Buying Property in Japan as a Non-Resident: The 20-Day FEFTA Report

The short answer

If you are a non-resident under Japan's Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act (FEFTA) and acquire Japanese real property on or after 1 April 2026, the Ministry of Finance says you must submit a post-transaction report through the Bank of Japan within 20 days. There is no minimum purchase price or land-area threshold. The Ministry's 2026 English FAQ says the rule can apply even when the acquisition amount is ¥0, including inheritance and bequests.

The 2026 change is easy to miss because older guidance described broad exemptions for a home, office or non-profit use. Those exemptions were narrowed from 1 April 2026. They now cover certain rights in real property, such as a qualifying leasehold, rather than acquisition of the real property or building itself.

A foreign passport is still not the legal test. First establish whether the acquirer is a FEFTA resident or non-resident, then identify exactly what was acquired and calendar the 20-day filing window.

The rule in one minute

The Ministry of Finance's current English page says post-transaction reporting is required when a non-resident acquires real property located in Japan or any rights on it. The report goes to the Minister of Finance via the Bank of Japan and must be completed in Japanese.

For an overseas home buyer, the practical checklist is:

This is separate from the basic ownership question. Foreign nationals can generally own Japanese land and buildings, but a non-resident buyer can still have a post-closing FEFTA filing obligation. For the broader ownership rules, see Can Foreigners Buy Property in Japan?.

What changed on 1 April 2026

This is the part that makes older articles dangerous.

The Ministry of Finance amended the reporting ordinance with effect from 1 April 2026. Its new English leaflet shows the before-and-after position clearly.

Before 1 April 2026, several acquisitions could fall outside this reporting requirement when a non-resident acquired real property or rights for:

• their own residence, or the residence of relatives, employees or other workers;
• their own office;
• non-profit activities in Japan;
• or, in a separate category, when the acquisition was from another non-resident.

From 1 April 2026, the published use-based exemptions are narrower. They apply to qualifying rights to real property, not to acquisition of the real property itself.

Real property and rights are not the same thing

The Ministry's English FAQ makes a distinction that matters enormously for a house on leased land.

Examples of rights to real property include:

• leasehold rights;
• superficies;
• mortgages.

The same FAQ explicitly says ownership of real estate itself does not fall under the phrase "rights to real property" for this purpose.

That means a single transaction can contain two things that receive different treatment.

Suppose a non-resident buys a building that stands on leased land and intends to live in it as a genuine primary residence in Japan. A qualifying residential-use exemption may apply to the leasehold right. But the Ministry's 2026 FAQ says reporting is still required for acquisition of the building on or after 1 April 2026.

This distinction is one reason not to reduce the rule to "personal home equals exempt" or "investment equals reportable." After April 2026, the legal object being acquired matters as much as the intended use.

A second home is not the residential-rights exemption

Even for a right in real property, the residential exemption is narrower than the phrase "I will stay there" suggests.

The Ministry's 2026 English FAQ says holiday homes and second homes do not fall under the residential-purpose category for the rights exemption.

It also says residential purpose is generally judged by the original intent at acquisition. A reasonable delay before moving in can still be compatible with the exemption for a leasehold right, but an open-ended plan that could become resale, third-party rental or second-home use should not be casually treated as exempt.

For an overseas akiya buyer planning occasional holidays, this is particularly important. "I intend to use it myself sometimes" is not the same statement as the residential use described in the exemption.

Non-resident does not simply mean foreigner

FEFTA is built around resident and non-resident status, not a passport-only test.

The Ministry's English leaflet defines a resident at a high level as an individual with a domicile or residence in Japan, or an organization whose principal office is in Japan. A non-resident is someone or an organization outside that definition.

The detailed English FAQ adds interpretation rules for foreign nationals. It says foreign nationals are generally presumed to be non-residents, but people working at an office in Japan and people who have remained in Japan for six months or more are among those presumed to be residents, subject to the full rules and exceptions.

So these shortcuts are unsafe:

1. 1

   Foreign passport means non-residentNot always. Actual FEFTA residency classification has to be checked.

2. 2

   Japanese passport means residentNot necessarily. Residency under FEFTA is a separate legal classification.

3. 3

   I own a Japanese house, so I am residentOwnership itself does not decide FEFTA residency status.

There is no cheap-akiya threshold

This is probably the most useful answer for Engawa readers.

The Ministry of Finance's 2026 English FAQ asks directly whether there are monetary or area-size criteria. Its answer is no.

