Moved Abroad? Japan Now Requires You to Update Your Property Registration — and the Free Automatic Fix Doesn't Apply to You

You bought a flat in Tokyo while working there, or inherited your parents' house, and then moved abroad. The property register still shows the address you had when the ownership was recorded. For years that did not matter to anyone.

Since April 1, 2026, it does. Japan now requires owners to keep the address and name on the property register up to date, with a deadline and a fine. For owners living in Japan the government has also built an almost effortless way to comply: the Legal Affairs Bureau can update the register automatically.

If you live outside Japan, that automatic route is not available to you. This guide explains why, what the rule asks of you, and how to deal with it without flying to Japan.

At a glance

Question	Short answer
What must I do?	Register any change to the address or name recorded for you on the property register.
By when?	Within two years of the change. If the change happened before April 1, 2026, by March 31, 2028.
What if I miss it?	An administrative fine of up to ¥50,000, normally after a written demand from the registrar.
Can the Legal Affairs Bureau do it for me?	Only if you live in Japan. Overseas residents must file themselves.
How much does it cost?	¥1,000 registration tax per registered property, plus a judicial scrivener's fee if you use one.
Do I need to visit Japan?	No. You can file by post, or through a judicial scrivener using a power of attorney.

What the new rule says

The obligation sits in Japan's Real Estate Registration Act, as amended in 2021 and brought into force on April 1, 2026. It applies to the registered owner of any land or building (所有権の登記名義人) and is short:

• If your address or name changes, you must apply to register the change within two years of the date it changed.
• If you fail to do so without a valid reason, you can be fined up to ¥50,000.
• Changes that happened before April 1, 2026 are covered too. For those, the deadline is March 31, 2028.

"Name" matters as well as "address". Marriage, divorce or a legal change of name that altered how you are recorded is caught by the same rule.

The retroactive element is the part that surprises people. Moving abroad five or ten years ago does not put you outside the rule; it puts you on the 2028 deadline.

How the fine actually works

The fine is not automatic, and it is not the first thing that happens. Under the Ministry of Justice's published approach, when a registrar becomes aware that an owner has not complied, the registrar first sends a written demand (催告書) telling the owner to register the change. The fine comes into consideration only if that demand is ignored without good reason.

The Ministry lists situations that count as a valid reason, including:

• the address changed only because of an administrative boundary change;
• the owner is seriously ill or otherwise unable to act;
• the owner is a victim of domestic violence and disclosure of the address would put them at risk;
• the owner cannot afford the cost of registering because of financial hardship.

Living abroad is not on that list. Neither is not having known about the rule.

The realistic risk for most overseas owners is therefore not a sudden fine but a letter in Japanese, sent to the out-of-date address on the register — which is precisely the address you no longer read.

The free automatic update, and why overseas owners are left out

To make the new obligation painless for most people, Japan introduced smart change registration (スマート変更登記).

It works like this. When ownership is registered, the owner supplies a set of search information (検索用情報) — name, the reading of the name, address, date of birth and an email address. It has been a required part of ownership registrations since April 21, 2025, and existing owners can file it separately. The Legal Affairs Bureau then checks Japan's resident registry network (住基ネット) at least once every two years. If it finds that the owner has moved, it contacts the owner, and with their consent updates the register itself. The owner files nothing and pays nothing.

For owners resident in Japan, having filed search information also counts as a valid reason under the fine rules, because the bureau has taken on the job of noticing the change.

The weak point is the resident registry. It only records people with an address in a Japanese municipality. Once you move abroad, it no longer tracks where you live, so the Legal Affairs Bureau has nothing to check against.

The Ministry of Justice addresses this directly: overseas residents are not covered by the automatic update even if they have filed search information, and must apply to register a change of name or address themselves within two years of the change.

Many Japanese-language guides to the new rule lead with "you can do it for free, automatically". For an owner living abroad, that advice is simply wrong.

Why an out-of-date address causes real problems

The fine is the reason the rule exists. It is rarely the most expensive consequence of an out-of-date register for someone living overseas.

• You cannot sell cleanly. When a property is sold, the seller's identity documents must match the owner recorded on the register. If the addresses do not match, the address change has to be registered first, as part of the sale — at exactly the moment a buyer and their lender are waiting.
• People who look you up cannot reach you. The register is the public record of who owns a property and where they can be found. Anyone relying on it — a neighbour dealing with a boundary issue, a buyer's agent, a lawyer, a municipal office — writes to an address you left years ago.
• It compounds on inheritance. If an owner dies with an out-of-date address on the register, the heirs have to connect the registered address to the person who died before the inheritance can be registered. Old addresses in another country are harder to evidence the longer they are left.

None of these are hypothetical for overseas owners. They are the practical reasons that a ¥1,000 filing is worth doing before anyone asks you to.

