Japan to Require Foreign Real Estate Buyers to Disclose Nationality Starting Fiscal 2026

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:33 JST, December 16, 2025

The government will require foreign real estate buyers to disclose their nationality when registering their transactions, including for condominium purchases.

The policy is part of measures unveiled Tuesday aimed at gaining a clearer picture of who is acquiring land and buildings, starting in fiscal 2026.

The government also intends to have buyers disclose their nationalities when purchasing forests, critical or large areas of land, and real estate if they are living overseas and the purchases are not primarily for investment purposes. Relevant ministries and agencies plan to revise ministerial ordinances and public notices within the current fiscal year.

Under the current system, the owner is required to include their name and address but not their nationality.

The government will revise a Justice Ministry ordinance to require buyers to include their nationality when filing new registration applications and present an official form of identification, such as a passport. The policy would also allow those who have already registered to voluntarily disclose their nationality.

Based on the Forest Law, the government will require buyers of forests to disclose their nationality. Under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Law, disclosing one’s nationality is only required in certain cases, such as purchases for investment purposes. However, the government intends to require all buyers to disclose their nationality regardless of the reason for their purchase.

The government will also strengthen efforts to identify those involved in corporate transactions in order to prevent foreign buyers from using domestic companies as a front to acquire strategically important land.

For land deals covered by the Law on the Review and Regulation of the Use of Real Estate Surrounding Important Facilities and on Remote Territorial Islands — which includes areas around defense-related facilities and remote border islands —, forest deals and large-scale land transactions subject to the National Land Use Planning Law, the government will require nationality disclosure for company representatives, as well as in cases in which a majority of the corporate officers or those making up more than half of the voting right have the same nationality.

The government is also considering enabling ministries and agencies to share information on the nationality of buyers through a real estate registry database that is being developed by the Digital Agency. As information on a person’s nationality is considered personal information, it would not be made public.

Kimi Onoda, the minister responsible for economic security and foreign resident policy, said Tuesday that the government would work with relevant ministries and agencies so that the information it gathers can be disclosed in an appropriate manner to ease public anxiety.