It says a non-resident acquirer is required to submit Form No. 22 when acquiring real property or relevant rights even if the acquisition amount is zero yen. It expressly includes acquisition through inheritance, bequest or similar circumstances.

So none of these are safe shortcuts:

• "The house only cost ¥500,000."
• "The municipality transferred it for ¥0."
• "I inherited it rather than buying it."
• "The plot is tiny."

A low price may make the property economically small. It does not create the reporting exemption.

This mirrors the wider economics of cheap property in Japan: fixed administrative and professional steps do not disappear when the asking price collapses. See The Real Cost of Buying a ¥3M Akiya for the purchase-cost side of the same problem.

What starts the 20-day clock

The Ministry's FAQ says the law does not define one universal acquisition date for every scenario. Depending on the facts, the relevant date can be:

• the date the sales contract is concluded;
• the date ownership is transferred;
• the date a mortgage is created;
• or the date an inheritance is determined.

If the 20th day falls on a day when the Bank of Japan is not open for business, the deadline moves to the next business day. For postal filing, the Ministry says the submission must arrive by the due date.

That means the best operational habit is not to calculate the deadline casually after closing. Ask the person handling the filing which event they are treating as the acquisition date and put the resulting due date into the closing file.

1. 1

   Before signingConfirm FEFTA residency status and flag the filing question in writing.

2. 2

   At closingRecord the dates of contract and title transfer, plus any separate rights acquired.

3. 3

   Immediately afterHave the filing owner confirm the acquisition date used for Form No. 22 and calculate the due date.

4. 4

   Before day 20Submit in Japanese through the Bank of Japan and retain the filed copy or submission evidence.

Who can file it

The Ministry of Finance says the report can be submitted by:

• the non-resident acquirer; or
• an agent residing in Japan.

The report must be completed in Japanese. The Ministry's English leaflet goes further and strongly recommends using a Japan-based agent when the acquirer is not proficient in Japanese.

For a remote buyer, ask this before closing:

"Who is responsible for Form No. 22 under FEFTA, what acquisition date are you using, and what is the submission deadline?"

Do not assume that an estate agent, judicial scrivener, tax agent or property manager automatically owns this task. Assign it explicitly.

Buying from another non-resident is no longer the old shortcut

The Ministry's 2026 leaflet also shows another material change.

For acquisitions on or before 31 March 2026, one of the listed non-reporting cases was acquisition of real property or rights from another non-resident. That broad item is absent from the post-1-April-2026 exemption column.

So an overseas seller does not, by itself, make a new non-resident buyer's acquisition exempt under the current rules.

This matters for internationally marketed homes where both parties live outside Japan. The location of the seller is not a reason to skip the filing analysis.

What if you discover the deadline late

The Ministry's English FAQ answers this directly. If the filing deadline has already passed, it says the report still needs to be submitted as soon as possible, with a brief explanation in the blank space for why it was late.

The same FAQ also states that FEFTA contains penalties for failure to report or false reporting. That makes this a compliance task to resolve, not a piece of paperwork to ignore because closing has already happened.

If you think a filing is late, contact the responsible professional and the relevant authorities rather than trying to reconstruct the legal position from a blog post.

Is this permission to buy?

No. The requirement discussed here is post-transaction reporting.

That is different from saying that every non-resident needs government permission before purchasing an ordinary Japanese home. Japan's general property-ownership rules and the FEFTA reporting system are separate questions.

A useful mental model is:

• Can I own the property? A property-law question.
• Am I a FEFTA non-resident? A reporting-status question.
• What exactly did I acquire? Real property itself, a building, land, or a related right.
• Do I have to submit Form No. 22? A post-transaction compliance question.
• Are there other rules for this buyer or property? A separate transaction-specific check.

Keeping those questions separate prevents the two most common errors: saying foreigners cannot own property, or saying ownership is unrestricted so there is no foreign-exchange reporting step.

A closing checklist for a non-resident buyer

1. 1

   Classify the buyerConfirm FEFTA resident or non-resident status using the current interpretation rules.

2. 2

   Separate the assetsIdentify land ownership, building ownership and any leasehold or other rights rather than treating the purchase as one undifferentiated item.

3. 3

   Use the post-April-2026 ruleDo not rely on an older article that treats personal residential real-property ownership as automatically exempt.

4. 4

   Ignore price as an exemptionThere is no general purchase-price or area threshold in the Ministry's current FAQ.

5. 5

   Assign the filerName the buyer or Japan-resident agent who will prepare and submit Form No. 22 in Japanese.

