Tariff-Free Rice to Be Auctioned Off 3 Months Early, as Japan Seeks to Tame High Prices for the Staple

The Yomiuri Shimbun

13:29 JST, June 13, 2025

The government will auction off the first batch of duty-free rice for the year on June 27, about three months earlier than usual, said Shinjiro Koizumi, the agriculture, forestry and fisheries minister, on Thursday.

Typically held in September, the auction was moved up this year to try to help tame high rice prices, following other moves to release rice from a government reserve. The rice will be delivered around late September to those who place winning bids.

According to the agriculture ministry, Japan imports 770,000 tons of rice duty-free from the United States, Thailand and elsewhere under a minimum market access agreement, with up to 100,000 tons of this set aside for “table rice,” or rice to be used as food. The auction in June will cover 30,000 tons of the table rice quota, and auctions for the remaining 70,000 tons should follow every month, each one ahead of schedule.

The tariff-free table rice is sold mainly to the food service industry and other commercial buyers. Auctions for this rice have often seen leftover stock, but the serious rice shortage recently led to a complete sell off in fiscal 2024 for the first time in seven years.

“[Rice prices] have not fallen far enough yet. This is not the time to slow down,” Koizumi told reporters about the decision to move up the auction date.

Meanwhile, the ministry announced Thursday that it found rice from the government’s stockpile being sold at more than 3,700 stores and in every prefecture except Okinawa Prefecture.