Japan Is Introducing a Permit System for Land Near Defence Sites — and It Applies to Japanese Buyers Too

If you own property in Japan from abroad, or you are thinking about buying, the headlines from early October 2026 will have reached you: Japan is going to require government permission to buy land, and foreign buyers are the target.

The first half is broadly right. The second half is the opposite of what the recommendation says.

On 2 October 2026, the panel convened by the Cabinet Secretariat to look at rules for land acquisition handed its recommendations to the minister responsible, and the government has said it intends to bring a bill to the extraordinary session of the Diet convened on 5 October. This guide is written from the recommendation document itself rather than from the coverage of it.

At a glance

Question	Short answer
Is this a ban on foreigners buying property?	No. It is a permit requirement in two specific categories of location.
Which land is covered?	Within roughly 1km of certain defence facilities, and uninhabited border islands.
Does it apply to Japanese buyers?	Yes — the recommendation says explicitly that it should not be limited to foreign nationals.
Who would actually be refused?	Foreign governments and people tied to them or to foreign armed forces.
Does it cover renting?	No. Leases would be reported after the fact; the permit applies to transfer of ownership.
Are condominiums affected?	Restricting condo purchases was considered and set aside.
Is it law yet?	No. It is a recommendation; a bill was expected in the session convened 5 October 2026.

What exists today

Japan already has a law in this area: the Act on the Investigation of Land Use around Important Facilities (重要土地等調査法), in force since 2021. Around designated facilities — Self-Defense Force bases, nuclear plants and similar — it allows the government to survey who owns land and how it is used, and to intervene where the use interferes with the facility's function. Buyers of land inside a designated zone report the purchase.

The key point is what that law does not do: it looks at use after acquisition. Nobody has to ask permission before buying. The panel's conclusion is that this is no longer sufficient — its example is the risk of attack drones being quietly assembled near a sensitive facility, where waiting until the use becomes visible is waiting too long.

What is being proposed

1. A permit, not a report

Transfer of ownership inside the new category of area would require permission in advance. The proposal is to achieve this by amending the existing 2021 act rather than creating a new one.

2. A narrow definition of where

Two categories:

• Roughly 1,000 metres around facilities judged vulnerable to drone attack — among the "specified important facilities" already defined in the current law, such as Self-Defense Force command functions.
• Uninhabited border islands, with no minimum area threshold.

This is a small fraction of Japan. An akiya in rural Nagano, a machiya in Kyoto, a flat in Osaka — none of these is within a kilometre of a Self-Defense Force command post. If your property is near a base, the sensible step is to check the current designated zones, which the Cabinet Office publishes.

3. It is deliberately not about nationality

This is the part the headlines dropped. The recommendation states that the scope should be decided by the security risk, and that it should therefore not be limited to foreign nationals and foreign companies but should include Japanese nationals and Japanese companies.

The document also sets out why: a measure framed this way is not discriminatory treatment on grounds of nationality, so it does not conflict with the national treatment and most-favoured-nation obligations Japan carries under international agreements including GATS, and it sits within the equality and property rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

In other words, the design is nationality-neutral partly because a nationality-based rule would be legally fragile.

4. Who would actually be refused

Permission would be withheld from:

• Foreign governments and those with decisive influence over their activities
• People engaged in the activities of foreign armed forces
• People under a duty to cooperate with a foreign government, under a contract or under foreign law
• Companies and other bodies that such people effectively control
• Anyone else likely to use the land in a way that creates a security problem

Even then, the recommendation leaves room for permission where it is clear in the circumstances that no security problem arises.

Read that list again as an individual owner. It describes states and their instruments. It does not describe a dentist in Sydney buying a holiday house, or a family in Taipei buying their retirement flat.

5. Ownership, not tenancy

The permit attaches to transfer of ownership — the right to control land permanently and comprehensively. Rights of use such as leases would instead carry an after-the-fact notification.

6. How it would be enforced

The enforcement design is worth knowing because it is unusually direct:

• A transfer of ownership made without permission would be void, and the registrar would be able to reject the registration application.
• Acquiring without permission would carry penalties.
• Where a company acquires land through a merger, or its control changes, an after-the-fact notification would be required; failing the criteria could lead to an order to dispose of the property, and ultimately to a forced sale.
• Officials would gain a power of entry to inspect inside buildings, with the police involved where needed.

For an ordinary buyer the practical consequence is simple: inside a designated area, the permission step would sit before the registration step, in the same part of the process your judicial scrivener already manages.

What the recommendation decided not to do

Three things were on the table and are not in the security proposal:

• Condominium purchases by foreign buyers. Rising apartment prices in the big cities are addressed as a matter of watching industry measures and discouraging speculative trading — not through this law.
• Water source land. Groundwater use and conservation are handled through a separate panel, which reported in August 2026.
• A nationality-based restriction generally. Covered above.

The panel was explicit that security questions and everyday-life questions should be kept apart. That is why the proposal is narrow.

How this fits with the other 2026 changes

2026 has produced a run of nationality-related changes, and they are separate from each other:

Change	What it does	Status
Nationality on the property register	New owners declare nationality when ownership is registered	In force since 5 October 2026
Reporting for large land transactions and designated zones	Nationality reported under existing land-use and security laws	In force since 1 April 2026
Permit for land near defence sites	Advance permission to acquire ownership in narrow areas	Recommended 2 October 2026; bill expected

None of them restricts who may own ordinary residential property in Japan. Our guide to the nationality declaration that started on 5 October covers the first of these in detail.

What an owner or buyer should actually do

1. Check whether your property sits in a designated zone. The Cabinet Office publishes the list of designated areas under the current law. If you are nowhere near one, this proposal does not touch you.
2. If you are buying near a base, build in time. A permission step would add weeks, not days, and it would come before registration.
3. Do not rush a sale over this. Nothing in the recommendation devalues ordinary residential property, and selling into a headline is how owners lose money.
4. Watch for the bill, not the coverage. What passes the Diet can differ from what a panel recommends. The text of the bill is what will matter.

A note on sources

This article is based on the recommendation published by the Cabinet Secretariat on 2 October 2026 and on the existing law it proposes to amend. Where we describe the government's intention to submit a bill, that comes from reporting rather than from the document, and the position may have moved by the time you read this. We will update this page as the bill progresses.

How Japan YES helps

We act as the tax representative (納税管理人) and the contact address in Japan for owners who live abroad, receive and translate the post that arrives for the property, and pay the bills. When a filing or a registration is needed we work alongside the judicial scrivener (司法書士) who handles it.

If you are unsure whether your property sits inside a designated area, send us the address and we will check it for you.