6. 6

   Calendar day 20Record the acquisition date being used and the resulting Bank of Japan deadline.

7. 7

   Keep the evidenceStore the filed report and submission confirmation with the title, closing and tax documents.

Why this belongs in an akiya search workflow

Akiya buyers are unusually exposed to the misconception that a tiny purchase is administratively trivial.

A ¥0 transfer, a ¥500,000 house and a ¥30 million home can all require the same basic question: is the acquirer a FEFTA non-resident acquiring Japanese real property?

Engawa can help with discovery, comparison and purchase-cost research, but the catalogue cannot determine a user's legal residency status or file a statutory report. An AI property workflow should surface that unknown rather than guessing it away.

If you use the Engawa AI catalogue, treat FEFTA status like assessed value, title rights or structural condition: organize what is knowable from the data, then hand the legal fact to the person qualified to resolve it.

Bottom line

For acquisitions on or after 1 April 2026, an overseas buyer should not rely on the old idea that "personal-use Japanese property is exempt from FEFTA reporting."

The Ministry of Finance's current English materials say:

• a FEFTA non-resident acquiring Japanese real property is subject to post-transaction reporting;
• the report is due through the Bank of Japan within 20 days;
• there is no price or area threshold, even for a ¥0 acquisition;
• the former use-based exemptions now apply to specified rights in real property, not ownership of the real property itself;
• and a Japan-resident agent can file the Japanese-language report for the acquirer.

Put the filing question into the closing checklist before the transaction, even though the report itself comes afterwards.

Sources and review notes

This article summarizes general published guidance and is not legal, tax or filing advice. FEFTA residency status and the treatment of a particular acquisition depend on the facts. Confirm the current requirement with the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Japan and qualified Japanese professionals handling your transaction.

• Ministry of Finance: Reporting Requirement Under the FEFTA for a Non-Resident Acquiring Real Property Located in Japan
• Ministry of Finance: February 2026 English leaflet showing exemptions before and after 1 April 2026
• Ministry of Finance: 2026 English FAQ on real-property reporting
• Bank of Japan: FEFTA reporting system guidance, April 2026

Editorial ownerEngawa Editorial Team

MethodPrimary-source review of Ministry of Finance and Bank of Japan guidance current after the April 2026 reform

Checked on11 August 2026

This article is general information, not personalized legal, tax, structural, financing, visa, or investment advice. Property and service availability can change.

Frequently asked questions

Do foreigners have to report buying property in Japan?+

The rule is based on FEFTA residency status, not nationality alone. If the acquirer is a non-resident under FEFTA and acquires Japanese real property, the Ministry of Finance's current guidance says the acquisition is reportable. Its 2026 English FAQ gives separate criteria for determining whether an individual is a resident or non-resident, so confirm that classification rather than using passport nationality as the shortcut.

How long does a non-resident have to report a Japanese property purchase?+

The Ministry of Finance says the report must be submitted through the Bank of Japan within 20 days after acquisition. Its 2026 FAQ says the acquisition date may be the sales-contract date, ownership-transfer date, mortgage-creation date or inheritance-determination date as appropriate. If day 20 is not a Bank of Japan business day, the deadline moves to the next business day.

Did Japan change FEFTA property reporting in 2026?+

Yes. A Ministry of Finance ordinance effective April 1, 2026 broadened the reporting scope. The current English leaflet shows that acquisitions of the real property itself for personal residence, office use or non-profit use are no longer exempt merely because of that use. The remaining use-based exemptions apply to certain rights in real property, such as leasehold rights, not ownership of the building or land itself.

Is there a minimum property price below which the FEFTA report is unnecessary?+

No. The Ministry of Finance's 2026 English FAQ says there is no acquisition-price or area-size threshold. It says a non-resident can be required to report even when the acquisition amount is zero yen, including acquisitions through inheritance, bequest or similar circumstances.

Can an agent in Japan submit the FEFTA property report for a non-resident buyer?+

Yes. The Ministry of Finance states that the report may be submitted either by the non-resident acquirer or by an agent residing in Japan. The report itself must be completed in Japanese, and the Ministry's English leaflet strongly recommends a Japan-based agent when the acquirer is not proficient in Japanese.

Does FEFTA reporting mean a non-resident needs government approval before buying a normal Japanese home?+

This requirement is a post-transaction reporting obligation, not a general pre-purchase approval rule for ordinary homeownership. Separate laws, sanctions rules or transaction-specific circumstances can create other requirements, so the professionals handling a purchase should still check the particular buyer and property before closing.

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