Buying as a foreigner

There are no nationality restrictions on owning property in Japan. You can buy land and buildings outright with full freehold title, even as a non-resident. The practical hurdle is financing, not ownership.

Financing reality

Most Japanese banks require permanent residency (PR) or a Japanese spouse for a standard mortgage. Without PR, options are: a larger down payment (20–50%) with certain banks, lenders in your home country, or cash. Rates in 2025–26 remain low by global standards (variable ~0.4–0.9%, fixed ~1.5–2.5%).

Total cost beyond the price

Budget roughly 6–9% on top of the purchase price: brokerage fee (3% + ¥60,000 + tax), registration & judicial scrivener, stamp duty, property acquisition tax (~3–4% of assessed value, often reduced), and loan fees (~2.2% if financed). Annual fixed-asset tax is ~1.4% of the assessed (not market) value.

The Market data page on this site shows every municipality's official land-price level and real transaction records from MLIT — use it to sanity-check any asking price.

Search homes across Japan → See market data →

Sources: MLIT land-price surveys 2025 (Official Land Prices & Prefectural Survey) and the MLIT real-estate transaction database — actual anonymized records, not listings. Operated as a product study by Scrum Value Agents Inc., Minato, Tokyo (svachain.com). Listings on the main site are placeholder samples; market statistics are real official data.