Japan does not restrict foreign property purchase. There is no residency requirement, no visa requirement, no nationality bar. The five steps below are the actual procedural reality — the things that take time, cost money, and trip people up — written in the order they actually happen, not the order websites tell you they should.

Step one: confirm your visa status (or lack of one)

Foreign nationals can buy property in Japan on any visa, including none at all. Tourists can sign deeds. Permanent residents can. Tech visa holders can. There is no foreign-investment screening for residential property below industrial scale.

What your visa status does affect is downstream:

  • Mortgage eligibility — only permanent residents and spouse-of-Japanese visa holders qualify at Japanese banks. Everyone else pays cash or borrows from a foreign lender (Shinsei is a notable exception for some long-term residents).
  • Juminhyo registration — required for many akiya bank programs. Available only to those with a status-of-residence visa — tourists cannot register.
  • Tax residency — affects whether you owe Japanese income tax on overseas earnings if you spend more than 183 days a year here.

If you intend to actually live in the house, plan the visa pathway first. The most common options for our buyers: highly-skilled-professional (engineers, researchers), spouse, business manager (¥5M+ investment), and retirement via long-term resident.

Step two: get a hanko and a bank account

You will need both before closing. A hanko (registered seal) functions as a signature on Japanese legal documents. A bank account is needed to receive the seller's escrow refund of the deposit. Both take about a week.

A registered hanko (jitsuin) costs ¥5,000-¥15,000 to commission and another ¥300 to register at your city office. The municipal office issues a seal certificate (inkan shomeisho) the same day — you'll need three or four originals for closing.

Bank accounts are harder for non-residents. The major options as of 2026:

  • Japan Post — will open for short-term visa holders but limits transactions for six months.
  • Shinsei / SBI — both accept non-resident applicants with a Japanese address.
  • Sony Bank — permanent residents only.

Step three: the contract and the deposit

Once you and the seller agree on a price, you sign a sale agreement (baibai keiyakusho). At signing, you pay a deposit (tetsuke) — typically 5-10% of purchase price, occasionally as little as ¥100,000 for akiya bank properties.

The deposit is binding. If you pull out, you forfeit it. If the seller pulls out, they must return it doubled. This is not a "good-faith" deposit in the American sense — it is a real liquidated-damages clause.

Between contract and closing (usually 30-60 days), you'll commission:

  • A judicial scrivener (shiho-shoshi) — required for title transfer. Cost: ¥80,000-¥200,000.
  • A building inspection — optional but strongly recommended for akiya. Cost: ¥100,000-¥300,000.
  • A gas inspection — required by law before reconnection. Cost: ¥30,000.

Step four: closing day

You meet the seller, the seller's agent (if any), and the judicial scrivener — usually at the office of the scrivener or a branch of the Legal Affairs Bureau (homukyoku). You pay the balance of the purchase price by certified check or bank transfer. The scrivener takes your hanko impression and inkan-shomeisho originals and files the title transfer with the Bureau the same day.

You receive the registry transcript (toki tohon) showing your name on title within 7-14 days. Keys are typically handed over at closing, but for akiya bought from absent owners, sometimes after the title transfer is confirmed.

Step five: the registration tax bill

About four weeks after closing, a tax bill will arrive: the real-estate acquisition tax (fudosan shutoku zei), levied at 3-4% of the assessed value (not the purchase price). For akiya, assessed values are often well below purchase price, so this is rarely large. Most of our buyers pay ¥30,000-¥200,000.

That, properly, is when you own the house. Welcome to it.

What this guide does not cover

Mortgages (a guide of their own), agricultural-land covenants (covered in akiya programs), no-rebuild zoning (covered in the glossary), and the renovation that follows for almost every akiya buyer (covered in renovation basics). Read the others before you fly out.