Japan Did Not Ban Foreign Buyers: The Two Rules That Took Effect in 2026, the Condo Curb That Died in June, and What 5 October Brings

The first rule arrived on 1 April 2026 by ministerial ordinance. Article 55-3 of the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act has long required non-residents to report acquisitions of Japanese real estate on Form 22 within 20 days, but residential purchases for personal use were exempt. That exemption is gone. A Singaporean buying a Minato apartment to live in, a Hong Kong company buying a Niseko chalet, a British couple buying a Kyoto machiya as a holiday home, all now file. The penalty for not filing is up to three years' imprisonment or a ¥1 million fine under Article 70. The form is a report, not an application. Nobody approves or refuses it.

The second rule starts on 5 October. Ministry of Justice Ordinance No. 23 of 2026, published in the official gazette on 31 March, adds nationality to the search information collected at property registration under Rule 158-39. It applies to every new registered owner, including Japanese nationals. The nationality is held inside the registry and fed into the Real Estate Base Registry for use between agencies. It is not printed on the public title record. The ministry circular of 4 September 2026 to the Legal Affairs Bureaus confirms the start date and the procedure. Alongside it, since 1 April, corporate buyers in designated zones under the Important Land Survey Act must disclose the nationality of their representative and of majority officers or shareholders, and new forest owners must report nationality, with the forest register recording it from April 2027.

In the upper house election of 20 July 2025, Sanseito, campaigning on a Japanese First platform, took 14 seats. A Kyodo survey in September found nearly 70% of the Liberal Democratic Party's 47 prefectural chapter executives wanted tighter rules on foreign land ownership. The LDP-Ishin coalition agreement of October 2025 promised a bill to strengthen regulation of land acquisition by foreigners and foreign capital for the 2026 ordinary session. On 4 November Prime Minister Takaichi instructed ministries to build nationality tracking, expand foreign-exchange reporting, analyse condominium transactions and launch a Real Estate Base Registry. The first two became the April and October rules. In her policy speech to the Diet on 20 February 2026 she promised to compile a basic framework on foreign land acquisition by the summer.

The general election of 8 February 2026 gave the LDP 316 of 465 seats, a postwar record, and Sanseito 15. A cabinet panel on foreign land acquisition rules, chaired by Akira Morita and including a former head of the National Security Secretariat, met on 4 March, 9 April, 30 April and 21 July. It has published no final report. Its own minutes from the July meeting say that the threat actor is not foreigners as such but persons of security concern, and that procedural safeguards are essential. The spring session ended without a land bill.

On 1 June 2026 the government shelved the condominium curb. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism had found overseas-resident buyers at around 3% of new Tokyo condominium purchases and no direct link to the price surge. Officials concluded that purchase restrictions targeting foreign nationals specifically would be difficult to reconcile with Japan's national-treatment obligations under the General Agreement on Trade in Services. The ministry's expert council on land acquisition reported on 7 August and recommended revising the National Land Use Planning Act for continuous monitoring and guidance at the transaction and use stages. The council's framing was how land is used, not who buys it. A separate ministry tax request in August asked for a heavier levy on new condominiums resold within five years, with no reference to nationality.

The transport ministry's first nationwide survey, published 26 November 2025, used registered addresses and found overseas residents bought 3.5% of new 23-ward condominiums in the first half of 2025, up from 1.6% for 2024, with higher shares in Minato and Shinjuku. Its June 2026 follow-up said around 3%. A Mitsubishi UFJ Trust survey of developers, asking them to estimate rather than counting the registry, put the foreign share at 19% in Chiyoda, Minato and Shibuya and 12.7% across the rest of the 23 wards, and in a March 2025 round about 70% of developers said foreigners were 20% or more of buyers in those three central wards. A registry count of overseas addresses and a developer's estimate of foreign nationals are different measures of different populations. A foreign national resident in Tokyo appears in the second and not the first.

Hokkaido Prefecture's survey, published on 15 September 2026, found 43 cases and 374 hectares of forest acquired by foreign capital in 2025, 32 of them by foreign corporations or overseas residents, mostly in the Shiribeshi region that contains Niseko and Kutchan. Foreign-held forest across Hokkaido totalled 4,430 hectares across 370 owners at the end of 2025. The largest single deal was a Korean company buying 118 hectares in Nanae. The often-repeated claim that key Niseko areas are more than half foreign-owned appears in commentary without a source and should not be quoted as a figure.

The Real Estate Economic Institute's first-half 2026 report has the average new condominium in the 23 wards at ¥142.49 million, up 9.1% on the year, at ¥2.226 million per square metre across 2,684 units. Greater Tokyo averaged ¥101.35 million, the first half-year above ¥100 million. The median 23-ward price was ¥121.53 million and 65.4% of units were priced above ¥100 million. The first-month contract rate was 63.9%, below the 70% that the industry treats as healthy.

Then July happened. The 23-ward average hit ¥265.2 million, up 96% on a year earlier, at ¥3.638 million per square metre, because a single launch in Minato averaged about ¥500 million per unit across enough sales to move the whole month. August came back to ¥138.21 million in the 23 wards, up 0.1% on the year. Greater Tokyo fell 5.4% to ¥97.7 million, the first year-on-year decline in five months, on 1,140 units, 12.4% fewer than a year earlier, with a contract rate of 61.1% and unsold inventory rising for a third month to 6,610. The central six wards averaged ¥181.13 million against ¥242.11 million in August 2025. The resale market has not turned: contracted prices in the 23 wards were ¥1.3577 million per square metre in July, up 2.7%, the 75th consecutive monthly rise.

The Bank of Japan raised its policy rate to 1.25% on 18 September 2026 by seven votes to two, the highest level since April 1995, effective 25 September. The yen weakened on the decision to about ¥157 to the dollar. That is 6% down over 12 months. For a dollar or dirham buyer that currency move is worth more than any change in the rulebook this year. The ¥142.49 million average condo that cost about USD 908,000 in September 2026 would have cost about USD 960,000 at the exchange rate of a year earlier.

The next date is 5 October. The extraordinary session convenes with a consumption-tax cut on food and a reduction in Lower House seats on its announced agenda, and no land bill. If the Important Land Survey Act amendment is tabled, it will tighten notification and screening around the roughly one-kilometre watch zones near Self-Defense Force sites, coast-guard bases, nuclear plants and the 29 uninhabited border islands already designated as special-watch zones. It will bind every buyer. The Real Estate Base Registry is scheduled from 2027, and from that point the nationality field collected at registration becomes searchable across agencies.

Confirm the property is outside a designated watch zone, which the Cabinet Secretariat publishes. Budget for the Form 22 filing within 20 days of completion. Expect the nationality question at registration from 5 October. Answer it. Ignore any adviser who says a ban is coming, and any who says the reporting rules are optional.

The Cabinet Secretariat panel that was meant to produce the basic framework by summer met last on 21 July. Its minutes end with the observation that the problem was never foreigners as such.