Both sentences describe the same release.
A valuation survey, not a transaction index
It is worth being exact about what was measured. The survey appraises fixed points on a fixed date under Japan's national land use planning framework. It records appraised land value, not the price of a house.
In Japan that gap is unusually wide. A large share of the value of an older Japanese property sits in the land, while the building depreciates on a schedule that buyers and lenders both understand. Rising land prices alongside flat or falling house prices are not a contradiction there. They are the normal arrangement.
What our own Japanese row says
Our Japan row, taken on 7 September 2026 and rated Medium confidence, carries $2,950 per square metre nationally. It is derived from the government housing finance agency's survey of Flat 35 borrowers, transaction-based and segment-weighted by us, and the weighting is our own work, which is why the row reads Medium rather than High. The gross rental yield is 4.34% and the net 4.05% after an effective 6.72% tax, among the lowest in our entire coverage, because a non-resident's Japanese rental income is assessed progressively with the basic allowance rather than at the 20.42% withholding headline. Transaction costs are 10.9%, Bubble Risk reads 67 in the elevated band, and the price-to-income ratio is 11.6.
One pair of numbers closes the case. Across ten years Japanese residential prices are 35.0% higher in yen and 1.9% lower in dollars. A fifth consecutive year of rising land prices has, for a buyer holding dollars, produced nothing across a decade. None of this is advice on buying or investing.
Sources: MLIT https://www.mlit.go.jp/report/press/tochi_fudousan_kensetsugyo04_hh_000001_00084.html; Jiji Press https://www.nippon.com/ja/news/yjj2026091500627/; Tokyo Hodo Shimbun https://tokyonewsmedia.com/archives/27985