What you need to file

An address change registration needs evidence of your new address and, where relevant, evidence that connects it to the old one. What counts as evidence depends on your nationality, not on the country you live in.

If you are	Proof of your current overseas address
A Japanese national living abroad	A certificate of residence (在留証明) issued by the Japanese embassy or consulate that covers where you live
A foreign national living abroad	An official certificate of address issued by the government of your home country or country of residence; or, where none exists, a notarised affidavit stating your name and address, together with a copy of the passport pages showing your name, photograph and validity

Documents issued outside Japan are submitted with a Japanese translation. The Ministry of Justice has confirmed, for the equivalent proof used when a foreign national registers as an owner, that the whole document does not need translating — the parts that matter, such as the title, name, address and date of issue, are sufficient.

If you moved more than once

The registrar needs to see a continuous link from the address on the register to your current one. If you moved within Japan before leaving, or between countries afterwards, a single certificate showing today's address may not be enough on its own. This is the most common reason an application from abroad is returned, and it is worth asking a judicial scrivener to look at your address history before you start collecting documents.

How to file without travelling to Japan

You have two realistic options.

1. File it yourself by post. An address change registration is one of the simpler registrations, and applications can be sent to the Legal Affairs Bureau that has jurisdiction over the property. The Ministry of Justice publishes the application form and guidance. The difficulty for someone abroad is not the form but getting the evidence right first time, because every exchange by international post adds weeks.
2. Appoint a judicial scrivener (司法書士). You sign a power of attorney (委任状) and send your address evidence; they prepare and file the application and deal with any queries from the registrar. For most overseas owners, especially anyone with several moves to account for, this is the faster route overall.

Cost and timeline

Item	Typical cost	Typical time
Registration and licence tax (登録免許税)	¥1,000 per registered property — a house on its own land is usually two properties (¥2,000)	Paid when filing
Certificate of residence from a Japanese consulate	A small consular fee	Often days, depending on the consulate's appointment system
Notarised affidavit (foreign nationals)	Notary fee in your country	Usually one appointment
Japanese translation	Priced per document	About one to two weeks
Judicial scrivener (optional)	Set by the firm	Registration usually completes a few weeks after filing

If your name and address both changed, registering them together in a single application costs the same ¥1,000 per property as registering one of them. Filing them separately doubles the tax.

What to do first: an order of operations

1. Check what the register actually says. Obtain a certified copy of the register (登記事項証明書) for each property — land and building separately. Do not assume you know which address is recorded.
2. Work out your deadline. A change before April 1, 2026 is due by March 31, 2028. A change on or after that date is due two years after it happened.
3. Map your address history. List every address between the one on the register and where you live now. Gaps are what cause rejections.
4. Get your address evidence. A certificate of residence from a Japanese consulate if you are Japanese; an official address certificate or a notarised affidavit with your passport copy if you are not.
5. Translate anything issued abroad. The relevant parts, into Japanese.
6. File — by post or through a judicial scrivener. If you are also changing your name, include it in the same application.
7. Put the next change in your diary. Because the automatic update does not apply to you, every future move abroad starts a new two-year clock.

Related obligations for overseas owners

The address change rule is one of a series of changes to how Japan keeps track of property owners. Three others are worth checking at the same time.

• A domestic contact (国内連絡先). Since April 2024, when ownership is registered for someone living abroad, the application asks for a contact in Japan — a person or company, such as a property manager or judicial scrivener — or a statement that there is none.
• A tax representative (納税管理人). This is a tax obligation rather than a registration one, but it is what ensures fixed asset tax notices reach someone who will act on them. See our guide to tax representatives, and how it differs from a domestic manager and a domestic contact.
• Nationality at registration. From October 5, 2026, ownership registrations include a declaration of nationality. It does not require existing owners to do anything, but it will apply to any future purchase or inheritance — see what the October 5 rule changes.

If you inherited the property and it was never registered in your name, that is a separate and more urgent problem, with its own deadline of March 31, 2027 for older inheritances. Our guide to inheritance registration for foreign heirs covers it.

A note on advice

This article explains the rule and the usual procedure so you know what to expect. It is not legal advice. Registrations are handled by judicial scriveners, and the evidence required can differ with your nationality, your address history and the country documents were issued in. Confirm the details for your own property before filing.

How Japan YES helps overseas owners

We are not a law firm and we do not file registrations. What we do is make sure you find out about obligations like this one — and the letters that follow them — before they become a problem.

We act as your tax representative (納税管理人) and domestic contact, receive and scan the post that arrives for your property, translate it into English so you can see what is urgent, and pay bills on your behalf. When a registration needs to be filed, we introduce you to a judicial scrivener who works with overseas clients.

Ask us to check what your registration needs, or compare plans — from ¥66,000 per year, tax included.