Data showed that nearly half of large-scale land acquisitions by foreign nationals and corporations were made for purposes such as holding assets or reselling them.

The findings are based on notifications of large-scale land transactions filed under the National Land Use Planning Act.

Amendments to the enforcement regulations in July 2025 made it mandatory to report the acquirer’s nationality for land transactions above a certain size.

Reports that were filed between July and December 2025 found that acquisitions by foreign nationals and corporations accounted for 0.5 percent of the total reported land area.

Acquisitions for asset holding or resale accounted for 46.8 percent of the total area acquired. By nationality, Chinese buyers accounted for 33.8 percent, followed by British buyers at 15 percent and buyers from Hong Kong at 10.8 percent.

Acquisitions for asset holding or resale were particularly common in Hokkaido.